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The Whistle, October 2008

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The Whistle, October 2008 “All that is needed for evil to prosper is for people of good will to do nothing”—Edmund Burke The Whistle NO. 56, OCTOBER 2008 Newsletter of Whistleblowers Australia Media watch Qld: Whistleblowers need were circulated and legal action taken of ethical, political or diplomatic as the company attempted to convince significance. to stand firm: Cooper her to drop her investigation into fraud Wikileaks’ fame has spread rapidly Steve Gray at the Fortune 500 company. in recent weeks, thanks to the release Australian Associated Press, To make her task harder, World- of some headline-grabbing documents. 29 July 2008 Com was based in her Jackson, Missis- These include the design for the sippi, hometown and many of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, a report on Whistleblowers face anxiety, depres- major players were members of the how the UK acquired its nuclear sion and alcoholism but need to stick small community. weapons capability, and hundreds of by their principles, a business forum in She said whistleblowers often lost camera phone pictures of the Tibetan Brisbane has been told. their houses and families were riots. bankrupted, faced alcoholism and In the last fortnight alone it has depression. released 50 documents and it is now Most were not fired outright but hosting more leaks than its global were manoeuvred out of their jobs network of volunteer editors appear within 12 months. able to check. “I had a choice to make,” she said. Thanks to Wikileaks, potential “Either I could let this ruin my life whistle-blowers are now far more or I could step back and re-evaluate it willing to come forward, says John and move forward in a completely Young, who runs the long-standing different direction. site Cryptome.org, which specialises in “That’s exactly what I decided to posting documents on espionage, do, but it was the most difficult thing intelligence and cryptography issues. I’d ever been through in my lifetime.” “We started getting a lot less informa- tion after 9/11 as people became more Cynthia Cooper, who revealed the cautious when law enforcement biggest fraud in US corporate history, agencies got more draconian powers. told the Queensland University of A fail-safe way to So we are very happy to see Wikileaks Technology Business Leaders’ Forum embarrass people doing what they are doing so aggres- today that knowing what you stand for in high places sively.” is not enough. This flood of leaked documents has Whistle-blowers can tell all without “It’s more than that, we need to been made possible by internet being traced, thanks to websites that find our courage,” the WorldCom technology that allows whistle-blowers anonymise their details whistleblower said. to post documents online without Paul Marks “It’s not always easy to find our revealing their identity or IP address. New Scientist, volume 198, courage. The website uses a network called The 10 May 2008, pp. 28-29 “There were times when I literally Onion Router (Tor), to disguise the was scared to death, my hands were origin of documents. Tor routes JUST how accurate are GPS-guided shaking, my heart was pounding and I documents sent to the Wikileaks precision bombs, and what is most had to find a way to push forward in website into a cloud of hundreds of likely to send them off-target? Now the face of fear.” servers, where they bounce randomly you can find out by simply reading the She said her mother’s lessons never between a handful of them, before smart bomb’s tactical manual on the to be intimidated and never be bullied finally landing in one of Wikileaks’ internet. No, the Pentagon didn’t slip had helped her. inboxes (see “The onion will cover up and post the instructions online. Ms Cooper’s revelations about $9 your tracks,” next page). Rather, a whistle-blower leaked the billion worth of fraud at the highest To track where a leaked document, manual via Wikileaks, a website that levels of WorldCom led to the impris- picture or video came from would take uses anonymising technology to dis- onment of five senior executives and the computing power of the US guise the source of leaked information. changes to corporate law across National Security Agency. And it Launched online in early 2007, America. would have to be trained on the right Wikileaks is run by an informal group She was named one of Time servers at the right time, making it of open government and anti-secrecy magazine’s Persons of the Year in virtually impossible to succeed. advocates who want to allow people 2002. Ironically, given the number of living under oppressive regimes, or “Things begin to happen when military documents that are leaked to with something to say in the public you’re a whistleblower,” Ms Cooper Wikileaks and other whistle-blowing interest, to anonymously leak docu- said. “Your life will really change.” websites, the Tor network was ments that have been censored or are She said her career was threatened, originally developed by the US Naval rumours of her being a “scorned lover” PAGE 2 THE WHISTLE, #56, OCTOBER 2008 Research Laboratory, based in lar have very strong anti-censorship bolts onto existing 500 to 2000-pound Washington DC, before becoming an legislation, making Wikileaks a resil- bombs, turning them into individually open source project anybody can use. ient beast. targeted gliders that are accurate to But this does not mean the military has Once a document has been submit- within 3 metres. Eighty JDAMs can a back door into the system, says ted to the website, and before it can be level all the critical infrastructure of a Wikileaks spokesman Julian Assange. published, editors check it for veracity medium-sized city in one B2 bomber “Like the internet, Tor is out of the and assure themselves that it is of flight, says Assange. “This means that hands of those that were once involved compelling public interest. “Anony- posting the manual clearly fits our in crafting it,” he says. mous leaking is an ancient art and editorial policy that the material be of many websites publish documents political, diplomatic or ethical signifi- The onion will cover your tracks from sources they cannot identify,” cance.” No spy movie is complete without an says Steven Aftergood of the Federa- Despite the success of Wikileaks in agent trying to shake off the villain on tion of American Scientists’ (FAS) bringing such documents out into the their tail by taking random twists and Project on Government Secrecy. open, potential whistle-blowers should turns down back alleys and side “What Wikileaks has done is to profes- remain on their guard when posting streets. The Onion Router (Tor) does sionalise the operation. They have documents to any leak site, says the same thing with your digital files, created a standard procedure for Young. Some are in fact run by intelli- and then erases your “footprints”. receiving, processing and publishing gence agencies hoping to catch A Tor network comprises thou- leaks.” whistle-blowers in the act, he says. sands of volunteer users who turn their In 2007, for example, Wikileaks “There are lots of dirty tricks out computers into “onion proxy” servers revealed massive corruption in the there. We always caution against by downloading client software from Kenyan government and made the trusting our site or anybody else’s the Tor website. Then, when you want startling discovery that agents of the because there are so many ‘sting’ sites to send a message, Tor encrypts it Stasi, the former East German secret out there,” he adds. three times in onion-like layers and police, had become members of the Meanwhile, some anti-secrecy forwards a key to each layer to three commission investigating Stasi crimes. advocates in the US criticise proxy servers, chosen at random, in the It also leaked a Pentagon handbook Wikileaks’ editorial policy for being network. revealing that psychological torture too open, as the website does not When the message arrives at the was used against prisoners at the US’s censor sensitive military documents, first server, its outer layer is decrypted Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay. including potentially dangerous details and so on. By the time the completely So how do Wikileaks’ editors on bombs. decrypted message pops out of the decide which leaks to post? Unlike Assange says there are no third server, it appears to have print editors, Wikileaks’ editors do not documents Wikileaks would not post originated at this server, disguising its reject leaked documents just because on the grounds of military sensitivity. true source. “Imagine a large room they are unlikely to have widespread “It would be quite incorrect for us to jammed full of people in which many appeal. The only rule is that leaks must express any national favouritism,” he of them are passing around envelopes,” be in the public interest, says Assange. says. says computer security expert Bruce And there are few frivolous leaks, he That greatly troubles Aftergood, Schneier. “How would you know says. “Our sources, perhaps inspired who also leaks documents through his where any of them started?” by examples already set, nearly always FAS newsletter Secrecy News and the However, Tor is not completely send in genuine public interest FAS website. “They are essentially an secure. Steven J. Murdoch and col- material. Wikileaks pushes submis- outlaw operation — operating literally leagues at the University of Cambridge sions through a number of questions outside the framework of the law — have shown that it is possible to iden- and only the well-motivated leaks get and they have shown no willingness to tify some onion proxies.
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