Ongoing debate on whether its better to hide government informers or expose them. They want to be hidden, their victims want them exposed. Customarily the victims don't win due to superior PR of informers and those who pay them. One case of harm has received attention lately. A lot of attention, as if an orchestrated campaign in parallel to the Snowden affair dominated by massive withholdings, redactions and fragments while claiming large numbers of files in reserve -- a hoary dissimulation practice of those complicit with officials. Beyond that, those who get control of sensitive material deputize themselves to redact or hide, with appreciation of authorities, not understanding they are usually less capable of comsec and judgment than official holders. They are blinded and corrupted by the bright jewels suddenly coming their way. It has been seen that the sensitive material from both Manning and Snowden was breached rather quickly. Literally under the noses of the defenders by Lamo and by Miranda, perhaps others not publicized. Recipients rush to consult experts as if those experts are not cooperating with officials covertly under contract or as informants like Sabu, or are themselves less capable at comsec and judgment. And also blinded and corrupted by being consulted about matters only imagined heretofore. Experts are expert at duplicity one and all. In the Manning and Snowden cases, recipients were quickly shown to be unprepared for handling what came to them, compared to say, reporters, researchers, writers and scholars who had long experience. In both cases, the original leakers had unreasonable expectations that amateurs (we believe in amateurs over professionals) would rise to the occasion, could handle the pressure of acclaim and attacks, could protect the leakers, could manage the information release, could protect the information, could be as good as the leakers with much superior training and discipline. Not so, under allure of media celebrity the schemes fell apart for Manning, maybe for Snowden. For this the leakers had no training only the shallowness of news reports about who to share the material with. Even now, the battle goes on, with accusations of harm to those identified in leaked material by WikiLeaks shaping the release of Snowden material. Little attention is given to what failed in handing material to notorious persons without grasping their limitations and the risks posed by that. At 02:31 PM 12/17/2013, you wrote:
aka âIâm jealous that you have all the data and donât care if anyone gets hurt by it being dumped unredacted on the net.â
You realize that there are likely things hidden in the data that can get people killed. I know first hand, from a friend who *did* have their data in the wikileaks dump, that at least one of their informants only escaped being killed after it was unveiled because of family connections in the corrupt little nation they were in.
I hear a lot of sour grapes and jealousy from a few people of âHow dare Greenwald not give *me* access to all this data?!?!"
---------- From: John Young <mailto:jya@pipeline.com>John Young Reply: John Young <mailto:jya@pipeline.com>jya@pipeline.com Date: December 17, 2013 at 11:26:05 AM To: cypherpunks@cpunks.org <mailto:cypherpunks@cpunks.org>cypherpunks@cpunks.org Subject: Re: Fwd: Jacob impervious to "Rubber Hose Cryptanalysis" performed by Stewart Baker
How about an unfettered unredacted disclosure for unlimited access free of censorious redaction and withholding? -- Al Billings http://makehacklearn.org