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Comment by m_for_monkey | Hacker News Reader

I don't see it as if Wikileaks were fooled, they have debunked Stratfor, the "money-making scheme". They sell nothing for a fortune, I hope their subscribers will leave them.

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I don't see it as if Wikileaks were fooled

I do - Assange branded this leak as far more momentous and STRATFOR as much more insidious than it is. The "secret cash bribes" are his wording, after all.

I was a corporate subscriber of STRATFOR's. The Atlantic is a bit harsh here, but it's harsh on STRATFOR promoting its brand as a "shadow CIA". That specific complaint is fair.

We never commissioned investigation from them, but I was quite happy with analysis we had them write up for us on how the US was likely to react to various situations. For example, they were the first source to bring it to my attention that for all the wailing about Putin messing with the Russian elections, the "true" winners were the right nationalist parties. CIA intel? No. But potentially worth knowing to judge the region's investment climate stability? Probably.

For deep digging I'd go to Kroll, IGI, Dilligence, etc. If Anonymous and pals could get into their servers I'd be legitimately impressed.

They don't sell nothing, they sell outsourced information gathering. They're pretty much exactly the same as any other outsourced service. You could do it yourself or pay someone else to do it. People have completely valid reasons for paying other people to do things they could do for themselves, in fact pretty much everyone does it all the time.

Any reporter who questions the validity of that choice is one who makes me question their own understanding of how the world works.

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