Secret plan to kill Wikileaks with FUD leaked

[SecularMotion]

Source: SC Magazine

Three information security consultancies with links to US spy agencies cooked up a dirty tricks campaign late last year to destroy Wikileaks by exploiting its perceived weaknesses, reads a presentation released by the whistleblowers’ organisation that it claimed to be from the conspirators.

Around December 3, it was believed consultants at US defence contractors Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies and HBGary proposed to lawyers for a desperate Bank of America an alliance that would work to discredit the whistleblowers’ website using a divide and conquer approach.

The conspirators urged a disinformation war to “feed the fuel between feuding groups” that would include leaking fake documents to “call out the error”, creating “concern over the security of the infrastructure”, hacking Wikileaks to discover who the leakers were to “kill the project” and a media campaign to emphasise the “radical and reckless” nature of Wikileaks.

The Wikileaks Threat outlined in a report from The Tech Herald targeted individuals including journalist, constitutional lawyer and outspoken US Government critic Glenn Greenwald and the Tor Project's Jacob Appelbaum for special attention. It called for organisations to actively use social media to spy on potential leakers and highlighted the parlous state of Wikileaks' finances.

Read more: http://www.securecomputing.net.au/News/247706,secret-plan-to-kill-wikileaks-with-fud-leaked.aspx

[yodermon]

1. HBGary? lol n/t

[dotymed]

2. This is similar to

the Watergate break-in that precipitated Nixon's impeachment.
Of course it was all about the "cover-up" instead of the crime...

[On the Road]

3. Oldest Trick in the Book

Leak a fake document that's even more incriminating than the legitimate ones out there, and promptly expose it as a forgery. Works all the time.

[Bragi]

5. Rove built a whole career around that tactic /nt

[sunnystarr]

9. Reminds of me of the Dan Rather/Mary Mapes/

Killian documents controversy which covered up the truth about the scrubbing of GWB's national guard records.

[On the Road]

10. Me Too

The source of that document was never verified, but that's kind of the point. It's ironic that Michael Moore was wise enough to pass on it but Dan Rather took it and ran.

[Bragi]

4. Here's the presentation with the plan of attack

The plan is outlined here:
http://wikileaks.ch/IMG/pdf/WikiLeaks_Response_v6.pdf

Wikileaks summary of the plan:

* 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.
* Create concern over the security of the infrastructure. Create exposure stories. If the process is believed not to be secure they are done.
* 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.
* 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.
* Search for leaks. Use social media to profile and identify risky behavior of employees.

http://wikileaks.ch/

[bemildred]

6. And here we have a prime example:

Exclusive: Assange suggests bank documents are a snore

LONDON (Reuters) -The bombshell that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said could "take down a bank or two" may in fact be something of a dud.

Assange has said privately he does not know if his cache of internal Bank of America (BAC.N) data, whose public release he has suggested might be imminent, contains any big news or scandal, according to three people familiar with the WikiLeaks leader's private discussions about the material.

They said that Assange said it consists of e-mails from the hard-drive of a Bank of America executive's computer and that the latest messages are dated sometime in 2006.

The sources said that Assange privately acknowledged the material was not self-explanatory and that he personally was unable to make much sense of it. Assange indicated it would require a substantial amount of effort by financial experts to determine whether any of the material was newsworthy, according to the sources.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/09/us-wikileaks-bankofamerica-idUSTRE7185W620110209

Full of unattributed and un-assange-like statements from "insiders".

[mike_c]

7. thank Anonymous for taking down HBGary so thoroughly....

This seems to be the new American morality-- lies, disinformation campaigns, media management, message management. Nothing is ever it's represented by those in authority.

[Blue_Tires]

8. Well, they are nothing if not predictable...

I called this a few months back...

[DainBramaged]

11. How you kill with fud?

[mike_c]

12. dude, that was teh awesome....

:rofl:

[DainBramaged]

15. Teh the fud is the fud, unless you eats too muches fud, teh fud is teh fud

[defendandprotect]

13. k/r

[Electric Monk]

14. but don't suggest that might ever happen here or your post gets deleted

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=437x1959