Category Archives: Wikileaks

Visited WikiLeaks? NSA and GCHQ know about it

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Julian Assange in 2011 after losing appeals against extradition to Sweden

Efforts undertaken by the NSA and GCHQ to target groups including WikiLeaks, Anonymous and Pirate Bay using internet surveillance and prosecution have been detailed in an article published by The Intercept.

The latest documents leaked by NSA contractor Edward Snowden reveal that the NSA went to great lengths to target individuals associated with WikiLeaks, including founder Julian Assange and "the human network that supports it".

One particular document revealed that GCHQ tapped into fibre-optic cables to monitor visitors to the site in real time by tracking their IP addresses. It also tracked the search terms that visitors were using to reach the site, all as part of an operation codenamed ANTICRISIS GIRL. This suggests that internet users from anywhere in the world who visited WikiLeaks regularly could potentially have become a target for the NSA.

The documents also reveal that the NSA labelled WikiLeaks "a malicious foreign actor". The US government encouraged foreign regimes to press charges against Assange over WikiLeaks' publication of Afghanistan war logs.

"WikiLeaks strongly condemns the reckless and unlawful behaviour of the National Security Agency," said Julian Assange in a statement published on the WikiLeaks site. He called upon the Obama administration to conduct an investigation into the extent of the NSA's activity regarding the media, including the WikiLeaks network. He also criticised the media-monitoring activities of GCHQ, saying it shows no respect for the rule of law.

"No entity, including the NSA, should be permitted to act against journalists with impunity. We have instructed our General Counsel Judge Baltasar Garzn to prepare the appropriate response. The investigations into attempts to interfere with the work of WikiLeaks will go wherever they need to go. Make no mistake: those responsible will be held to account and brought to justice."

The Intercept -- the new publication launched by ex-Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has headed up the reporting on the Snowden documents -- points out that the WikiLeaks surveillance reveals just how far the NSA's actions stray from its "self-proclaimed focus on terrorism".

"The documents call into question the Obama administration's repeated insistence that US citizens are not being caught up in the sweeping surveillance dragnet being cast by the NSA. Under the broad rationale considered by the agency, for example, any communication with a group designated as a 'malicious foreign actor,' such as WikiLeaks and Anonymous, would be considered fair game for surveillance," the site points out.

The targeting of WikiLeaks, Anonymous and Pirate Bay follows earlier revelations that GCHQ used DDoS attacks to target hacker collectives Anonymous and LulzSec. These latest accusations do not reflect well on GCHQ, which maintains its stance that "all of GCHQ's work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight". It's hard to see how this would apply to the monitoring of citizens from the UK and abroad who might be doing nothing more than reading the WikiLeaks site.

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Visited WikiLeaks? NSA and GCHQ know about it

Spies monitored WikiLeaks visitors in real time, Snowden docs show

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Newly revealed documents leaked by former NSA analyst-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden reveal that American and British spy agencies have targeted whistleblower publication WikiLeaks since 2008, not long after the controversial website was launched, reports The Intercept. As part of its surveillance efforts, the UKs Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) collected real-time data on visitors to WikiLeaks, which included country of origin, and search terms used to arrive at the website.

By exploiting its ability to tap into the fiber-optic cables that make up the backbone of the Internet, the agency confided to allies in 2012, it was able to collect the IP addresses of visitors in real time, as well as the search terms that visitors used to reach the site from search engines like Google, reports Glenn Greenwald and Ryan Gallagher.

The collection of IP addresses used to access WikiLeaks, which promised anonymity to whistleblowers, could have potentially been used to reveal their identities.

A document dated 2010 shows that the NSA added WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to its so-called Manhunting Timeline, which lists individuals that the US government considers risks. Assange was added to the Manhunting Timeline after WikiLeaks began publishing 70,000 classified documents about the war in Afghanistan. The document cites a 2010 report from the Daily Beast, which stated that the Obama administration is pressing Britain, Germany, Australia, and other allied Western governments to consider opening criminal investigations of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and to severely limit his nomadic travels across international borders.

The Manhunt Timeline also lists Iceland as one of the nations pressured to prosecute Assange, who remains secluded at the Ecuadorian embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning under allegations of sexual misconduct.

In a statement, Assanged condemned the surveillance of WikiLeaks by the NSA and GCHQ and its supporters, calling it criminal activity against the media.

News that the NSA planned these operations at the level of its Office of the General Counsel is especially troubling, said Assange. No less concerning are revelations that the US government deployed elements of state power to pressure European nations into abusing their own legal systems; and that the British spy agency GCHQ is engaged in extensive hostile monitoring of a popular publishers website and its readers.

Another program used by GCHQ to understand and shape the Human Terrain of the Web, dubbed Squeaky Dolphin, collected real-time data that included YouTube video views, URLs liked on Facebook, and Blogspot/Blogger visits, according to a page of the leaked documents.

Further documents show that the NSA used its resources to target file-sharing sites the Pirate Bay, which the agency cites as an example of a malicious website, as well as the hacktivist collective Anonymous.

DT

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Spies monitored WikiLeaks visitors in real time, Snowden docs show

WikiLeaks now has own search engine

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Followers of WikiLeaks can now expect an easier time searching for leaked cables and other sensitive documents after the whistleblower site activated its own search engine.

A report on The Next Web said the WikiLeaks search engine provides visitors with much-needed help in poring through documents posted there.

"Just like Google, you can also refine the nature of your search for more accurate and focused results. Filters allow you to request that Wikileaks ignore documents with certain words, or only if your search terms appear within the body of the page," it said.

The search engine also has advanced options, including checkboxes that let visitors find files from a specific WikiLeaks release.

The Next Web pointed out WikiLeaks, while informative to many, was a pain to navigate for people searching for particular documents.

But it said that with the search engine, many newcomers can "leverage and learn from the mass of information that WikiLeaks now offers on the Web." VC, GMA News

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WikiLeaks now has own search engine

Snowden files show governments monitor Wikileaks and others

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UNITED STATES AND BRITISH spying agencies the National Security Agency (NSA) and Government Communications Head Quarters (GCHQ) are digging into the lives of Wikileaks supporters and visitors to other contentious websites, according to documents released by communications surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Classified documents released by The Intercept website show that the agencies have an interest in Wikileaks and its visitors. The NSA documents refer to the people it targets because they access the Wikileaks website as "the human network that supports Wikileaks."

The documents reveal that GCHQ was able to tap into Wikileaks through the fibre optic network, which it presumably can surveil at will. Once in, it was able to look at real time use and see what kind of Google searches were driving visitors to the website.

So concerned are the agencies about the Wikileaks website and its users that it was almost dubbed as a "malicious foreign actor", a term that is usually reserved for alleged terrorist organisations. Designating the website in that way would have given the US agency the right to warrantlessly monitor anyone, US citizen or otherwise, who visited the website.

The takeaway from the collection of three documents is that Wikileaks had both spy agencies rattled, and they reveal that the US Army called it an enemy and plotted ways of destroying it.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange expressed his thoughts about the documents and the support that they have provided for the organisation's legal team. He remained defiant and released a statement through the Wikileaks website.

"WikiLeaks strongly condemns the reckless and unlawful behavior of the National Security Agency. We call on the Obama administration to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate the extent of the NSA's criminal activity against the media including WikiLeaks and its extended network," he said.

"The NSA and its UK accomplices show no respect for the rule of law. But there is a cost to conducting illicit actions against a media organisation. We have already filed criminal cases against the FBI and US military in multiple European jurisdictions.... No entity, including the NSA, should be permitted to act against journalists with impunity. We have instructed our general counsel Judge Baltasar Garzn to prepare the appropriate response.

|The investigations into attempts to interfere with the work of WikiLeaks will go wherever they need to go. Make no mistake: those responsible will be held to account and brought to justice."

Also revealed in the documents is the eye that was turned onto other websites, that while less obviously threatening, still managed to concern sophisticated surveillance agencies.

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Snowden files show governments monitor Wikileaks and others

Snowden files show how governments monitor Wikileaks and supporters

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UNITED STATES AND BRITISH spying agencies the National Security Agency (NSA) and Government Communications Head Quarters (GCHQ) are digging into the lives of Wikileaks supporters and visitors to other contentious websites, according to documents released by communications surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Classified documents released by The Intercept website show that the agencies have an interest in Wikileaks and its visitors. The NSA documents refer to the people it targets because they access the Wikileaks website as "the human network that supports Wikileaks."

The documents reveal that GCHQ was able to tap into Wikileaks through the fibre optic network, which it presumably can surveil at will. Once in, it was able to look at real time use and see what kind of Google searches were driving visitors to the website.

So concerned are the agencies about the Wikileaks website and its users that it was almost dubbed as a "malicious foreign actor", a term that is usually reserved for alleged terrorist organisations. Designating the website in that way would have given the US agency the right to warrantlessly monitor anyone, US citizen or otherwise, who visited the website.

The takeaway from the collection of three documents is that Wikileaks had both spy agencies rattled, and they reveal that the US Army called it an enemy and plotted ways of destroying it.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange expressed his thoughts about the documents and the support that they have provided for the organisation's legal team. He remained defiant and released a statement through the Wikileaks website.

"WikiLeaks strongly condemns the reckless and unlawful behavior of the National Security Agency. We call on the Obama administration to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate the extent of the NSA's criminal activity against the media including WikiLeaks and its extended network," he said.

"The NSA and its UK accomplices show no respect for the rule of law. But there is a cost to conducting illicit actions against a media organisation. We have already filed criminal cases against the FBI and US military in multiple European jurisdictions.... No entity, including the NSA, should be permitted to act against journalists with impunity. We have instructed our general counsel Judge Baltasar Garzn to prepare the appropriate response.

|The investigations into attempts to interfere with the work of WikiLeaks will go wherever they need to go. Make no mistake: those responsible will be held to account and brought to justice."

Also revealed in the documents is the eye that was turned onto other websites, that while less obviously threatening, still managed to concern sophisticated surveillance agencies.

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Snowden files show how governments monitor Wikileaks and supporters

WikiLeaks

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Archives 2006-2010

WikiLeaks released the UK government database of all 1,841,177 UK post codes together with latitude and longitude, grid references, county, district, ward, NHS codes and regions, Ordinance Survey reference, and date of introduction. The database was last updated on July 8, 2009 and is over 100,000 pages in size.

Read this in Wikileaks Archives

The released document detailed the key facts and themes NATO representatives are to give and to avoid giving to the world press. Among the revelations, which we encourage the public to review in detail, is Jordans presence as secret member of the US lead occupation force.

Read this in Wikileaks Archives

On Monday 16th March 2009, The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom published a series of leaked memos from the banking giant Barclays. The next day, these documents were removed from The Guardian web archive, as a result of a court injunction obtained in the middle of the night

Wikileaks obtained the documents from an anonymous source and published them the next day. The documents are copies of alleged internal memos from within Barclays Bank. They were sent by an anonymous whistleblower to Vince Cable, Liberal-Democrat shadow chancellor. The documents reveal a number of elaborate international tax avoidance schemes by the SCM (Structured Capital Markets) division of Barclays. According to these documents, Barclays has been systematically assisting clients to avoid huge amounts of tax they should be liable for across multiple jurisdictions.

Read this in Wikileaks Archives

Wikileaks released a confidential NATO report from January 2009, revealed that civilian deaths from the war in Afghanistan had increased by 46% over the past year. The report showed a dramatic escalation of the war and civil disorder. Coalition deaths increased by 35%, assassinations and kidnappings by 50% and attacks on the Kabul based Government of Hamid Karzai also more than doubled, rising a massive 119%.

Read this in Wikileaks Archives

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WikiLeaks