Wikileaks release "PlusD": Database of 1.7 million diplomatic cables | Hacker News Reader

Wikileaks release "PlusD": Database of 1.7 million diplomatic cables

wikileaks.org

217 pointsderrida97 comments

I have an American friend (we met when we were both living overseas) who has been all over the world because he works for the international travel industry. He hasn't lived in the United States for at least a decade. If I remember correctly, he hasn't even visited the United States for at least four years. He and I have both long been skeptics about the United States Department of State and especially the Foreign Service. But after the Wikileaks release of many United States diplomatic cables, he told me that his respect for the United States Foreign Service had increased enormously. The members of the Foreign Service are actually quite astute about what a clash in values is involved in maintaining peaceful, normal diplomatic relations between their free, democratic country and many other countries around the world. Diplomatic business has to go on day by day even while countries are painfully slow in their evolution to civil liberties and representative governments.

It's funny you mention this when a lot of these cables show how the US government was pressuring the Spanish government to join NATO and more recently to legislate in favor of the American media lobby. Obviously it's both parties fault, but I don't particularly like when my country and the people who are supposed to be my representatives are constantly subject to American wishes. They are definitely polite, but their requests and intentions are as selfish as it can be.

They are operating in their own interests. I would expect Spain to also being doing this, obviously some countries hold more sway than others.

This is a common argument, that I've seen at lot here on HN as well. It boils down to "every country should act in only its own direct best interest, and assume that every other country will or should the same". If I'm not mistaken, that's called classical realism[1] by political scientists.

Now, why do things have to be this way? Are you certain that, even while we the people are perfectly capable of being nice to each other, the countries that represent us must act like immorally self-centered egoists? Why is that a justification for crap behavior?

Despite all its flaws, the EU has shown that it does not have to be this way. Countries can cooperate and look beyond their own immediate interests. I'm not saying that that's the only right way, and I'm very much not saying that the EU is doing it right, but classical realism isn't the only approach to international relations out there. Saying that something must be so "because countries should act in their own interests only" is a sloppy argument.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism_in_international_relati...

>>Now, why do things have to be this way? Are you certain that, even while we the people are perfectly capable of being nice to each other, the countries that represent us must act like immorally self-centered egoists?

That is a very common opinion (yes, I'm calling you naive).

You are making an analogy between civil society (where people are nice) to states, where there is "realpolitik".

You forget that there is a violence monopoly (police etc) to keep rule of law in a society, but not between countries. Before states that enforced a violence monopoly, there were clan societies.

Simplified for clan sovieties think vikings, Afghanistan, parts of Pakistan/Iraq, etc. Not so nice... in fact, you can probably do good analogues between (especially non-democratic) countries and big clans.

(Yeah, the above is a bit simplified -- democracies are e.g. quite nice as long as the opinion at home cares. The point should be clear.)

Edit: AnthonBerg, ok it was not necessary to point out that an opinion is naive. I used to have that opinion myself, so it irritates me. (I grew up reading Swedish media; stupid and simplified world view.)

You're not a state. Be polite.

Then explain the EU to me? Especially the beginnings of it? E.g. France, UK and Germany, mortal enemies for centuries, shifting focus from self-interest defense thinking to collaboration?

My point was that your argument was naive, since you did an analogy between individuals in rule-of-law societies and countries. I pointed out that there is a much better analogy.

You have nothing to say about my point, except demanding that I should explain a single example of cooperation?

And about your example: Can you first show that the cooperation isn't in the economical or political interest of the countries? (That would make it realpolitik -- in this case, it is good to be nice.) Or at least for large lobbyist groups? Or the personal interest of the ruling politicians?

If you can show that, you have a counter example. [To an argument about statistical behaviour...]

Or was it collaboration in defense of their self-interest? After WWII Europe was in ruin, the USA and USSR had taken over as the world powers, and the sentiment "never again" clearly had not proven to strong enough in the past. Making the same mistakes as after WWI was not an option this time.

Furthermore, Western Europe found in the USSR a common and real enemy. As Germany was divided into four (later two) parts, the power balance between France and Germany favored France at that time. That allowed for the idea of a collaboration that would connect the re-development of Germany to the development of Western-Europe as a whole. As a result, so hoped the Europeanists, France and Germany would become co-dependent to that extent that a military solution would not be in the interest of either country. To keep that balance, however, neither country could afford to annex some of the smaller countries. That would make the European idea attractive to these smaller countries.

All idealism aside, all this can be explained from a Realpolitiker point of view.

PS It has been a while I since studied International Relations and Modern History, however, so take the above more as informed speculation than historical analysis.

If I should suggest a more... thoughtful opinion for an idealist -- how about looking reality in the eye, then trying to organise the world, so it is in the self interest of countries to be nice and tolerant?

Start by looking up "the democratic peace theory".

And note that you can make an analogy between this and how societies went all the way from clan warfare to the welfare state. (if welfare states really are workable is another discussion that (a) also would upset an idealist and (b) I really don't know enough to have an opinion.)

The problem is that USA is too big. They succeed in in their pressure. Every time smaller countries think "we'll bend this time, it's not very important and we need USA to be friendly" and this ends up USA trying to shape the world on a grand scale.

It doesn't help the world and it doesn't really help USA that much.

I know man, what you gonna do? Someone has to arm thugs like Meles Zenawi and Yoweri Museveni, might as well be us.

This stuff is fun:

Commercial Opportunities in Iraq Oil Sector:

https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1973BAGHDA00111_b.htm...

Earliest record for Megabyte

https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1973OECDP12963_b.html

Opening up a 50 kilobit connection in moscow:

https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1976MOSCOW16762_b.htm...

US shipping a Graphical Display Unit to the USSR in 1973

https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1973STATE229113_b.htm...

Romanians love Columbo:

https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974BUCHAR01611_b.htm...

https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974BUCHAR01912_b.htm...

https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974BUCHAR01936_b.htm...

https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974BUCHAR02356_b.htm...

"The original series, which ran from 1971 to 1977, was so popular in Romania it was broadcast there twice a week. When ``Columbo`` stopped production in the U.S., suspicious Romanians thought their government had canceled the show because of import quotas. Fearing riots, the Romanian government begged the U.S. State Department to have the show`s star, Peter Falk, make a public-service announcement explaining the real reason for the demise of ``Columbo.`` Falk obliged and taped a TV spot, which he read phonetically in Romanian."

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1989-04-02/features/89033...

That's hilarious. Columbo was my grandfather's favorite show on Hungarian TV back in the day. Every episode was absolutely perfectly lip synced - you couldn't even tell that Hungarian wasn't the original language.

"Every episode was absolutely perfectly lip synced - you couldn't even tell that Hungarian wasn't the original language."

OT, but do you know anything about how that worked? Surely in another language, the form of the lips while speaking is different, not to mention the length of sentences, double entendres that are impossible to translate, etc?

Using ADR and creative translation teams. To fit the words with lip movements, dialogue could be quite different from the original while retaining the overall plot.

“In Hungary, practically all television programmes are dubbed, as are about 50 percent of movies in theaters. In the socialist era, every one of them was dubbed with professional and mostly popular actors. Great care was taken to make sure the same voice actor would lend his voice to the same actor. In the early 1990s, as cinemas tried to keep up with showing newly released films, subtitling became dominant in cinema. This, in turn, forced TV channels to make their own cheap versions of dubbed soundtracks for the movies they presented, resulting in a constant degrading of dubbing quality. Once this became customary, cinema distributors resumed the habit of dubbing for popular productions, presenting them in a quality varying from very poor to average. However, every single feature is presented with the original soundtrack in at least one cinema in large towns and cities.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubbing_(filmmaking)#Countries_...

> but do you know anything about how that worked? Surely in another language, the form of the lips while speaking is different

It will be different but unless you read lips or pay close attention you won't notice it (too much). IIRC dub translators try to match end vowels of sentences.

> not to mention the length of sentences

A good adaptation will account for that and translate for matching durations.

> double entendres that are impossible to translate

That's not a problem unique to dubbing. When a joke is impossible to translate it isn't. Good translators will compensate for dropped jokes by adding other jokes when possible. Translated comedy is rarely good.

It is often non-obvious, but possible to find either a direct translation or a very similar idiom. This is very hard work, which is why most dubbing sucks. So I'd rather do without.

>OT, but do you know anything about how that worked?

Well, remember to also take the "absolutely perfectly lip synced" and "couldn't even tell" with a grain of salt.

If we were to see one such lip synced episode now, I bet it would be quite crude and obvious.

It's probably just that being a kid at the time, and remembering it afterwards (maybe with some nostalgia), it appears better than it was.

Here's a Hungarian lip-synced Columbo episode:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzl4b23cZg4

Not "absolutely perfectly lip synced" at all.

They still do that in Germany to every foreign language movie or series, to the point where it's impossible to get the original content legally. The sad truth is that although they usually do a good job synching the translation with facial movements, the finer nuances and sometimes the entire point of a scene are lost. On the other hand, they did probably manage to actually improve some very bad source material, but as a rule the quality goes dramatically downhill more often than not. There are also a lot of instances where the translation team didn't seem to completely understand the source material to begin with - it's all quite horrible.

Usual disclaimer applies for those with a clearance: by accessing classified documents on your home computers you could get yourself in serious trouble (in theory). In light of this particular situation I don't know if anyone has ever been punished but you should be careful.

It's the reason I've never actually seen anything WikiLeaks has published since Manning hit the airwaves. :-/

Perhaps only if you are a citizen and residing in the country that classfied them. Pretty sure it wouldn't be an offence to read documents classified by Zimbabwe in the USA, or vice versa.

Depends on the country and your clearance. If you have a security clearance through the US DOD, you're expected to honor/treat allied (specifically NATO, although I think it applies across the board) classification of documents. That is sort of fuzzy if you're in Intelligence though.

Not sure. In USA it is only an issue if you have clearance or plan on getting it. Otherwise, as far as I am concerned (and I am not a lawyer) there is nothing they can do.

I have heard them trying to bully people into signing NDA and other such things if they have been accidentally exposed to classified info. But don't have any first hand knowledge how often that happens and how effective it is.

Is it still classified if it's public? Doesn't a thing stop being secret automatically when it leaks out?

If it does not then I wonder why they even called it "classified" or "secret". They should call it "blargh" and avoid the confusion.

I worked at a defense contractor the last time this happened. There was an email circulated by security to the effect that it didn't matter, it is still considered classified.

No. Whether something is classified or not has nothing to do with who has read it or whether its common knowledge or leaked or not. Classified is classified until its officially declassified, period.

lol

There is a specific process to de-classify materials and wikileaks isn't it. It is still classified.

2nd point first: Even if a piece of data is in the public, there is no guarantee of provenance for the data without an official statement. How do you know wikileaks or someone else hasn't inserted specific, falsified records into the document trove? It may or may not be classified or secret data. Anybody can slap 'secret' on a document.

By not saying anything (neither confirm nor deny), folks with a clearance have to assume it's classified, and they have signed many NDAs and other bits of paper agreeing to not seek access to classified data without the 'need to know'.

This particular set of documents was apparently declassified 6 years ago, it's just that Wikileaks has made them easily searchable.

Am I the only one genuinely afraid of clicking any of cables with keyword SECRET ?

No.

It's public domain now, but if you don't trust the law to let you read and write freely, use Tor https://www.torproject.org/

Do you mean public domain as in "unclassified", or public domain as in "publically accessible"? Because those are far different.

Usually when the United States federal government releases anything it defaults into the public domain.

Was this released through official channels or leaked? I'm assuming it makes a difference, but I wouldn't know...

"The collection published today has not been leaked. Assange said WikiLeaks had been working for the past year to analyse and assess a vast amount of data held at the U.S. national archives before releasing it in a searchable form."

http://leaksource.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/wikileaks-plusd-p...

So it is legal

Legal in what sense? Wikileaks cannot de-classify materials regardless of how much they "analyze and assess" it.

If the materials were properly declassified and held for public browsing by the NARA then what Wikileaks is doing is fine. It would be the same as Google wrapping a much nicer search interface across an old dataset.

If the materials were still classified-but-leaked then I won't go near it until it is declassified. But I can't tell from this side of the window what's going on.

The wikileaks cables exist in grey zone; it's they were never released by the US Government, but they are public. Generally speaking if you are not and do not plan on being an employee with a mandated security clearance, you have nothing to worry about. If however, you do have or want to acquire clearance you should not look at Wikileaks since you will be violating the terms under which clearance is granted.

Also, elements of the intelligence community have made statements that suggest that applicants to some government positions could be refused if they tweet or say anything about Wikileaks. [1]

1. http://dailycaller.com/2010/12/09/schools-warn-students-not-...

I have the same problem with these "cybercrime" laws. With most other laws, I can rely on intuition to guide my judgment ("if I hit this guy, I'll probably get in trouble"). But I have no way of knowing what kind of data is illegal to access, have in my possession, or release to the public.

You need to check out the Tails project (https://tails.boum.org/) which is a version of Debian I believe tailored to be completely anonymous. The browser uses TOR by default, I don't even know if you can disable it. Lots of other goodies too, including making browser fingerprints pretty meaningless.

Also, I know it's technically kind of bad form but if one wanted to run Tails easily you can use VirtualBox (https://www.virtualbox.org/) to easily fire up a throwaway instance of Tails quickly and easily.

When I tried Tails it had the noScript plugin disabled by default (actually in blacklist mode, I think, which allows javascript on 99% of websites). Even the plugin itself warns users not to leave it disabled. I wouldn't trust something with that big of a security hole. If anonymity was so important that I couldn't trust my own machine, I wouldn't trust a linux distro made for anonymity either.

Probably because Javascript has no magical ability to leak your identity, especially inside of Tails.

If you have a clearance you should absolutely not be clicking on it (if you are also paranoid and don't want to possibly fail your polygraph test -- "have you accessed or downloaded classified documents on your personal computer...?" er...oops).

Otherwise if you don't hold a clearance, I don't think they can do anything to you (however, I am not a lawyer so don't take this as a legal advice etc etc...)

Do we have any story of people being harassed for simply reading leaked documents (genuine question) ?

I remember reading people with clearance were not allowed to access wikileaks, but I can remember any follow up "X got fired|trialed because accessing wikileaks". Not that I think it can't happen if we didn't know about it, of course.

Makes sense. If you have contractually agreed to preserve state secrets then just avoid this stuff.

Welcome to the future of intelligence agencies. Their employees are legally required to know less than the general public.

Actually don't worry too much about the polygraph, it's complete pseudoscience. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Polygraph

and yet, still used

They're using the idea of the polygraph, the actual measurements could mean anything. It's the "conversation" during and after the test that counts.

Of course it's also a great medium to screw someone over, but that's a whole other thing.

Yap it is just an interrogation. However, knowing about how the polygraph is ineffective and letting the administrator know will often result in 'FAILURE'. They will specifically ask questions related to polygraph terminology (lingo, abbreviations) to see if you are familiar.

It effectively lets through psychopaths, very good liar or those that know how polygraphs work and presumably practiced passing it.

In most countries polygraph tests are inadmissible in court.

They are typically used in criminal investigations as a way to make suspects feel uneasy so investigators can pick up visual tells.

The example here is somebody who apparently needs to take one to access some confidential information - and clearly they take a pass/fail seriously, so it seems some (presumably US?) government agencies do take it seriously enough to make passing one a security requirement.

Good point. A quick Google search doesn't seem to bring up any laws that prevent employers from using polygraph results in determining whether to hire or fire someone.

It's not used to detect lies, it's used to measure how a person reacts under pressure. It's a low-level torture device meant to intimidate.

The fact that police services can use it to extract confessions is just a nice bonus, and it's really a really cheap alternative to conducting a complete and thorough investigation. Police policy has for a long time favored confessions over investigations.

It is complete pseudoscience. In the Penn and Teller's BS episode about it they have a guy who teaches people how to get whatever result they want by controlling their anal sphincter. Apparently it's not complicated.

It is, however, still a part of getting or maintaining clearance. A friend of mine wound up changing jobs simply because he failed the polygraph twice and didn't want to bother going in for a third.

Yeah I also read that taking an anti-anxiety medication such as Valium beforehand can have similar results.

I've passed several polygraph exams when (if they actually worked) I shouldn't have.

Utter bollocks, them.

Due to past obligations and future opportunities, I can't/won't touch any of these documents directly.

ITT: Folks with clearances on HN outing themselves....;)

Are you self-censoring yourself? As far as I know once secret stuff is leaked into the public, it becomes public domain.

> As far as I know

http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-free-speech/gover...

And if you're working for the US government then you had better play along or you might end up causing your career harm.

Common sense is at odds with the law here (and in many other places as well), so 'what you know' and what some judge will decide may very well be in contradiction with each other.

I love how they thoughtfully go ahead and provide a headline-ready name for the data set now.

"Cablegate."

At this point the Watergate should just assign rooms scandal names ending in -Gate instead of room numbers.

Actually, I think that would be a huge selling point for the hotel. That would be hilarious.

"Ooh, what controversy is YOUR room?! I have [Antennagate!][1]"

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antennagate#Antenna

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_with_%22-gate%...

There's a nice British comedy sketch about naming everything -gate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB9JgxhXW5w

The advert I got for that YouTbue video started with a Lionsgate logo...

That name was already used in 2010. I don't know who made it up.

"Cablegate" has been used for at least the last 2.5 years. It's unclear after a good 15 minutes of googling who first started calling the leaked cables Cablegate, but here's an example from pbs back in Nov, 2010:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/11/digging-into-wik...

I am mildly disappointed that there is not a torrent seed of the whole dataset...

It might be interesting to see what sort of correlates could be inferred by a crowdsourced analysis.

It's not the whole dataset, but the cables from 2003-2010 are downloadable here:

http://cryptome.org/z/z.7z

Thanks.

Does anyone know the verification process Wikileaks uses? Ie, if I anonymously send them some "cables", how do they know I'm not trolling them with disinfo?

The modern cables are from a single source, and that source is in a military prison.

link?

Try google. Seriously this has been news for more than 12 months.

Bradley Manning Admits to Being Wikileaks Source ( http://mashable.com/2013/02/28/bradley-manning-reveals-how-a...)

He was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize. Can someone explain the logic behind this? In Nobel's will it is said:

  > one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best
  > work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction
  > of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace
  > congresses

If Manning/Wikileaks did anything of this nature, I missed it a big way :(

Can someone explain the logic behind this

The nomination process is very open and hundreds of nominations are sent in every year, most of them by people who want to make some political point. There are no formal requirements that nominees actually have to have done anything to deserve the prize.

One could argue that a removal of secrecy and a trend towards transparency are major forces on the road towards a more peaceful world. One could of course also argue the opposite point.

Either way he took a major personal risk and stepped up for what he thought was the right thing to do. Even if you don't agree with what that thing is it is already a pretty good indicator to get by the "first round" imo

It's basically a PR price for political gamesmanship anyways (imo)

Pretty sure anyone can be nominated for a Nobel prize. Simple nomination does not mean that the Nobel committee are taking that person under serious consideration.

With Obama/EU(not a person at all) winning Nobel peace prize, its obviously just political showmanship.

Obama is a controversial because he expanded definition of combatant and expanded military reach.

EU is a state. Not a person...

Not that I disagree with your assessment as such, but the peace prize as been award to institutions and organizations lots of times. So in and of itself there is nothing strange or unusual about the EU getting the prize.

It's especially weird that it got awarded sometimes when the crisis escalated, while Greece was slipping into fascism.

Look up who has the power to nominate:

• Members of national assemblies and governments of states

• Members of international courts

• University rectors; professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology; directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes

• Persons who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

• Board members of organizations that have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

• Active and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee; (proposals by members of the Committee to be submitted no later than at the first meeting of the Committee after February 1)

• Former advisers to the Norwegian Nobel Committee

Finding someone in one of those categories who is willing to nominate any given person isn't very hard. Especially someone like Manning who has substantial sympathy from a lot of people and where it's down to finding someone in one of these categories willing to nominate him either as a sign of support or as a big "fuck you" to the US.

Being nominated doesn't really say much.

This one is interesting: 30 day mandate for computers sold in China to install filtering software called "Green Dam - Escort of the Youth Flowers" , besides the great name it even comes with a backdoor.

https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09BEIJING1520_a.html

There is a Google trends style search tool for the database here: http://wikileaks.org/plusd/graph

One minor caveat is:

>This tool only searches the Kissinger Cables (1973-1976) dataset

Would have loved to play around with Iraq-related terms... But maybe that's still to come.

Check out "Document sets to search" at the top of the search tool.

It looks like you select "The Kissinger Cables" (1,707,500 diplomatic documents from 1973 to 1976) and/or "Cablegate" (251,287 diplomatic cables, nearly all from 2003 to 2010)

Weird prediction: some 22 year old is reading a bunch of these now. He/she will enter the foreign service of his/her respective country and become a great career diplomat as a result.

Is this the same thing as the cables from about 2 years before, or something new?

edit: oh OK, those are cablegate + some new cables from seventies. Well.... all right, I guess.

They seem to be using CloudFlare. That's good PR!

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