Uncensored WikiLeaks files circulate on internet

UNCENSORED copies of WikiLeaks’ massive tome of US State Department cables were circulating freely across the internet, a dramatic development which leaves a new batch of US sources vulnerable to embarrassment and potential retribution.

WikiLeaks has blamed Britain’s Guardian newspaper for the breach, saying that an investigative journalist had revealed the password needed to unlock the files in a book published earlier this year. Guardian journalists said that sloppy security at Julian Assange’s anti-secrecy website helped expose the cables to the world.

In a 1,600-word-long editorial posted online, WikiLeaks accused the Guardian’s investigative reporter David Leigh of betrayal, saying that his disclosure had jeopardised months of “careful work” WikiLeaks had undertaken to redact the cables.

“Revolutions and reforms are in danger of being lost as the unpublished cables spread to intelligence contractors and governments before the public,” said WikiLeaks’ statement.

Leigh and the Guardian denied wrongdoing, and the exact sequence of events WikiLeaks was referring to was clouded in confusion and recriminations.

It has long been known that WikiLeaks lost control of the raw cables even before they were published. One copy of the secret documents was leaked to The New York Times in Autumn 2010, and media organisations have since got copies independently of WikiLeaks.

But never before has the entire catalogue of unredacted cables made its way to the web.

Until recently, WikiLeaks released relatively small batches of files to its partner organisations — composed of dozens of international media and human rights groups — so that they could remove information which could put innocent people in jeopardy. Only then were the files posted online.

But with the unredacted cables now being sloshed around in the public domain, all that work has effectively been thrown out the window.

WikiLeaks has laid the blame on the Guardian and an unnamed “German individual.”

Leigh, however, said that WikiLeaks’ assertion was “time-wasting nonsense.”

He acknowledged that Assange had supplied him with a password needed to access the US embassy cables from a server back in July of 2010 — but said that Assange told him the site would expire within hours.

“What we published much later in our book was obsolete and harmless,” Leigh said. “We did not disclose the URL (web address) where the file was located, and in any event, Assange had told us it would no longer exist.”

Leigh added that “I don’t see how a member of the public could access such a file anyway, unless a WikiLeaks or ex-WikiLeaks person tells them where it is located and what the file was called.”

Another Guardian journalist — who once worked for WikiLeaks — said that Assange was to blame, alleging that the 40-year-old Australian had recycled an old password when he republished the encrypted data later.

“Personal banking sites tell you not to reuse passwords. WikiLeaks doing the same for a file of such sensitivity is gross negligence,” James Ball said on Twitter.

Attempts to reach WikiLeaks staffers for further clarification were unsuccessful, although on Twitter the group contested statements by Leigh and others, warning of “continuous lies to come.”

To add to the intrigue, WikiLeaks asked its 1 million or so followers to download a large coded file which it said it would decrypt at a later point. Then it threatened to directly publish the entire unredacted archive of State Department documents.

The Wikileaks revelations’ impact has been debated. WikiLeaks says the cables’ release played a key role in setting off the movement that has jolted dictatorial regimes in the Arab world and exposed wrongdoing across the world.

But American officials have warned that the disclosures could also have had serious consequences for informants, activists and others named in the cables — as well as American diplomacy more widely.