Wikileaks: Return of the Anonymous

Despite the government's best efforts, The Internet would not let Wikileaks go down easy.  It seems every disturbance in the Force has an equal and opposite reaction in the Force.

After being shut down for nearly a day and a half, hundreds of mirrors of Wikileaks immediately popped up world wide.  This ensured the continuation of the released documents, regardless of whether Wikileaks itself continued to survive.

Additionally, a group of computer geeks ("hackers" would be a misuse of the term) referring to themselves as Anonymous began to perform DDoS attacks on websites that, in their view, attacked Wikileaks.  In Operation Leakspin (yes, as in Leekspin), those who participated were able to use their computers to overload the servers of both Visa and Mastercard's sites.  This is the technological equivalent of forming a picket line - after the servers had been overloaded enough, nobody could access the site anymore.  Consumer information inside Visa and Mastercard's sites were still secure - any other claims are hoaxes.  However, the message was clear - mess with the Internet, and the Internet will mess with you.

Overall, it seems that those against Wikileaks are now suffering from what is known as the Streisand Effect - the more they attempted to snuff out or remove the leaked information, the more media coverage the story received, and the more resistance they received in return.  Funny how that works.

Personally, I support the mirrors.  These documents have already been leaked publicly, and cannot and should not be "unleaked."  Precedent for this was already established with the Pentagon Papers.  As much as the US Government would like the option, time cannot be turned backwards.  Any attempt to snuff out publicly released information, whether it be direct or indirect, is nothing short of censorship.  Internet censorship is not an area the US needs to dabble in, else we might start drinking the Chinese Kool-Aid.

As far as the Anonymous attacks, I believe they resorted to technological "violence" to make their point.  And it was made. However, it was rather temporary.

The bottom line is, I do not blame Wikileaks - they were simply a messenger.  I do not blame Anonymous - they were simply protesters.  I do blame the US Government in its ineptitude to protect classified information. I do blame Bradley Manning for abusing his security clearance to so freely release these documents.  As I said, I do not support leaking of classified information outright - we do have military secrets for a reason.

There are still more questions that still loom in my mind about this issue though.

• Who leaked these documents?  We know Army PFC Bradley Manning has been captured, but was he really the only one?  With the sheer volume of classified information that has been released so far, I am inclined to think (and hope) that he is not.
• If he was not alone, how is it that nobody else has been found guilty?  Wouldn't the SIPRnet logs show when/where the documents were accessed, how they were copied, and who was logged in while this all happened?  Surely it couldn't have been one person working alone.
• If this information was so secret and so vital, how was it so easily copied?  According to Bradley Manning, he copied the files onto a CD-RW marked "Lady Gaga."  We can't cut off a CD-RW from being used on SIPRnet or JWICS?  There are controls in place to regulate the transfer of data on these networks, and even on unclassified networks, especially when it comes to using removable media.  I'm not sure how this clandestine unmarked CD-RW containing Lady Gaga made it into the network, or how the controls allowed for transfer to and from the disk.
• Better yet, why do those computers even have removable drives?  It makes me wonder if anyone in government technological security ever watched the scene in Mission: Impossible where Tom Cruise copies a set of files en masse from a "CIA top secret black vault" computer readily onto a floppy disk (and that was in 1996).  Lesson number one should have been:  if you don't want someone carrying information out, don't give them the means to do so.
• Why would the US Government ever allow such broad access to so many classified documents?  Classified information is only accessed on a need-to-know basis.  If you don't need to know the information contained in hundreds of thousands of documents concerning Afghanistan, Iraq, and diplomatic comments (and who really would?), then you shouldn't be able to access the documents.  It makes me wonder if they were all sitting in some folder marked "*.* SUPER SECRET STUFF - PASSWORD IS PASSWORD."
• Also, according to the previously linked Wired article, Manning was "rummaging through classified military and government networks for more than a year."  He was allowed to look at documents just at his own will?  I guess that throws the whole "need to know" thing out the window.

Perhaps this situation is why Yoda so famously said, "Military secrets are the most fleeting of all."  Oh wait, it wasn't Yoda, it was... well, nevermind.