Techno-Politics at WikiLeaks
“This is the first real info war, and you are the soldiers.” John Perry Barlow
The New Whistleblower Paradigm
The widely shared critique of Julian Assange’s self-inflicted celebrity cult invites the formulation of alternatives. Wouldn’t it be better to run WikiLeaks as an anonymous collective or organized network, a concept discussed in the next chapter and that is now out-of-beta and starting to get real? Some wish to see many websites doing the same work as WikiLeaks. The group around Daniel Domscheit-Berg that launched OpenLeaks learned from previous experiences „that they did not scale very well“.*5 *( 5 ) Easily overlooked in the calls for WikiLeaks’ proliferation is the amount of expert knowledge required to run a leak site where whistleblowers can submit their material in a secure way. We need an ABC tool-kit of secure submission software. When all the media and legal dust has settled, who knows whether Wikileaks retrospectively will turn out to be the prototype for an entirely new family of whistleblower software.
Perhaps paradoxically, there is much secrecy in this way of making-things-public. Is it realistic to promote the idea that ordinary internet users will be able to download the OpenLeaks software kit and get started? WikiLeaks is not a plug ’n play blog application like WordPress, and the word “wiki” in its name is misleading. Contrary to the collaboration philosophy of Wikipedia, WikiLeaks turned into a closed shop that was managed by a handful of people. The thousands of volunteers whom the organisation in 2009 and 2010 claimed to have were illusory and the step to work with The Guardian and other newspapers was in fact a necessity, due to the total absence of its own network of friendly editors and researchers.*6 *( 6 )
(* 4 ) One is forced to acknowledge that the know-how necessary to run a facility like WikiLeaks is pretty arcane. Documents not only need to be received anonymously, but also be further anonymised before they are released online. They also must be edited before dispatched to the servers of international news organisations and other trusted parties such as NGOs and unions. It is questionable if such sensitive tasks can be “outsourced” to the crowds. In this respect, what WikiLeaks teaches us is how not to organise collective editorial flows.
WikiLeaks has built up much trust and confidence over the years and newcomers must go through that same, time-consuming process. The principle of leaks is not the hack (into state or corporate networks), but to facilitate insiders from large organisations to copy sensitive, confidential data and pass it on to the public domain while remaining anonymous. If you are aspiring to become a leak node, you’d better start acquainting yourself with processes like OPSEC, or operations security, a step-by-step plan which according to Wikipedia “identifies critical information to determine if friendly actions can be observed by adversary intelligence systems, determines if information obtained by adversaries could be interpreted to be useful to them, and then executes selected measures that eliminate or reduce adversary exploitation of friendly critical information.” (Wikipedia b) (* 7 ) The WikiLeaks slogan says: “courage is contagious”. According to experts, people who intend to run a WikiLeaks-type operation need nerves of steel. So before we call for one, ten, many WikiLeaks, let’s be clear that those involved run risks. Whistleblower protection is paramount. Another issue is the protection of people mentioned in the leaks. The Afghan War Logs showed that leaks can also cause “collateral damage”. Editing (and eliding) is crucial: not only OPSEC, but also OPETHICS. If publishing is not carried out in a way that is absolutely secure for all concerned, there is a definite risk that the “revolution in journalism” and politics unleashed by WikiLeaks will be stopped in its tracks.
Let us not think that taking a stand for or against WikiLeaks is what matters most. The WikiLeaks principle is here to stay, until it either scuttles itself or is destroyed by opposing forces. Our point is rather to (try to) assess and ascertain what WikiLeaks can, could and maybe even should do, and to help formulate how “we” could relate to and interact with it. Despite all its drawbacks and against all odds, WikiLeaks has rendered a sterling service to the cause of transparency, democracy and openness. The quantitative—and what looks soon to become the qualitative—turn of information overload is a fact of contemporary life. The glut of disclosable information can only be expected to grow—and exponentially so. To organize and interpret this Himalaya of data is a collective challenge, whether we give it the name WikiLeaks or not.
If we look at the big picture again, we are dealing with a shift from hacking to leaking here, both as IT tools democratise beyond the geeks and hackers and with a growing crisis in legitimacy due to financial scandals, the economic crisis and widening gaps in society. Disenfranchised individuals who recently were fired, feel they have nothing to lose and will overcome their fear and expose the hidden communications of authorities. Platforms come and go but what remains of the WikiLeaks saga, no matter how banal its poor inner life may be, is the outing of the very idea of leaking. Will leaks turn into cascades?
Davies, Nick (2010): 10 days in Sweden: the full allegations against Julian Assange. In: The Guardian, Friday 17 December 2010, 21.30 GMT. Online unter: www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-sweden (12.03.2013).
Domscheit-Berg, Daniel (2011): Inside Wikileaks, Meine Zeit bei der gefährlichsten Webseite der Welt, Berlin: Econ Verlag.
Ellison, Sarah (2011): The Man Who Spilled the Secrets. In: Vanityfair. Online unter: www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2011/02/the-guardian-201102.print (12.03.2013).
Leigh, David /Harding, Luke (2011): Wikileaks, Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy, New York: PublicAffairs.
Winer, Dave (2010): Apple is green. In: Scripting News, September 03, 2010. Online unter scripting.com/stories/2010/09/03/appleIsGreen.html (12.03.2013).
Wikipedia (a): Electronic discovery. Online unter en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_discovery (12.03.2013).
Wikipedia (b): Operations security. Online unter en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operations_security (12.03.2013).
Geert Lovink ( 2013): Techno-Politics at WikiLeaks. “This is the first real info war, and you are the soldiers.” John Perry Barlow. In: p/art/icipate – Kultur aktiv gestalten # 02 , https://www.p-art-icipate.net/techno-politics-at-wikileaks/
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