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Comment by input_sh | Hacker News Reader

That's just inaccurate.

For example, they didn't even respond to Panama Papers leaker who approached them before he approached Süddeutsche Zeitung.

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If that is true, then that's still no allegation of political selectivity (by US partisan standards - of course, WikiLeaks doesn't deny being political). I see no reason to doubt Hrafnsson's statement that they would have wanted to publish them in full.

There could have been any number of explanations why they didn't follow up the alledged inquiry from the Panama Papers leaker - most likely it came in the "spam folder" equivalent. It can't be easy for WikiLeaks to separate the wheat from the chaff, and Assange had very little opportunity to do it at the time.

no i remember it was more complex: https://www.dw.com/en/wikileaks-slams-panama-papers-trickle-...

they wanted to give the public full access. and that's how wikileaks always worked.

> "That is what I'd want to see with these 'Panama Papers.' They should be available to the general public in such a manner so everybody, not just the group of journalists working directly on the data, can search it," Hrafnsson added.

I'm not gonna say it's a lie because I don't know, but that's not the leaker's version of the story.

> The impact is real: in addition to Süddeutsche Zeitung and ICIJ, and despite explicit claims to the contrary, several major media outlets did have editors review documents from the Panama Papers. They chose not to cover them. The sad truth is that among the most prominent and capable media organizations in the world there was not a single one interested in reporting on the story. Even Wikileaks didn’t answer its tip line repeatedly.

https://www.icij.org/investigations/panama-papers/20160506-j...

They had the opportunity to publish it in full, they didn't, leaker went to someone that had a different strategy in mind.

Sounds to me like the leaker was trying to get their attention without handing over all the documents. There are plenty of reasonable explanations where all parties are telling the truth here. I bet the Wikileaks inbox was flooded with more straightforward submissions, and the Panama Papers leaker wasn't being entirely forthcoming.

Leaks are terabytes in size. Of course he's gonna provide a small sample and then wait for the news organization to provide him a secure way to transfer it all.

Say you got your hands on 2.6 terabytes leak. Where would you upload it before approaching a news org while preserving your identity? And keep in mind that your average leaker is probably less tech-savvy than your average HN viewer.

why would you upload it anywhere? Just send an encrypted micro sd card by mail.

Cool, say you've done so despite obvious issues (no microSD is over 1 TB, since TrueCrypt is no more there's no obvious trusted encryption software for that sort of thing, then there's borders, being on a security camera at a post office, etc).

Which address would you ship it it to so it reaches Wikileaks?

So you need to send two microsds, fine. You'll probably want to use something more trustworthy like luks with a detached header and a largeish offset. Finally, drive some tens of kilometres and throw it into a mailbox somewhere in the fields at 3 o'clock.

I don't know what address wikileaks has, but then again I never tried to contact them.

> TrueCrypt is no more

https://veracrypt.fr/en/Home.html

It's unclear if even a sample was provided, but yes, in general with Wikileaks the idea is to throw all the data over the fence to them, and let them take care of the rest. Trying to negotiate terms of how the data should be released etc is a non-starter.

But this way media executives get to extort shady people for keeping the spotlight away.

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