16 January 2011. Reports of ex-Swiss banker Rudolf Elmer to hand over CDs of data to Wikileaks today is intriguing timing. Presumbably Wikileaks will treat the ostentatious handover and disk with extreme care to avoid being entrapped by a plea-induced sting and implantation of a hidden trojan or marker to trace the path of the data from the disk to publication (as possible with the alleged Manning disk). Open disclosure by a source of a submission to Wikileaks is rare, and admission by Wikileaks of receiving material from a source even moreso. An untraceable, unidentifiable-source airgap between source and publication is a primary Wikileaks security claim -- to protect the source but more importantly to protect Wikileaks from entrapment and trace of data flow. For this reason WL often denies any link to Bradley Manning or any other source and in accord with good data security practice carefully reformats received data to limit likelihood of covert incrimination.

A consequence of DoD forensics on Manning's computer is that its unique patterns of disk burning and data distribution provide a signature target for analyzing data publication by Wikileaks so long as WL has not eliminated or masked common tracking methods in use by copyright holders and cybersecurity wizards. The extensive capability of these covert methodologies are reflected in the Stuxnet worm attack and investigation, much of which remains classified. And are not likely to be revealed in court or in the media, instead more crowd-pleasing accounts will be provided as demonstrated in the New York Times report on Stuxnet today. Nowhere in that report does it explain how the worm can be backtracked to its source signature. A distinctive feature of digital signals by satellite, disk or network is that what can be sent can always be backtracked. Masks, diversions, ploys and cover-ups have unique signatures which technicians would be foolish to disclose to the policymakers who condescend to them.

15 January 2011

Wikileaks Rats

A sends:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110110/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_switzerland_wikileaks

Swiss banker who helped WikiLeaks faces trial

A: Will Wikileaks help raise funds for their most notable source and fame-generator before Manning?

Cryptome: Indeed, and who else is in line for indictment besides the banker and Manning? According to another report the banker indictment is based on violation of Swiss bank secrecy laws, and is allegedly unrelated to the leak to Wikileaks. Hmm, that smells of disinformation about where the probe will go and what Wikileaks will do when drawn into it.

While there has been speculation that Manning is under pressure to make a deal to hang Wikileaks, there seems to be no speculation that Wikileaks would cut a deal to hang Manning. Or simply leave him to "twist slowly in the wind" a la Nixon's sacrifice of John Dean. Getting that message clearly, Dean fought back by testifying against Nixon, Haldeman and Ehrlichman, sending the latter two to jail and Nixon out the door.

Manning and his attorney, as with the Swiss banker, are not going to go down alone. The squeeze is on by all parties to save their lives as advised by attorneys, and not least, by the avid CYA supporters eager to avoid legal implication and who have a stake in their blind ambition (Blind Ambition the name of John Dean's tell-all moneymaker).

Question is who else among the Wikileaks' advisors and ex-advisors, insiders and ex-insiders, supporters and ex-supporters, journalists and publishers, foundations and lawyers, bloggers and anonymizers, are cutting their own deals to "tell the truth" about what goes on inside the "government-and-game changing" initiative. Subpoenas are likely widespread beyond the Twitter targets, apparently named to deflect attention from the multitudes unnamed. Follow the sucking sound of deals and money being offered and traced.

Rueful Whistleblower Lesson One: don't take the hit by yourself for mere transitory glory, forever stigmatized and out of work, or you are a greater fool than publisher's take you to be as they chuckle on the way to the bank and earn evermore awards for "speaking truth to power" and other "transparency" peddling blather.

Only leakers are at risk until they turn against those who contemn and abandon them as unpaid, untraceable "sources." No constitutional protection for sources but they do have means and methods for breaching that sacred Maginot Line, amply persuaded by prosecutors with big clubs and small carrots. Adrian Lamo, say, could have already supplied the unpublicized chats for Manning's rescue. MSM and Twitter, too, not to overlook the other sources who know how the government-whipsaw game is played.

First The New York Times, now The Guardian, soon the other MSM having bloodsucked the source dry, appear ready to twist Wikileaks in the wind, aiding and abetting US, UK, SE and CH, soon all-EU-NATO, RU and the others cablegated and threatened with exposure.

Has Wikileaks sufficient insurance against this global conspiracy of secretkeepers? If belief that justice will prevail, remember no court can function without government compensation thus must do what's best for law and order. Still, it is no secret that rats will rat on rats to keep their privileges.