It was natural to expect a backlash against the 'threat' of Wikileaks. Accountability and actions to stem the abuse of power is now being touted as a threat - but a threat to what and to whom?

The report below is the work of spin doctors and social engineering marketers plying their trade in the tools of manipulation. Nothing new there but the contents are revealing.

According to the Wikileaks site "three data intelligence companies, Plantir Technologies, HBGary Federal and Berico Technologies, outline a plan to attack Wikileaks. They are acting upon request from Hunton and Williams, a law firm working for BANK OF AMERICA. The Department of Justice recommended the law firm to Bank of America according to an article in The Tech Herald."

Some of the recommendations to quash the rising popularity of Wikileaks include (taken from the WL site):

"1. Feed the fuel between the feuding groups. Disinformation. Create messages around actions of sabotage or discredit the opposing organizations. Submit fake documents and then call out the error.
2. Create concern over the security of the infrastructure. Create exposure stories. If the process is believed not to be secure they are done.
3. Cyber attacks against the infrastructure to get data on document submitters. This would kill the project. Since the servers are now in Sweden and France putting a team together to get access is more straightforward.
4. Media campaign to push the radial and reckless nature of WikiLeaks activities. Sustain pressure. Does nothing for the fanatics, but creates concern and doubt among moderates.
5. Search for leaks. Use social media to profile and identify risky behavior of employees."

The report is here:

http://213.251.145.96/IMG/pdf/WikiLeaks_Response_v6.pdf

Another article here: http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201106/6798/Data-intelligence-firms-proposed-a-systematic-attack-against-WikiLeaks

As the second link reveals, both Berico Tech and Palantir Tech have since severed their ties with HBGary Federal and Palantir issued an apology to reporter Glenn Greenwald, referred to in the report.

The report highlights the target group as moderates who, in the end, might likely choose professional preservation over a cause.

I think they are wrong, what do others think? This moderate is not going anywhere.

Your link is truly astounding Pelican. And it shows where we are headed.

I'm speechless. Is it authentic ?. I'm not suggesting it isn't for a minute.

It does show the effect people power is having on autocrats via social media and the internet.

I'm was wondering how long they would let this situation continue,
not just with Wikileaks, but with all the other forms as well of social internet communication.
It is truly scary to think that these types of human communication are under seige..

Some times I fear America.
Republican/tea party America.
The Internet and Wikileaks has been a positive for humanity.
America would be the first to agree, in relation to the middle east.
Face book has driven what war and weapons have not.
Wikileaks, let us look,what is its crime,it revealed what?
Truth, it told us the truth.
Deadly crime that, we one day will need to march in the streets if Wikileaks is murdered what next.
America complained about shut down of the Internet in other country's but seek to control it.
Complains about China but is pursuing Wikileaks founder for the crime? not wearing a condom?

pelican,

Apropos item 5 in the list contained in your opening post, "Search for leaks. Use social media to profile and identify risky behavior of employees.", what do you make of this tactic reported in a tweet from a San Francisco-based Twitter user?

"US Air Force has hundreds of fake
social ID's - smells like cyberwarfare
(and domestic police work) to me "
http://bit.ly/g2u1TE

From the linked news report pointed to by that tweet:

"In normal language, the [US] Air Force wants
software to create and control fictitious online
identities, with up to 50 users controlling as
many as 10 identities each. Each identity could
use social media sites and other online services,
giving the impression of an individual but really
being a false face for the military."




Sock puppetry on steroids?




I wonder whether the tactic of false identity presence has ever been implemented off-line to seemingly influence expressions of public opinion emanating from entities judged to be important to US national security and/or the 'military/industrial/congressional complex' of which Eisenhower warned?

This is the second time this week that the subject of fake identities has come up in posts I have made. The other one was here: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=4297#108978

Done really well, an off-line fake-identity-dependent opinion-expression-influencing operation instituted at national levels would cost an enormous amount of money to sustain. I still wonder as to what constituted the multi-trillion-dollar US Defense Department accountancy discrepancy of which Donald Rumsfeld spoke on 10 September 2001. I suppose the lack of explanation was overlooked in the rubble and aftermath of 9/11.

Puts me in mind of an old Gary Larsen 'Far Side' cartoon titled 'Why TV presenters are only shown from the waist up'. Multiple TV presenters were depicted, having tentacles in place of legs, gathered around an alien space-ship, and being admonished: "We now have control of their communications systems, and still the foolish Earthlings do not suspect A THING. Back to your stations!"

Forrest went back and re read your posted link, yes very much a fear.
I do not recommend we unmask here it can bring needless pain.
But some who come here do it only to put a point of view.
Garry Larson if a more interesting cartoonist ever lived I am unaware of him/her.

Ironically, the people of the USA stand to benefit most from Wikileaks- the only people who are against it are:
1- dodgy public servants and businesses with something (illegal) to hide
2- dodgy national leaders who were benefiting from skewed arrangements and don't want their trade partners to find out they are ripping them off, or don't want their people to know they agreed to engage in this ripoff
3- morons

It's really quite a simple analogy- either you support free press on public affairs (a vital element of democracy) and thus wikileaks, or you would rather live in a cozy dictatorship.

On a note of attempts to discredit it- you should have checked the papers a few weeks ago- the US government made a paper of "Top Secret things (in other countries) that must absolutely be kept secret from terrorists and not put on wikileaks!" including a snake-venom facility in QLD.
Which implies (aside from the USA likely required spying on these countries to obtain this information, and thus just as guilty as whoever leaked their documents):
1- the US government really cares about Australian snake venom falling into the hands of terrorists, and sincerely didn't want it leaked (but did anyway)
2- they just grabbed some random facilities in countries that haven't been so fast in helping them stop WL, and deliberately leaked it.