WikiLeaks begins publishing 5 million emails from Stratfor
pastebin.com
pastebin.com
At first I was pretty supportive of Stratfor, and thought that Anonymous attacking Stratfor was completely stupid.
However, a couple of things from the news release caught my eye. I guess I was naive, but I believed that Strafor was more like a news agency, and they would do their best work to uncover information, analyze breaking situations, and supply information to its members.
However, from reading the news release from Wikileaks, I get the vague sense that maybe Stratfor was gathering a lot more information than I thought, using it to their advantage, and then throwing a bone to its subscribers every now and then, just enough to keep them subscribing and generating income.
It certainly seems like there's a lot more going under the covers than I anticipated. The comment about "Control means financial, sexual or psychological control... This is intended to start our conversation on your next phase." makes it seem like Friedman is more than willing to make anyone their pawns, including subscribers.
Also, the idea of their StratCap Fund really kind of makes me question exactly what they are. I thought their motivations were really about analysis and information, but I kind of don't believe that now. At first, I didn't think the emails themselves were important, but now I'm definitely going to be keeping a close eye on whatever gets turned up from this point on.
STRATFOR is getting heat since they're well known in the public because of their philosophy that everyone should have access to top-grade intelligence. I don't understand how attacking the guys who find secret information, analyse it, and sell it to businesses, governments, and the public promotes an open society.
Now we have shifted our business to Kroll and Dilligence and similar firms. They are stoutly anti-public. Not coincidentally their IT security is also top-notch. What was once public will now be very, very secret (Kroll has a 30-day email full deletion policy).
I worked for an investment bank. Found their idea of a STRATFOR hedge fund funny, but not evil. Another way to woo colleagues over from the public side while giving themselves a marketing tool against finance firms by being able to point to a performance trail. Mis-guided, perhaps, but given that Google basically runs a prop desk off its cash pile and has no problem with it (many corporate treasuries operate for profit)suggests it may not be an end-of-the-world conflict of interest.
Note: I hold no bad blood for Wikileaks; they're informatior brokers. But I do judge the guys who hacked them. Though I judge STRATFOR as well for being so cavalier with their security.
I believe the issue is more to do with their information gathering practices (bribery and questionable links to individuals in government agencies are alleged in the article, amongst others) and the ethics of making money from that.
If you read about a New York Times investigative journalist bribing their way into Libya, clinking drinks with dictators, etc. to get a scoop on what they're doing, would that be evil? Perhaps to some, but I value the information. It's a bit sleazy on the field, sure, but given that the information is known by intelligence agencies the next question is whether it is known to the public.
So let's change your question to is it okay to gain intelligence by venality? My answer is it is a continuum. Would I advocate bribing North Korean officials to gain insight on what they're doing? Yes. For Germany? No. STRATFOR, through the incentives in our global political regime, snaps into public opinion modulated by the risk of getting caught (as any agent in a political society does).
Generalising this de-spirits the debate. The fact is this information is being collected and will continue to be collected because it has tremendous intrinsic value. The question is how widely available it will be. I can pay for it. I just thought people liked having access to it as well. I would understand, though, if people preferred pretending reality isn't as it is.
But that's not the world we inhabit. Nation-states are perpetually insecure about the intentions of others. Hence, espionage will exist with states as the actors.
So the next level is how widely disseminated should this information be? The intel Kroll, Dilligence, Nardello, IGI, etc. provide will always be available in one form or another. And because it's very information dense people like me, who want to understand above all else, will bid up the value of that information.
I understand the public being uneasy with all of this. It's akin to pulling back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz. But it is how geopolitics works; we are shooting the messenger. It's a shame that Anonymous et Pals may have just severed the single link the majority of people had to this world. I, on the other hand, will only have to deal with one fewer information brokers.
There was an article on HN a day or two ago on how being pragmatic, even if it's sour, is better than being solely right. I think this is one of those cases.
I can see that it pretty point-of-view, but I don't agree with this. I think we live in the world that we make, nothing is 'perpetual', and that in Western countries especially we will gain in the long-run from ensuring our own ethical standards are high. This, from my point-of-view, is practical.
No, put another way, were Wikileaks is a robin hood (steal from the powerful, give to the public), they are a villain for hire -- and one that also has a super-boss at that.
Plus, it's not like "information gathering" is a neutral process. What you select, what you report, how you frame it, is a standard method to promote the agenda of your backers. Their "customer", besides heavy backers like the US gov, is mostly a product for sale.
I don't have the answer to this question. Their hedge fund is a bit suspicious to me, and the fact that we are dealing with seemingly experts in propaganda might make me think twice about their motivations. I thought they were a news organization, but suppose I was wrong.
I'll still going to subscribe to them (when they begin their subscription service again), but I'll definitely be taking a lot of their information with a grain of salt... just in case they aren't who they say they are. At the very least, I've woken up to the fact that they aren't a news organization.
I don't see STRATFOR deriving much value from swinging its limited niche readership around à la Fox News. But their guiding premises are know your source, trust but verify, and think critically about everything.
I don't take STRATFOR intel at the same degree of confidence as say an Economist article or something printed in the Times. But I subscribed because they had a knack for casting light in places and on conflicts I wasn't aware of and by making speculative calls, sometimes right often off (e.g. Hamas will use the Egyptian revolution to gain a platform) but always thought provoking.
In an era where Joe Public can be under GPS/Mail/whatever surveillance for whatever reason any in the government wants, do people believe that an entity like Stratfor would exist without the explicit consent and control of the government and/or secret agencies? And that they would NOT shape the information that they are providing to retail subscribers?
We're not talking tin-foil paranoia here, this is state politics 101.
Is it that opaque to you how attacking a company that finds and SELLS secret information to businesses and governments promotes an open society?
Plus, the part about making information available to "the public" is laughable.
The public does not "buy" information from them. What little they make available to the general public (subscribers etc) is not at all the same stuff they sell to governments and corporations.
And the plural "governments" is also crap -it's mostly the US government, first and foremost.
Every potential conspiracy need not be one. If STRATFOR really didn't care about distributing its research it could do what the other private intelligence firms do and be client-only.
On the offensive side the edge mostly deriving most traders' view of geopolitics as an exogenous risk. We were favourably positioned for the fallout in Libya, culminating in a life-changing trade where we syndicated oil being sold by the rebels in Benghazi. The risks in that deal were too high if you approached it at day zero. We were willing to commit since we had been watching that market since January.
"on par with what we commissioned" maybe, but not on par with what they gathered.
Essentially, thet use your money to provide you with your results PLUS build a huge intelligence database with much more results (including things that come up during your commissioned search that are not for you to know) for government etc use. It's like you subsidy the CIA and get back some partial results on things you want to know.
Note that STRATFOR isn't quite as badass as it's being painted - they aren't an ersatz intelligence agency. They're a team of analysts working through existing information networks. The deep dig intelligence consultants are at other firms.
And yes, the StratCap thing is very, very bad.
(Side note: it's entirely possible to support Wikileaks and still think Assange is kind of a jerk.)
Check out the disinformation campaign that's been going on in Sweden for example, propagated by tabloid press in releases oddly synchronous with statements by the prime minister concerning an upcoming 'smear campaign against Sweden'.
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11/28-2
TLDR: US Government got mud on its face, but dictators around the world faired much worse, and the fallout for them is ongoing.
The truly sad thing is, we knew all this. We've known that supporting friendly but brutal and murderous dictators has been the modus operandi for the US for years. Despite the leaks and the Arab Spring, this will continue to be the case so long as it's easier to keep a friendly dictator in power than try and work with a democratically elected government of a country where the vast majority of people don't like you.
China's case is particularly interesting. It's nearly impossible to criticize them directly for anything, since they just deny it, mirror the same criticism back, and then threaten some kind of economic retaliation for it. Their playbook is clear, and effective.
But this accidental Wikileaks release allowed the US to publicly say to the world all sorts of stuff about what our government really thinks about the Chinese government, and there's nothing they can do in response. It was an accident, US is embarrassed and pissed off, but it just so happens the collateral damage to Chinese government's PR machine (and various dictators and whatnot) was worse.
"But we must acknowledge that this incident would not have been possible if Stratfor had implemented stronger data protection mechanisms - which will be the case from now on. Indeed we will immediately move to implement the latest, and most comprehensive, data security measures."
Seriously? These people were emailing what they considered the most sensitive information straight out of their organisation, the only "security" being a caveat in the subject line. I wouldn't trust them with a cookie jar let alone preventing leaks ;)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/9107911/...
"WikiLeaks is about to launch a distributed, encrypted "Facebook for revolutionaries" (https://wlfriends.org/)."
https://wlfriends.org/about#whatfowlis
I see no evidence it's truely distributed though.
If Wikileaks were truly about bringing secret information to light, wouldn't they be protecting other leak organizations, rather that exposing their sources?
That's like asking "How are the Crips different from the LAPD? They both drive around Los Angeles and carry guns ..." In the case of Stratfor and Wikileaks, one group finds secret information and makes it public, the other group takes secret information and sells it back to the same secret community from where the leaks originate.
"I wouldn't say these are fundamental differences."
I certainly would.
> around Los Angeles and carry guns ..."
... and they both enforce laws, and they both initiate the use of force against peaceful citizens, and they both take funding from unwilling people by the threat of violence.
I'm not sure you're making the point you intended to make, unless you're an anarcho-capitalist like me ;-)
A better analogy would be to compare the Crips and a private detective agency.
Political science types are fond of saying "government must have a monopoly on the use of XYZ", but apparently now if you put the right retired government people on your payroll it's legit.
Military intelligence, international informant "asset" management? Good grief, this is some scary stuff.
However international informent asset management? Does it impinge on the government's necessary monopoly on national security and violence? Two for two, I'd wager.....
The statement including $1,200 a month paid to the informant from the Wikileak's press release seems an almost ridiculously low amount, even when payed regularly, when in contrast other media outlets are paying thousands, and in some cases even millions for access to some temporary celebrities or access to other irrelevant banalities of public life.
Care to justify your assertion?
I disagree that this is not "fundamentally different". It doesn't get much more "fundamental" than the ideological difference that drives the two organisations.
Individual actions taken by people who may or may not be journalists could be good or evil, depending on the individual action.
Journalism paid for by advertisers cannot report on anything that is contrary to the interests of their advertisers.
Direct subscription journalism, like Wikileaks, Counterpunch, or to some extent Le Monde diplomatique is now essential to getting information on what global organisations are really doing (as opposed to what they advertise they are doing).
The people at STRATFOR, similarly, could generally earn much more by working at macro hedge funds. Why they choose not to is their personal decision to make.
I'm not trying to tease out a nuance here, but simply demonstrate that a profit motive doesn't inherently corrupt information collection and analysis.
Also, I suspect you're wrong. Every serious journalism organization maintains Chinese walls between the journalists and the profit-seekers. I think that's because a profit motive does inherently corrupt in that it creates conflicts of interest.
Julian is a former hacker himself.
"torrent dumps are available at http://wlstorage.net/torrent/gifiles/, pick newest one available"
At one point in time Wikileak's stated mission was just to leak information, and this was done without — comparatively — much fanfare.
What we see now is a change of tactics. If the ultimate goal is not simply to leak information, but to effect change, then what is the best way to do this?
A coordinated, simultaneous release has a better chance of being noticed by more people and thus a greater chance of effecting some meaningful change.
We can disagree on tactics. Assuming you believe their goals are reasonable, what else could they do? I'm not suggesting there are not other options, but I rarely read any suggestions of a better way.
Their focus is not simply exposing private information. Again, Assange has repeatedly said that Wikileaks has no interest in violating personal privacy and has in fact explicitly said that an individual has a right to privacy.
Exposing all private information is a radical position, one for which they couldn't expect to gain popular support. In other words, that is not their goal at all. It's reductive to simply say that they want to destroy privacy.
They were completely successful in Kenya and had a not-insignificant role in sparking the Arab Spring. They're not able to bring down powerful corrupt regimes, but they've certainly proven successful at effecting change in some of the smaller countries.
Edit: It's in the article. Stratfor gathers information using paid informants, including government officials. That's bribery.
Is it not possible to profit by bribing/blackmailing a government official and benefit the public at the same time?
Please think these things through next time before you cathartically post that someone is "the enemy".
"Is it not possible to profit by bribing/blackmailing a government official and benefit the public at the same time?"
The ethical content of an action is not determined by accidental effects. If I shoot a gun blindly into a street and accidentally save someone by shooting their attacker, that doesn't make my actions ethical. Bribing an official for information that you can then sell to the highest bidder is corruption. The intent matters.
"Please think these things through next time before you cathartically post that someone is "the enemy"."
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
I was simply impugning an absolute statement that blanketed a great number of honorable intelligence gathers as "the enemy", and promoted a great number of sketchy government officials as allies.
Corruption is paying an official to change or ignore a law to benefit you at the expense of others. Incentivizing an official to leak intelligence (most likely not constitutionally obtained in the first place) doesn't fit that definition. If it did, half of the New York Times' Washington bureau would qualify as "the enemy".
No, "cathartically" means what I think it does. I wouldn't call someone an enemy and really mean it unless that enemy was deliberately trying to harm me or my family. Any other use would be an attempt to invoke emotions.
I didn't literally call them the enemy, I put it in scary quotes as a reply to the (IMO) naive sentiment of the OP that because they're "not the CIA", they're not a legitimate target of WikiLeaks.
Please ask for clarification next time before you cathartically lecture someone based on your own misunderstanding.
EDIT: ok, really, what bribes?
A glossary of the intelligence jargon that they use, written in an entertaining style.
I was beginning to wonder what kind of job that skill set can land you.
I bet there'll bee som interesting, actionable material in there.
If stratfor was gathering intelligence and buying silence for Dow, then it would be indictment and self implication
This is sort of like having to do research on an archive that's been photocopied onto kleenex. But, we'll suck it up, and write a scraper to turn it into what we need. But it means that some of the interesting stuff is delayed, because wikileaks is trying to get the most bang for the buck by dribbling it out.
Just to pick an example of what I mean by interesting; tag all emails that mention a country or city and see if there are correlations between who sent and received emails and the countries mentioned, or if informants are mentioned in connection with more than one country.
We are the rest of the world. We understand that you are embarrased, so are we. We understand that your experiment in government has slid towards fascism. Don't worry, you are not alone, it was a popular movement for Mussolini.
* Fuck yeah, america!!!! killing our own troups just because * Fuck yeah, amerida!!?! killing everyone just because.
I'm getting tired of Wikileak's bullshit. Either you have proof about this and you should just publish it in a pastebin, or you shut up. You don't publish 5 million emails and hint that there is material in there that could take down governments.
Unless you want to crowd-source analysis of them. Then you do, it seems.