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.

Most people could not care less about Wiki Leaks. The
Canonization of Assange by the left however is sickening

runner if you think it is only *the left* supporting this man you are quite wrong.
Again.

thinker 2 - It is indeed heartenign to witness the growing support for Wikileaks. I disagree with runner that most people couldn't care less. Many people care about what their governments are doing in their name.

Belly - I suspect there are many more Americans who would wish for better government and would admonish many of the shenanigans the US has got into over the decades; and whom support WL. Much of what we see comes from a strong Conservative media but at least the US has also offered up the Colbert report and Jon Stewart. :)

I like Americans in general, the everyday people I have met are usually very hospitable and friendly, I suspect like Australia, governments do not always reflect the feelings of their constituency.

FG
It must be exhausting to keep up with so many fake online identities as per your link. Tentacle legs indeed. It must be exhausting for those sustaining all those identities. There must be no such thig as an efficiency dividend in the US public service. It is no wonder some aspects of US administration are easy to spoof.

King Hazza
For sure, the only threat is for those who are abusing power and which is why WL has gained so much support here and OS. This report shows how ridiculous the 'game play' will go.

Grim news this morning extradition is to take place,to a country that has branded this man public enemy number one.
Appeals will take place,I have no doubts if it was Mr Joe average it would never have come to this.
Good points Friend and I agree, but it is the tea party type Republicans who I fear.
I rummaged around my DVD,s last night,watched two American ww11 propaganda films.
It was a different America on display then.
Constant reminders to freedom of speech.
On this, and net censor ship hangs our future, with speech truly free we can find common ground all over the world.
A tool for world peace but some want only to kill it.

All I can hope is that the Swedish courts reject it (I doubt the British government has the balls to demand better of itself though).

Dunno if you need to be a brain surgeon to figure it out. They're releasing stuff they shouldn't. They need stopping. Ummm, that's it.

Wikileaks lost ANY credibility with me with "collateral murder". After that, I'm wasting my time reading about him.

It is said a splinter group has been formed from within Wikileaks.
Let us hope for ten times ten new reliable sites to start up, and that we can see the false ones set up to defame real ones.
Conservatives ,just a very few, are using support for Wikileaks to sling off at us, a sign in my view some fear truth and honesty.
If Wikileaks was producing lies I would be concerned, but as it is truth they print I am shocked at the criticism.

This is not just about Julian Assange Stg, it's about world communication and the control of it. It's about freedom of the press,
it's about an avenue for whistle blowers world over to expose things, that in most cases are clearly wrong in the minds of most people.
It's about the every day person being able to see his/her world more clearly. It's about our democratic way of life.

Assange is obviously being made the example, to cause fear in all those whom are considering to dare to expose Gov'ts, Big Business, the rich and powerful, with their pants down.

If nothing else Stg, it's better than reality Television because it has a bit of reality. And we might actually learn something from it.

Assange himself is a sideshow, the real target of the superpowers are the minds of the masses.

Also Stg, Assange, is an Australian citizen whom doesn't seem to have been afforded the rights of one. His treatment so far mirrors that which was afforded to another Australian citizen, Mandouh Habib (hope I've spelt that correctly) excepted they (the U.S.) haven't gotten Assange to the Guantanamo Bay part of the journey yet, with the sanction of our country's leaders.

I contradiction of their own, is it? 1st Amendment, guaranteeing freedom of the press, and contrary to our own Australian concepts of citizenship and it's rights and benefits.

He's a terrorist in the eyes of our Gov't. In my eyes he's a journalist doing the job you would hope a journalist was doing.

I very much agree with every word of that well written post thinker 2.
If just for a second we look at the middle east even China, we can see the benefits of the Internet and free speech.
For the first time in decades I Begin to hope world peace is possible.
Todays oppressed young all over the world are full of promise.
Who would have thought America land of the free,would be a danger to all this promise.
Wikileaks could never have existed if the world had nothing to hide.
China is unlikely to change, yet, because of the protests,I wish however north Korea had face book and such.

Ben Eltham wrote a great article for New Matilda entitled, "Wikileaks:
Democracy 101." In it he tells us that, "Wkileaks is a new medium. The organisation is less than five years old. From Wikileaks we're learning a great deal about the sinews of political power and financial power - that link the modern internet to the security and executive agencies of the contemporary nation-state. The content of these lessons has much to teach us about the state of our democratic societies."

What we're being taught is quite revealing. As Eltham points out:
"Wikileaks has been devastating not because for what it says but because it has cut through the lies, disinformation, and media spin on which modern democracies depend."

As Julian Assange points out: "There is nothing more wrong than a government lying to its people about (just) wars, than asking these same citizens to put their lives and their taxes on the line for these lies."

It's therefore not surprising that there's a "War Against Wikileaks."
There's much at stake - and as we know "Justice" wears a blindfold for a reason.

Lexi, every word could have been mine good stuff.
Control, once Hitlers mob tried to control what we think and how we think.
In the name of freedom, maybe free one way trade, tyrants, have been put in place or propped up by super powers.
Self interest and greed is behind much of the need to stop free speech.
Let us never forget, this man is not on trial for his ego.
Not for his Sharpe looks.
He is on trial, BRANDED STATE ENEMY NUMBER ONE for? not wearing a condom during consensual sex.
Such a crime, in that country is to take place in a closed court.
IF this man ends up in America, we can not rule out the country that forced an end to British colonialism after ww2 has forgotten its once proud traditions.
We must never discount the good the Internet and Wikileaks has done

StG, do tell how you expect a democratic country to operate properly when we don't have a free press to tell us what our own elected representatives are doing with our money and putting in our name?

Him releasing 'secrets' isn't going to do it. It's no secret that there's varying levels of society. There's what you and me live. There's what the police to federal police live. Then there's the military. Then there's the government and their behind the scenes wheeling and dealing. Then there's the people behind the government. This is no secret.

What do you want, access to EVERY piece of information that comes across the border? Join ASIO if you want to know that stuff. What Wikileaks are doing is ANTI-social. It doesn't do anything other than make information MORE insular.

StG sorry can not agree here, on any thing you said.
20 years ago a truck rolled over near every day here.
A towey had police in his pocket, paid big money up front to hire them while off duty, to reload goods.
And in truth steal as much as they could.
Lets say a group of workers who worked in the clean up, became involved, at first found truck loaded up.
Then took a share.
After a while that working group had to work some other place, out of sight for a few hours.
And just some times locks on undamaged containers got broken in to.
Those who became whistle blowers never recovered, see even us, we treat people who search for truth poorly.
and we should not do so.

Great story bro.

StG you still haven't answered my question- how do you expect a democracy to be able to function as such- or even call itself such, if people have no right to free press on issues of public importance, involving elected public servants spending public money and setting public policy?

Last night ABC TV Wikileaks under the microscope, any one see it?
I must admit I had never seen the bit about those dreadful wounds due to chemical used and covered up.
Never knew guilty party got a court order stopping its release and banning media telling about it!!
Saw again the film of that helicopter MURDER willful Murders in Innocent, wounded people.
In the middle east now, today, we most of us, look at change and HOPE for success for the protesters.
We want an end to murders,unless it is our side murdering.
Wikileaks if not murdered may just improve the world including the west.
Dictatorships are not all run by dictators America, its alias, are atempting a dictatorship one that wants to bury its faults not change them, a dictatorship in fact in controlling our right to know the truth.
Others,if we win,will look back to these days as the time we moved closer to a better world.

Wikileaks is really about providing information to people to make informed decisions rather than relying on digested and edited information fed to us by the media, governments and corporations. The premise is not that there is a great conspiracy and that all these institutions are corrupt. That is a ridiculous assumption.

It has to do with the rights of citizens and a more than reasonable demand to keep to account those who represent 'their' interests.

Get rid of the fertile grounds for corruption and you will make it much more difficult. WL is a publisher of raw data but there is some decision making about safety in releases. There are many other sites that reveal political donations or sites like Crikey with their 'Dictator Watch' which reveals the growing wealth of dictators in places like Libya.

Corruption thrives when information is concealed or veiled under the cover of war on terror (just for example). That is not to diminish any 'war on terror' as there is enough evidence to suggest the threat in many cases is not overstated.

Basically it comes down to placing more trust in ordinary people to be able to make reasonable judgements and make choices on who should represent them. Barring the obvious need for secrecy in some quarters, why should a small elite decide who should know and who shouldn't particularly where there is some monetary or career aspirational self interest.

The argument that the populace is too ignorant only serves in perpetuating ignorance rather than raise the bar - a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Open access to information increases rather than decreases the opportunities for journalistic or individual analysis and creates a richer ground for informed media pieces.

To night ABC TV Wikileaks is the subject 9.30 the time is it Q and A? not sure like to see its detractors take a look.
Daily our world becomes a better place, because of the net.
We may yet,left right and center have to march to protect our right to know.
To know who is pulling the strings that control far too much in our lives.

Well said Pelican.

Yes should put it in print Pelican very impressed with your thought processes.
Got it wrong Q and A was worth watching but it is tonight and I will be watching.
If StG could watch and report his views here tomorrow??

Thanks thinker and Belly. This is such an important issue and the implications are significant. The whole argument about conspiracies is blurring the value in what WL is aiming to achieve.

I watched an interview with Assange recently and recounted one of his first encounters with corrupt authority or abuse of power. As a child coming home from a function with his mother two men pulled her over and basically threatened her to stop protesting and gathering information with scientists about the British nuclear testing in the Australian outback.

The men implied that her son might be taken away from her given the late hour and she could be determined as an unfit mother. After that she lay low for some time to avoid risking her son's removal.

I cannot find the script from the one I saw on the ABC but here is a link to an American 60 Minutes interview which at the very beginning goes into this incident and his early experiences with authority. If I can find the ABC link I will post it later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wobyT1yPHO0

Thanks Pelican I never knew that this mater should be receiving the attention of conspiracy theorists if any thing does.
I truly doubt,some understand how very important this is for us all.

I do agree Belly. We are in the midst of a war over the control of information. It is vitally important to the future, that the flow and content of information remain pure and as unadulterated as possible. Only the whole story reveals the truth.

Truth among all principles remains the critical one for mine. In my current lowly occupation Belly that of salesperson, it is incumbent of me legally, to be truthful. The disappointing thing about selling is it is not incumbent upon the customers to be truthful. In fact customers think it is forgivable to lie in the heat of negotiation. Deception is not necessarily forgivable in my mind, and reduces my empathy for the client, and therefore the overall experience ends up being a negative for all concerned, although happy for some (even all) on the face of it.

If people knew they could trust each other one on one, life would be much better.

Understanding breeds appreciation, and without the full picture our capacity for empathy is diminished.
We're choosing live in the world of "what you don't know won't hurt you".

Never knowing what "it is", that is actually going on.

The modern equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns.