* Paperback: 304 pages
* Publisher: Jonathan Cape (15 Feb 2011)
* Language English
* ISBN-10: 0224094017
* ISBN-13: 978-0224094016
Whether you love or hate WikiLeakS.org, this book is essential reading, especially if you are writing your own book or documentary about this project.
This book does at last confirm our fears about some of the deceptions, exaggerations, media spin and hype which Julian Assange and his willing helper Daniel Domscheit-Berg spun around WikiLeakS.org
In it, Julian Assange appears to be a charismatic Cult leader and paranoid Control Freak.
Our previous observations that the "maximum political impact" attitude of the core WikiLeakS.org team (which appears now to have been just Julian and Daniel) is confirmed i..e they are indistinguishable from the fanatics who support totalitarian dictatorships, where "the ends justify the means".
Given the scale of the lies which Daniel Domscheit-Berg and Julian Assange told to the media and the public about the robustness and security of the WIkileaks computer infrastructure it is hard to trust either of them with the time of day, let alone a potentially life or career threatening whistleblower disclosure.
Of the two, Daniel Domscheit-Berg appears to be the more contrite, - at least he has apologised for his unethical behaviour, something which Julian Assange, like all fanatics, probably never will do.
Some interesting points, which any imitators of Wikileaks should avoid emulating:
The deliberately deceptive use of multiple "sock puppet" personalities by Julian Assange (e.g. "Jay Lim"), to pretend that there were more Wikileaks activists and experts than there really were .
The lies about "1.2 million Chinese government documents" and the lack of involvement of any Chinese political dissidents at all.
The Single Point of Failure, with the wikileaks emails and submissions and wiki all on the same server. There is now supposedly a more robust infrastructure, apparently, but details of that are still being kept secret.
The "technobabble" used to confuse some journalists who enquired about the failures of the WikiLeakS.org infrastructure.
Reliance on a Chat Room as the main method of communication even between "staff" members.
The purchase of expensive Cryptophones by Daniel's former girlfriend, who was not financially compensated, even after the cash started rolling in.
The inept use of email by Julian Assange, which revealed a list of early WikiLeakS.org financial contributors.
The inept use of email by some of the Icelandic Wikileaks spokesmen and volunteers who forwarded their wikileaks.org emails to Google gmail accounts, thereby making it easy for the US Government to analyse the Communications Traffic Data and to legally force Google to hand over the contents.
Julian Assange's characterisation of some of his media luvvy supporters, even those who have who have stumped up lots of money as surety for his bail as "idiots".
The internal rifts between Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg together with the unnamed "Architect" of the infrastructure re-vamp which happened in 2010 (without any viable new Submissions system).
The idiotic legal threats issued by Julian Assange against his former colleagues and against former mainstream media partners.
N.B. this blog does not think that Julian Assange should be extradited to Sweden from the UK on the inappropriate European Arrest Warrant, without any of the prima facie evidence of the sexual offences allegations having been cross examined in a UK Court.
There is still an obvious need and demand for whistleblower protecting online publishers of last resort.
However, that does not mean that Julian Assange or whatever the current WikiLeakS.org crew now comprises of, should ever be trusted by any whistleblowers in the future.
Whether Daniel Domscheit-Berg should be trusted with his new OpenLeaks.org venture is also in doubt.
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