Wikileaks Pairs with Anonymous to Publish Intelligence Firm's Dirty Laundry

In an unprecedented collaboration between Anonymous and WikiLeaks, the secret spilling site began leaking Sunday night portions of a massive trove of e-mails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor that Anonymous obtained by hacking the company in December.

WikiLeaks did not mention the source of the reported five gigabytes of e-mails in its press release, but did say it has been working for months with 25 media outlets from around the world to analyze the documents.

The first batch of leaked e-mails purport to show that Stratfor monitored the political prankster group known as The Yes Men on behalf of Dow Chemical, which has been targeted by The Yes Men over the company’s handling of the Bhopal disaster. The e-mails also purport to show Stratfor’s attempt to set up an investment fund with a Goldman Sachs director to trade on the intelligence Stratfor collects, as well as give insight into how the private intelligence firm acquires, and sometimes pays for, information.

Stratfor, somewhat akin to a privatized CIA, sells its analyses of global politics to major corporations and government agencies.

Members of Anonymous with direct knowledge of the hack and transfer of data to WikiLeaks told Wired that the group decided to turn the information over to WikiLeaks because the site was more capable of analyzing and spreading the leaked information than Anonymous would be.

“WikiLeaks has great means to publish and disclose,” the anon told Wired. “Also, they work together with media in a way we don’t.”

“Basically, WL is the ideal partner for such stuff,” the anon continued. “Antisec acquires the shit, WL gets it released in a proper manner.” Antisec is the arm of Anonymous that is known for hacking into servers.

According to Antisec participants, Stratfor was targeted not just for its poor security, but also because of its client list, which includes major companies and government entities

“We believe police and employees who work for the most significant fortune 500 companies are the most responsible for perpetuating the machinery of capitalism and the state,” said one Antisec participant in December, “That there will be repercussions for when you choose to betray the people and side with the rich ruling classes.”

Anons also told Wired that future collaborations with WikiLeaks could involve a series of hacks that will be announced, one after another, every Friday for the foreseeable future. If that happens, the Stratfor e-mail release could be the first sign of a new, powerful alliance between the two groups, each of which has vexed and angered the world’s most powerful governments and corporations.

When WikiLeaks received the documents on a server it controlled, it acknowledged the successful transfer with a coded, public Tweet, according to an anon with direct knowledge of the collaboration.

A document provided to Wired that could not be authenticated indicated that the media partners of WikiLeaks agreed to parcel out stories on the leaks over the coming week and a half. Those media partners do not include previous partners such as the Guardian and U.S. partners The New York Times and the Washington Post.

According to the document, e-mails about WikiLeaks and Anonymous will be disclosed Wednesday, followed by separate disclosures on Italy, the Middle East and then Asian countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, among others. The project, code-named Rock Guitar, is officially named “The Global Intelligence Files.”

Stratfor had been aware that the e-mails would likely be published in some form by Anonymous, but said in January that the e-mails should not embarrass the company.

The collaboration between WikiLeaks and Anonymous is an odd couple pairing. WikiLeaks has largely crumbled over the last 18 months, due to internal disagreements over the management style and legal problems of its outspoken leader Julian Assange. By contrast, Anonymous is an amorphous group with no leadership structure.

If Anonymous continues feeding WikiLeaks with documents, the secret spilling site could return to a prominence that seemed lost due to technical difficulties, legal troubles, in-fighting and public fallings out with media partners in the wake of the site’s publication of a massive trove of U.S. documents in 2010 and 2011.

WikiLeaks’s alleged source for those documents, Pfc. Bradley Manning, is facing a U.S. army court martial and a possible sentence of life imprisonment.

As for how the collaboration between the two groups went, an anon with direct knowledge of it indicated that the new relationship had some tough moments.

“There were some natural tensions as usually can happen inside partnership,” the anon said. ”I hope this was only the beginning of a beautiful relationship.”

Quinn Norton is a writer and photographer who peripatetically covers net culture, copyright, computer security, intellectual property, body modification, medicine, and biotech.
Follow @quinnnorton on Twitter.

View the original article here

Wikileaks Pairs with Anonymous to Publish Intelligence Firm's Dirty Laundry

In an unprecedented collaboration between Anonymous and WikiLeaks, the secret spilling site began leaking Sunday night portions of a massive trove of e-mails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor that Anonymous obtained by hacking the company in December.

WikiLeaks did not mention the source of the reported five gigabytes of e-mails in its press release, but did say it has been working for months with 25 media outlets from around the world to analyze the documents.

The first batch of leaked e-mails purport to show that Stratfor monitored the political prankster group known as The Yes Men on behalf of Dow Chemical, which has been targeted by The Yes Men over the company’s handling of the Bhopal disaster. The e-mails also purport to show Stratfor’s attempt to set up an investment fund with a Goldman Sachs director to trade on the intelligence Stratfor collects, as well as give insight into how the private intelligence firm acquires, and sometimes pays for, information.

Stratfor, somewhat akin to a privatized CIA, sells its analyses of global politics to major corporations and government agencies.

Members of Anonymous with direct knowledge of the hack and transfer of data to WikiLeaks told Wired that the group decided to turn the information over to WikiLeaks because the site was more capable of analyzing and spreading the leaked information than Anonymous would be.

“WikiLeaks has great means to publish and disclose,” the anon told Wired. “Also, they work together with media in a way we don’t.”

“Basically, WL is the ideal partner for such stuff,” the anon continued. “Antisec acquires the shit, WL gets it released in a proper manner.” Antisec is the arm of Anonymous that is known for hacking into servers.

According to Antisec participants, Stratfor was targeted not just for its poor security, but also because of its client list, which includes major companies and government entities

“We believe police and employees who work for the most significant fortune 500 companies are the most responsible for perpetuating the machinery of capitalism and the state,” said one Antisec participant in December, “That there will be repercussions for when you choose to betray the people and side with the rich ruling classes.”

Anons also told Wired that future collaborations with WikiLeaks could involve a series of hacks that will be announced, one after another, every Friday for the foreseeable future. If that happens, the Stratfor e-mail release could be the first sign of a new, powerful alliance between the two groups, each of which has vexed and angered the world’s most powerful governments and corporations.

When WikiLeaks received the documents on a server it controlled, it acknowledged the successful transfer with a coded, public Tweet, according to an anon with direct knowledge of the collaboration.

A document provided to Wired that could not be authenticated indicated that the media partners of WikiLeaks agreed to parcel out stories on the leaks over the coming week and a half. Those media partners do not include previous partners such as the Guardian and U.S. partners The New York Times and the Washington Post.

According to the document, e-mails about WikiLeaks and Anonymous will be disclosed Wednesday, followed by separate disclosures on Italy, the Middle East and then Asian countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, among others. The project, code-named Rock Guitar, is officially named “The Global Intelligence Files.”

Stratfor had been aware that the e-mails would likely be published in some form by Anonymous, but said in January that the e-mails should not embarrass the company.

The collaboration between WikiLeaks and Anonymous is an odd couple pairing. WikiLeaks has largely crumbled over the last 18 months, due to internal disagreements over the management style and legal problems of its outspoken leader Julian Assange. By contrast, Anonymous is an amorphous group with no leadership structure.

If Anonymous continues feeding WikiLeaks with documents, the secret spilling site could return to a prominence that seemed lost due to technical difficulties, legal troubles, in-fighting and public fallings out with media partners in the wake of the site’s publication of a massive trove of U.S. documents in 2010 and 2011.

WikiLeaks’s alleged source for those documents, Pfc. Bradley Manning, is facing a U.S. army court martial and a possible sentence of life imprisonment.

As for how the collaboration between the two groups went, an anon with direct knowledge of it indicated that the new relationship had some tough moments.

“There were some natural tensions as usually can happen inside partnership,” the anon said. ”I hope this was only the beginning of a beautiful relationship.”

Quinn Norton is a writer and photographer who peripatetically covers net culture, copyright, computer security, intellectual property, body modification, medicine, and biotech.
Follow @quinnnorton on Twitter.

View the original article here

Wikileaks reveals Stratfor emails

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AppId is over the quota
27 February 2012 Last updated at 20:50 GMT Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said publication of the emails was justified Whistleblowing website Wikileaks has begun publishing the first of more than five million confidential emails from US-based security think tank Stratfor.

The group said the documents would reveal Stratfor's "web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods".

Stratfor's computers were hacked by the activist group Anonymous in December.

Stratfor boss George Friedman said at the time anyone looking for signs of a vast conspiracy would be disappointed.

The firm warned ahead of the Wikileaks publication that it would make no comment on whether any of the emails were authentic or inaccurate.

"Having had our property stolen, we will not be victimised twice by submitting to questioning about them," Stratfor said in a statement.

'Shadow CIA'

Wikileaks did not say how it acquired the documents, but it is widely assumed to have been given them by the loose-knit hacker group Anonymous, which claimed to have stolen emails, passwords and credit-card details from the Texas-based firm in December.

Wikileaks said the emails date from July 2004 to the end of last year.

The first set of emails include messages suggesting US firm Dow Chemical had Stratfor monitor groups that campaigned for victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy in India.

Also in the files are emails involving a request by Coca-Cola for Stratfor to investigate animal rights group Peta ahead of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, amid concerns by the drinks-maker that it could face protests by Peta activists.

Continue reading the main story Founded in 1996, based in Austin, TexasProvides geopolitical information and analysis through paid subscription and unique requests for individuals or companiesDoes work by developing global network of human sources and analysing vast quantities of online dataOnce likened, by the US weekly business magazine Barron's, to a "shadow CIA"Grew in popularity after publishing analysis of Nato bombing in KosovoThe whistleblowing website says it will release further emails in the coming days, promising evidence that the company's analysts had monitored Wikileaks itself.

"Here we have a private intelligence firm, relying on informants from the US government, foreign intelligence agencies with questionable reputations and journalists," Wikileaks founder Julian Assange told Reuters news agency.

"What is of grave concern is that the targets of this scrutiny are, among others, activist organisations fighting for a just cause."

Stratfor provides analysis of world affairs to subscribers which include major corporations, military officials and international government agencies.

The firm said in its statement that it had worked hard to build "good sources" in many countries, "as any publisher of global geopolitical analysis would do".

Despite the new disclosures, Wikileaks is still facing difficulties on several fronts.

The group admitted last October that it was running out of money.

Mr Assange is currently on conditional bail in Britain while he fights extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations, which he denies.

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Wikileaks Stratfor Memo Reminiscent of a Spy Novel

The anti-secrecy group Wikileaks began publishing more than five million internal emails from U.S. based private intelligence company, Stratfor on Sunday. It includes a memo allegedly written by George Friedman, the CEO of the company that reads like something out of a spy novel.

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The document is allegedly Friedman’s own wry rundown of intelligence lingo that his employees use in their work for corporate and government clients.

It explains that an "All-Source Fusion Cell" is: "A trans-compartmentalized group of analysts who get to see everything and have to make sense of it. Don't wish it on your worst enemy."

A "Barium Meal" is defined this way: "When there is a leak, feed bits of radioactive (traceable, false) information to suspects. See which bit leaks. You will know who leaked it. The leaker will know you know. Livens up a dull day like nothing else we’ve ever seen. Bring the kids."

And a “Code Crypt,” in turn, is described as “the code name and control of a source in encrypted form. If this confuses you, it’s working.”

The spy lingo glossary is just one document amid an enormous cache from Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based private intelligence company that counts government agencies and some of the world’s biggest companies among its clients.

In a press release late Sunday, Wikileaks said the emails “reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal's Dow Chemical, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Marines and the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency.”

"The emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods," the Wikileaks press release said. The organization claimed that the emails expose "how Stratfor has recruited a global network of informants who are paid via Swiss banks accounts and pre-paid credit cards. Stratfor has a mix of covert and overt informants, which includes government employees, embassy staff and journalists around the world."

Stratfor did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC, but CEO George Friedman posted a statement on Stratfor’s website in January explaining that the firm had been the target of hackers who had obtained sensitive internal data. He emphasized at the time that Stratfor had never been deceptive about itself: "We are what we said we were — an organization that generates its revenues through geopolitical analysis," Friedman wrote. "At the core of our business, we objectively acquire, organize, analyze and distribute information."

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange told the Reuters news agency, "Here we have a private intelligence firm, relying on informants from the U.S. government, foreign intelligence agencies with questionable reputations, and journalists. What is of grave concern is that the targets of this scrutiny are, among others, activist organizations fighting for a just cause."

Documents released by Wikileaks on Sunday also include a purported memo from Friedman to his staff detailing how Stratfor was partnering with a Goldman Sachs veteran, Shea Morenz, to create its own hedge fund.

The new venture, Friedman wrote in the memo, "… would allow us to utilize the intelligence we were gathering about the world in a new but related venue - an investment fund. Where we had previously advised other hedge funds, we would now have our own, itself fully funded by Shea. Shea invested over $2 million in Stratfor.”

Wikileaks said that it had partnered with more than 25 media organizations around the world, many of whom would begin publishing stories based on the documents.

All of that coverage is likely to refer to the spy-novel milieu in which Stratfor operates. But in its own internal terminology memo, Stratfor had a word of caution for those who love spy novels a little too much.

The memo defined the term "Clancy" this way: "Somebody who has read a lot of Tom Clancy novels and thinks he knows the Craft. Total moron. Really dangerous if he is the Customer."

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