German press reports original cables kept by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange accidentally released online. Information exposes identities of US sources as well as Israeli, Iranian intelligence agents
The original US State Department documents obtained byWikiLeaks were accidentally leaked online revealing the names of sources that have thus far remained anonymous, German newspapers Der Spiegel and Freitag Der reported Monday. The names include possible Israeli, Iranian and Jordanian intelligence agents.
The unedited cables could put the sources in danger as many of them are located in countries whose governments are hostile to the US. The classified documents were edited before their distribution over six months ago, but the original key file which has been leaked reveals information originally censored by WikiLeaks editors.
More Wikileaks exposures:
- ‘Lieberman wanted Egypt to give land to Gaza‘
- ‘Syria aimed chemical weapons at Israel‘
- ‘Netanyahu endorsed land swap concept‘
- ‘Israel overestimating Iranian nuke program’
- ‘Israel planned large-scale war in 2009‘
According to the German reports, one of the documents quotes an Iranian informant as saying that the Iranian people have always tried to maintain the impression they were following the “stupid and crazy ayatollahs.”
Internal struggles
The uncensored documents were exposed in the backdrop of internal disputes between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and some of his colleagues who had left the site. Daniel Domscheit-Berg, Assange’s former deputy and spokesman, was the only person to have access to the original cables which were kept on an external server and locked with a password.
At the end of 2010, Domscheit-Berg returned documents he had taken with him back to WikiLeaks, including the original copy of the unedited cables. A group of Assange’s supporters uploaded the information, which was encrypted, to the internet without noticing the documents had not been edited and include the names of the US administration sources.
Several months ago, an associate of Assange revealed the code which allows access to the original documents. He never imagined that the password would enable access to documents which were already online, as he thought they were saved on an external server. The accident went undetected for weeks before WikiLeaks’ competitors exposed it.
Domscheit-Berg’s news site OpenLeaks exposed the blunder to prove that Assange’s site was unprotected.
www.ynetnews.com, 30.08.2011