Posted on 02/19/2008 3:56:23 PM PST by gondramB
The site, Wikileaks.org, invites people to post leaked materials with the goal of discouraging “unethical behavior” by corporations and governments. It has posted documents concerning the rules of engagement for American troops in Iraq, a military manual concerning the operation of prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and other evidence of what it has called corporate waste and wrongdoing.
The case in San Francisco was brought by a Cayman Islands bank, Julius Baer Bank and Trust. In court papers, the bank claimed that “a disgruntled ex-employee who has engaged in a harassment and terror campaign” provided stolen documents to Wikileaks in violation of a confidentiality agreement and banking laws. According to Wikileaks, “the documents allegedly reveal secret Julius Baer trust structures used for asset hiding, money laundering and tax evasion.”
On Friday, Judge Jeffrey S. White of the Federal District Court in San Francisco granted a permanent injunction ordering Dynadot of San Mateo, Calif., the site’s domain name registrar, to disable the Wikileaks.org domain name. The order had the effect of locking the front door to the Wikileaks.org site — a largely ineffectual action that kept back doors to the site, and several copies of it, available to sophisticated Web users who knew where to look.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
But it is unfortunate that a bank that objected to one post gets the whole site pulled.
Its not that far out the realm of possibility to think about that happening to Freep or similar sites where users post things.
It took only a couple of minutes to figure out where it is hidden.
http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks
The New York Slimes occasionally leaks out stuff in the open on their own pages.
The NY Slimes sources are outed and shut down.
Interesting that the new site at that IP address is located in Sweden and hosted by a company out of Amsterdam.
Someone could always insert it into Usenet.
>>Someone could always insert it into Usenet.<<
That is probably happening as we speak.
There is one thing in the Iraq rules of engagement that I bet anti-war liberals wish had not leaked - that any plan with significant collateral damage requires direct of approval of SECDEF. That’s taking civilian risk as seriously as it has ever been taken.
The site was not shut down or pulled. All that happened on the ex parte motion was that the registrar agreed to lock the account and not allow the name to be transferred so it could be dropped from further legal proceedings.
The acutal hosting etc was not touched nor the subject of the courts order. As usual, the NYT got it wrong.
Releasing this kind of information damages the US and our national security. I am sick of stories that say the source is unnamed because they were not authorized to release the information.
Releasing criminal activity is one thing. Releasing peoples private information, corporate data or national secrets is wrong.
I find it interesting and pertinent that folks in other countries are releasing information harmful to the US. In the old days that was usually called hostile activity or an act of war.
>>Releasing this kind of information damages the US and our national security. I am sick of stories that say the source is unnamed because they were not authorized to release the information.
Releasing criminal activity is one thing. Releasing peoples private information, corporate data or national secrets is wrong.
I find it interesting and pertinent that folks in other countries are releasing information harmful to the US. In the old days that was usually called hostile activity or an act of war.<<
There are a couple of aspects.
Obviously publicizing data that puts U.S. troops in danger is wrong and should be punished.
But this is a site where the members can post things - that is somewhat different than the owners directly posting.
There is also a need in a free society for outlets where information about wrong doing is presented even if the wrong doers object.
>>Releasing criminal activity is one thing. Releasing peoples private information, corporate data or national secrets is wrong.<<
Sorry about that - I didn’t catch the difference you cited there in my above post.
“Obviously publicizing data that puts U.S. troops in danger is wrong and should be punished.”
Its more than wrong. They should be shot.
“There is also a need in a free society for outlets where information about wrong doing is presented even if the wrong doers object.”
Are we really lacking places to post this kinda information?
>>“There is also a need in a free society for outlets where information about wrong doing is presented even if the wrong doers object.”
No but I have concerns about a site like that getting shut down because a member posts something a foreign bank objects to.
Here is Wikileaks purpose
>>Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking and public analysis. Our primary interests are in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we expect to be of assistance to peoples of all countries who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations.<<
“No but I have concerns about a site like that getting shut down because a member posts something a foreign bank objects to.”
Theres a fine line somewhere. First he signed agreements that he would keep the information confidential. He broke that agreement and the law by releasing what he did. If what he released was indeed proof of the bank breaking laws then there are other ways than making it public. If those methods failed then I could see releasing some information but how much detail is required.
And then theres the side (tinfoil hat lovers unite) that governments can’t stop the release of classified information but by golly don’t touch a bank.
Again, that is not what happened.
The reigistar to get out from the legal action agreed remove the DNS records and lock the account. This was done via court order so the domain owner could not sue them for breach of contract. Verisign who runs the rootserver for the .com domain could override the lock and other DNS servers still carry a record for it, ignoring the update from the clearly weasly DNS supplier, who is finding that they are losing customers due to their actions. I have admin access to several DNS servers and they still have a correct record for it. I know others are doing the same. If I wanted to I could place it in my local tables and even if all DNS servers dropped it, local users could still get there. The legal types clearly still don't understand how the Internet works and that it is designed to find ways around failures or tampering like this court order.
Most importantly the data is still out there and is freely available. One judge with his head up his *ss is not going to change that.
Thank you - that is more information about the technicalities than I have seen elsewhere.
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