Corporate Hacker Tries to Take Down WikiLeaks
by ilene - February 28th, 2011 2:20 am
Stephen Colbert reports on technothriller going on between Wikileaks, Anonymous (a "global hacker nerd brigade") and Aaron Barr. H/t Ron. – Ilene
Corporate Hacker Tries to Take Down WikiLeaks
A corporate hacker tries to take down WikiLeaks by faking documents and blackmailing American journalists.
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The Man Who Spilled the Secrets | Vanity Fair
by ilene - January 17th, 2011 8:20 pm
On the afternoon of November 1, 2010, Julian Assange, the Australian-born founder of WikiLeaks.org, marched with his lawyer into the London office of Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian. Assange was pallid and sweaty, his thin frame racked by a cough that had been plaguing him for weeks. He was also angry, and his message was simple: he would sue the newspaper if it went ahead and published stories based on the quarter of a million documents that he had handed over to The Guardian just three months earlier. The encounter was one among many twists and turns in the collaboration between WikiLeaks—a four-year-old nonprofit that accepts anonymous submissions of previously secret material and publishes them on its Web site—and some of the world’s most respected newspapers. The collaboration was unprecedented, and brought global attention to a cache of confidential documents—embarrassing when not disturbing—about American military and diplomatic activity around the world. But the partnership was also troubled from the start.
In Rusbridger’s office, Assange’s position was rife with ironies. An unwavering advocate of full, unfettered disclosure of primary-source material, Assange was now seeking to keep highly sensitive information from reaching a broader audience. He had become the victim of his own methods: someone at WikiLeaks, where there was no shortage of disgruntled volunteers, had leaked the last big segment of the documents, and they ended up at The Guardian in such a way that the paper was released from its previous agreement with Assange—that The Guardian would publish its stories only when Assange gave his permission. Enraged that he had lost control, Assange unleashed his threat, arguing that he owned the information and had a financial interest in how and when it was released.
The Guardian partnership was the first of its kind between a mainstream media organization and WikiLeaks. The future of such collaborations remains very much in doubt. WikiLeaks, torn by staff defections, technical problems, and a crippling shortage of money, has been both battered and rejuvenated by the events of the past several months. A number of companies—PayPal, Visa, and MasterCard—stopped acting as conduits for donations, even as international publicity has attracted high-profile supporters and many new donors. Kristinn Hrafnsson, a close associate of Assange’s and a WikiLeaks spokesman, promises that WikiLeaks will pursue legal action against the companies. Although it is not known where the instigation came from, hackers launched a wave of sympathy…
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Ex-Swiss banker to give Wikileaks 2,000 “celebrities, business leaders and lawmakers from US, UK who secreted away money for tax-evasion purposes”
by ilene - January 17th, 2011 5:35 pm
Courtesy of Mish
Yahoo!Finance reports Ex-Swiss banker to hand account files to WikiLeaks.
A former Swiss banker was on Monday due to hand over files to WikiLeaks which he alleges detail attempts by wealthy business leaders and lawmakers to evade tax payments.
Rudolf Elmer, a former employee of Swiss-based Bank Julius Baer, told Britain’s Observer newspaper on Sunday that the documents include details of about 2,000 accounts held in offshore financial centers. He says the account holders include "high net worth" celebrities, business leaders and lawmakers from the U.S., Britain and Asia.
Elmer’s press conference comes two days before he is due to appear before a Zurich regional court to answer charges of coercion and violating Switzerland’s strict banking secrecy laws.
He told the Observer newspaper he planned to disclose the new set of files to expose activities in offshore financial centers. "The one thing on which I am absolutely clear is that the banks know, and the big boys know, that money is being secreted away for tax-evasion purposes," he was quoted as telling the newspaper.
Fox News has a few additional quotes in Ex-banker says he’s giving Wikileaks files on rich
Rudolf Elmer, an ex-employee of Swiss-based Bank Julius Baer, said there were 2,000 account holders named in the documents, but refused to give details of the companies or individuals involved.
He has previously offered files to WikiLeaks on financial activities in the Cayman Islands and faces a court hearing in Zurich on Wednesday to answer charges of coercion and violating Switzerland’s strict banking secrecy laws.
"I do think as a banker I have the right to stand up if something is wrong," said Elmer, who addressed reporters at London’s Frontline Club alongside WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
"I am against the system. I know how the system works and I know the day-to-day business. From that point of view, I wanted to let society know what I know. It is damaging our society," Elmer said.
Britain’s tax authority declined to comment when asked about Assange’s plan to supply details of alleged wrongdoing.
Under the terms of his release on bail, Assange must live at the mansion home of Vaughan Smith, the owner of the Frontline Club. He has compared the regime to "high-tech house arrest," but has recently promised that the flow of leaked documents published by his organization would increase.
If true, and…
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Why I Believe Julian Assange Has Dirt on Bank of America – CNBC
by ilene - December 24th, 2010 2:35 am
By John Carney
Let’s be clear here: A year ago, Assange said he had the hard drive of a Bank of America executive. More recently, he’s said that WikiLeaks is preparing to disclose evidence of an “ecosystem of corruption” at a big US bank. He expects the disclosures to cause resignations. There’s a widespread expectations that Bank of America is the target, even though Assange has been coy about that.
But one thing that’s highly unlikely is that Assange is making this up.
It’s possible everyone is wrong in connecting the dots here. Maybe the new megaleak has nothing to do with Bank of America. It’s also possible that Assange is over-confident in the importance of his information.
Read full article here: Why I Believe Julian Assange Has Dirt on Bank of America – CNBC.
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Government Cyber Attacks Shut Down WikiLeaks Domain Name; Information Wars; Twitter to the Rescue
by ilene - December 4th, 2010 12:37 am
Courtesy of Mish
WikiLeaks has moved its site twice already and now its domain name has been shut down because of massive cyber attacks.
In my opinion these coordinated attacks come from government agencies around the world who do not want to be embarrassed by WikiLeaks data. If it’s not government agencies, then who is it?
Moreover, and by extension, governments (or whoever is doing this) could shut down any site via these same kind of massive coordinated cyber attacks. If I am correct, data gathered about the success or failure of these suppression efforts will feed into every military contingency plan in the world.
The first casualty of war is the truth, and what better way to shut off the truth than killing internet sites not to one’s liking.
With that backdrop, please consider Cyber attack forces Wikileaks to change web address
Whistle-blowing website Wikileaks has been forced to change its web address after the company providing its domain name cut off service.
EveryDNS.net said it had terminated services because Wikileaks.org had come under massive cyber attacks. But Wikileaks has already reappeared using a Swiss web address.
The more of these sites there are, the more difficult it will be to shut Wikileaks down, security analyst Paul Mutton told the BBC.
In France, Industry Minister Eric Besson has called for a ban of Wikileaks on French servers.
In a statement on its website, EveryDNS.net said it had issued a 24-hour termination notice to Wikileaks which ended at 0300 GMT on 2 December.
It said the domain wikileaks.org had become the target of "multiple distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks".
"These attacks have, and future attacks would, threaten the stability of the EveryDNS.net infrastructure, which enables access to almost 500,000 other websites," it said.
A site as controversial and savvy as Wikileaks has plenty up its sleeve, like the mysterious encrypted file labelled ‘insurance’, which is believed to have been posted on Bit Torrent and is rumoured to contain all the leaks.
Stephen Sackur will be hosting a special programme debating the effect of the leaks – Wikileaks: Open Secret at 1630GMT on BBC World News & 1930GMT on the BBC World Service
Does anyone seriously think this is not a case of too, little, to late? Moreover, the more governments try to prevent access, the more curious people will become about what is…
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The U.S. Can’t Fix the Economy But We Can Still Threaten People (So There)
by ilene - July 28th, 2010 7:26 pm
The U.S. Can’t Fix the Economy But We Can Still Threaten People (So There)
Courtesy of Jr. Deputy Accountant
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will probably not be coming to the U.S. any time soon.
"Today the Whitehouse put out a private briefing to reporters about Wikileaks and me and it quoted a section from an interview with me in Die Spiegel saying that I enjoy crushing ——--.
"Somehow the Whitehouse finds that offensive.
"In terms of returning to the United States I don’t know. Our sources advise from inside the US government that there were thoughts of whether I could be charged as a co-conspirator to espionage, which is serious.
"That doesn’t seem to be the thinking within the United States any more however there is the other possibility of being detained as a material witness and being kept either in confinement or not being allowed to leave the country until the Manning case is concluded."
You can implode our banking system all you want but don’t you dare mess with our 9 year long wars.
In completely related news, the House just happened to give up $33 billion to both ongoing engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the site