I'm a bit confused how was Wikileaks set up so that Assange did not know who was giving information?

[NotThisTime]

He just stated he does not know if the information they got was from Pvt. Manning? I always assumed wrongly I guess that they had direct contact of some sort?

[Lucinda]

1. I always assumed they had an anon ftp upload

but I'm sure someone will have the answer for us...I'm curious as well.

[Vincardog]

2. Do you 'know' who I am? What about if I post a link to something here?

[Poll_Blind]

3. WikiLeaks was set up in such a way that material could be contributed anonymously.

Assange and others helped designed WikiLeaks to be robust in that way, grant submitters of leaked information the most protection. Including moving the submitted material, digitally, through several different international jurisdictions automatically so that the material gains certain protections legally available to whistleblowers in that country.

There are many other aspects of this worth researching. He has spoken about the system quite a bit.

However, if the leaker (or someone claiming to tbe the leaker, or one of the leakers) goes out and starts claiming the information came from them, there's not much that WikiLeaks can do about that.

For all the leaked material that WikiLeaks has acquired and published over the years (about various countries, governments, corporations, topics), this is the only instance (as far as I know) of someone coming forward to "claim responsibility" for it.

PB

[NotThisTime]

4. Thanks for the clarification. So if this has been the process how have they been able to vet the

information for accuracy as the information has been classified? He's been spot on, so he must be doing it somehow? Any notion on how that's accomplished? Again thanks for the answer.

[Poll_Blind]

6. Assange's self-selected role is The Rabbit To Be Chased. However, there are...

...a much larger network of journalists and researchers who secretly work for WikiLeaks to help vet the information for accuracy. I think it would not be a bad guess to imagine that at least some of their assistance comes from the partner papers they are currently dealing with at the moment.

Again, as long as all the attention is on Assange, everything's fine. His job is to be the distraction. The mechanism which really analyzes the information for authenticity has been, is, and always will be (my prediction) a mystery.

But they are not flush with human resources and some material has been delayed simply because they do not have or have few resources to properly vet it. So much of all of this gets overlooked with the current media show, but there's actually a fascinating structure (at least pieced together from what I've read) which turns a typical intelligence agency's cell-structure against itself, for ends which promote the release of information as opposed to stifling it.

PB

[glinda]

7. Agree %100 with your analysis. I think it was the intention to focus upon him. I worry for him.

[kgnu_fan]

8. Manning did not "come forward", he was outed by Adrian Lamo, government's plant

[Poll_Blind]

10. You're absolutely correct. I knew this but I should have been much clearer in...

..describing that.

PB

[shawn703]

5. Use posting to DU as an example

When you signed up for an account, you were asked for a username, a name, and an email address. Suppose someone created an account at Yahoo.com called "PvtBradleyManning", and then registered at DU using BradManning as the username, Bradley Manning as their name, and [e-mail] as the email address, and then began posting all kinds of sensitive documentation to the website. If you were Skinner, would you know for sure that the person who registered as BradManning and posted the sensitive documentation was, in fact, the same Bradley Manning that he is being asked about?

There are ways to verify identity. Banks do it by creating your online credentials when you bring in your documentation to establish a bank account. If you are in possession of those credentials, including the established password (and a lot of times other personally identifiable information, in case the password to your account is compromised), it can be reasonably assumed that the person making the online transactions are indeed the person authorized to make them. Other organizations go even further to confirm identity using SecurID tokens for example.

I can't say what Wikileaks requires to send documentation to them, but I am pretty certain that with the nature of the documents they do receive, they won't go to any lengths to make sure the sender of that information can be verified.

The statement that he doesn't know who sent the information to Wikileaks is 100% truthful unless he had some method to confirm identity.

[kgnu_fan]

9. I read that Wikileaks system does not have any log so no one can track down anything

[stray cat]

11. Manning did all the work, all the risk, and was all the brains behind everything so far

Assange has a web site and his mug on tv

[northernlights]

12. Assange makes himself the target to protect the leakers and his team

who vet the information.

The only reason Manning is in prison is because he wrote about what he did to Adrian Lamo, a government plant who turned him in. If Manning had not shared his little secret, he'd be find.