US Intell planned to destroy Wikileaks

[Peter Presland]

This from Cryptome:

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WIKILEAKS..SNAKE OIL or JUST A HACKERS WET DREAM??
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Its interesting to note that WIKILEAKS is floundering somewhat
from a lack of funds..

The Daily Telegraph reports that the majority of the funds
raised will go towards paying the website's hosting costs, which
are widely distributed across several countries and are heavily
secured against attack.

In an interview joint founder Assange brags that WikiLeaks has
no headquarters, no office, no formal structure other than the
name and the truth-seeking ideology attached to it. Co-founder
or not, Assange is clear about who holds power at Wikileaks. Who
gets the final call in a dispute? "Me, actually," Assange
(former hacker) says. "I'm the final decision if the document
is legit." (This is not reassuring)..

Assange brags about how lean the organisation is with no
premises etc... Then one assumes he would fully disclose his
operating costs. Detailing just why he is looking for a cool
$600K for such a low overhead operation. ($600K overall budget
and just $200K to keep the lights on.)

Existing donors are somewhat concerned, and have refused to
bankroll Assange without acceptable accounting and audit
procedures, including past expenditures. This is the reason why
WIKILEAKS is spinning its wheels. Its an issue of Assange’s
credibility, and NOT the philosophy behind WIKILEAKS.

No transparency or audit trails concerning operating procedures,
or a technical review of security and technology issues which
are supposed to protect whistleblowers; Very lax procedures
concerning the use encryption technology and document
verification using digital signatures.

WIKILEAKS is a very serious accident just waiting to happen,
they convince the whistle blower that their anonimity is
protected, and their data is secured. NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER
FROM THE TRUTH. Unfortunately someone in an oppressive third
world environment is going to suffer the consequences of Julian
Assange's security assurance snake oil pitch.

What we have here is a high profile ex-hacker trawling for $600K
operating expenses. Anyone with a few bucks can buy into
Assange's snake oil, including fronts for any government agency
anywhere. From that moment on audited accounts don't seem to be
available.

A WIKILEAKS Insider...

Wikileaks is a damn good idea - but there are some very good points made above.