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 “I’m jealous that you
have all the data and don’t care if anyone gets hurt by it being dumped
unredacted on the net.”
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 “How dare
Greenwald not give *me* access to all this data?!?!"
From: John Young John Young
Reply: John Young
jya@pipeline.com
Date: December 17, 2013 at 11:26:05 AM
To: 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