Covering Wikileaks

Grahame Bowlandgrahame@angrygoats.net

@angrygoat

What is Wikileaks?

“Our goal is to bring important news and information to the public. We provide an

innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to our journalists

(our electronic drop box). One of our most important activities is to publish original source material alongside our news stories so readers

and historians alike can see evidence of the truth.” – http://wikileaks.org/

• A global media organisation• Raises funds online / under banking blockade

Source: http://wikileaks.org/Banking-Blockade.html

• Group leader Julian Assange is under house arrest pending possible (likely) extradition to Sweden to face sex offence allegations. Has not been formally charged.

• A federal grand jury has been called in the US to consider pressing charges (over what?)

• Wikileaks has had trouble finding hosting – servers and bandwidth to distribute information

Cablegate

• A quarter of a million diplomatic cables from US embassies

• Of varying levels of classification• Some of the content is speculation or gossip• Many of the cables are routine reports

INDEX: 27192DATETIME: 2/17/2005 7:01CODE: 05CANBERRA310SOURCE: Embassy CanberraCLASSIFICATION: CONFIDENTIALLINKS?: 05USEUBRUSSELS299

This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 CANBERRA 000310 SIPDIS STATE FOR T, PM/DAS GSUCHAN, EAP/C, EAP/ANP E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/16/2015 TAGS: PARM, PREL, ETTC, ETRD, AS, CH SUBJECT: AUSTRALIA'S VIEW ON THE EU'S INTENTION TO LIFT ITS ARMS EMBARGO AGAINST CHINA

REF: A. USEU BRUSSELS 299 B. CANBERRA 298 Classified By: DCM WILLIAM A. STANTON FOR REASONS 1.4 (A, B AND D).

1. (C) SUMMARY: Several articles in the Australian press over the past several days have miscast the GOA's policy on the EU's professed intention to lift its ban on arms exports to China. Contacts at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) have assured us that the GOA fully shares the USG concern about the introduction of any new destabilising armaments or technologies in the Asia Pacific region, and is vigorously demarching EU capitals to reinforce this message and to press for consultations with Australia before the ban is lifted, given Australia's stake in the region. The GOA has not joined in on USG and Japanese demarches in EU capitals, however, because Canberra lifted its arms export ban in 1992, and therefore has not wanted to risk weakening U.S. and Japanese arguments. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has been particularly active with EU counterparts in recent weeks to urge them to do nothing that would negatively impact on the strategic balance in the Pacific region, emphasizing that the GOA's rigorous application of its export controls has meant that its lifting of its ban in 1992 has proven merely symbolic. End Summary.

• Cables were provided to media partners– The Guardian– The New York Times– Der Speigel

• These partners got to run the first, highest impact stories

• These partners also contributed editing, etc.

Data journalism

• Data • Filter • Visualise • Story

Release management

• Cables were published by Wikileaks in a seemingly ad-hoc way; when published by a partner, or when “ready”

• Most cables were “redacted” – part of the text obscured for safety or security reasons

Grahame ate a sandwich

XXX ate a sandwich

BitTorrent distribution

• Wikileaks web hosting was under sustained attack – ground to a halt

• Content copied to BitTorrent peer to peer network

• Used to transmit data between mirror sites

BitTorrent

• Wikileaks published a list of bittorrent archives which contained all the released cables

• A new archive was put out every few hours• Once an archive is out, it can’t be taken down

again

The cables are changing

• I grabbed an archive out of curiosity• Did the same the next evening• Noticed some files were missing• Then looked closer; the files contents

changing

The cables are changing

• Redactions were being added, names and other details being taken out

• Wrote to Crikey to let them know about it• Was paired with Luke Miller to write it up

The cables are changing

• Built up a collection of several dozen archives• Used “version control” – a technique from

software development – to analyze the changes

• These systems are available free, with user friendly interfaces – eg. Git and Mercurial

We have requested meetings with GIP Director Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, Assistant Interior

Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayif, and Prince Turki Al-Faisal during your visit.

We have requested meetings with xxxx

Nobody told this was happening!

• Who was telling Wikileaks what to remove?• Why?• How did Wikileaks justify redactions, given

their mission and ethics?• If the edits are to protect the safety of persons

named, then they are already in danger – the old archives are still available.

• Dec 2010: 1203 cables, 45 major edits, 15 deleted from archive

Entire archive leaked

• Wikileaks publishes several large, encrypted archives as “insurance”

• Journos write a book on Assange and Wikileaks

• Book includes a passphrase Assange had written down for them

Entire archive leaked

• This passphrase unlocks the encrypted “z.gpg” archive which is available via bittorrent

• Archive contains all of the cables with no redactions

• Wikileaks and the Guardian highly critical of each other

Entire archive leaked

• Technical barrier to most journalists getting a hold of the data; you need to use bittorrent, decryption software

• Cables are stored in a large spreadsheet – not easily readable

• I gave copies of the decoded data to a few journo friends

The Redacted

• Realised that the really interesting stuff had already been marked by XXXX s

• Wrote software to compare the cables– Xxxx had a little lamb– Grahame had a little lamb

• Software would spit out “Grahame” as a redacted bit of text

The Redacted

• Does the release of the uncensored cables matter?

• Worked with Luke Miller to contact people who had now been named.

• Many people unaware they were in the cables.

Watching Q&A…

• Greg Sheridan (Foreign Editor at the Australian) mentioned he’d found himself in the cables

• Searched for him myself• Found this..

Defence exports

• Blue lantern - End-use monitoring• Missing helicopters and plane components• According to cables, Defence gave US access

to database on our exporters / brokers

Asked Defence for comment

“The Government has made it clear that it has no intention of providing commentary

on the contents of any documents published by Wikileaks.”

So don’t mention Wikileaks if asking the Australian Government for comment.

Searching

• You can index the cable archive with free search software, eg. Google Desktop, Spotlight on Mac

• Search for something; say. “Australia”.• Notice a pattern; “Blue Lantern”; Search that.• Use a program that highlights matches.• You will still end up doing a lot of reading!

Mullah Krekar

• I noticed a number of cables discussing Paul Moran – freelance cameraman, killed while working for the ABC in Iraq during 2003

• He was killed in a suicide bombing by Ansar al-Islam

• Spiritual (and alleged operational) leader is Mullah Krekar

Mullah Krekar

• Long story of the US seeking action against Krekar

• The US saw a letter from the Media Alliance to the AG asking for the Paul Moran case to be pursued

• The Norwegians were asked about it, and saw no hypothetical obstacle to extraditing Krekar

Mullah Krekar

• Gave the cable excerpts to the ABC• Followed up the story myself• These cables contributed to story by the ABC’s

Mark Corcoran, “The terrorist Australia doesn’t want”

• My version will be in the Walkley Magazine this month

There are still stories to be found

• A quarter of a million cables to go through.• Many of the cables assume knowledge – they

are discourse between informed people.• You’ll need to do research to figure out what

they’re talking about – laborious.• So instead, pick a topic you’re interested in,

and dig into the archive.• Ask a question!

Of course, there’s more in Wikileaks

• The Afghan War Logs• Iraq War Logs• Spy Files• The Global Intelligence Files• You can download all of this – everything

released – with BitTorrent

Online resources

• Guardian data journalism:http://www.guardian.co.uk/data

• Free guide coming out soonhttp://datajournalismhandbook.org/

• Wikileaks cable browserhttp://wikileaks.org/cablegate.html

• Browser with much better searchhttp://dazzlepod.com/cable/