WikiLeaks destroys privacy of many innocent people

 

WikiLeaks’  crusade to expose the government secrets of some countries, but not those of Russia or China, is violating the privacy of hundreds of innocent people, including survivors of sexual abuse, sick children and the mentally ill.

The Japan Times reports: “In the past year alone, the radical transparency group has published medical files belonging to scores of ordinary citizens while many hundreds more have had sensitive family, financial or identity records posted to the web. In two particularly egregious cases, WikiLeaks named teenage rape victims. In a third case, the site published the name of a Saudi citizen arrested for being gay, an extraordinary move given that homosexuality is punishable by death in the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom.”

Meanwhile, there has been increasing speculation that Julian Assange, who runs WikiLeaks, is  either effectively acting as an agent of Russian President Vladimir Putin or declines to hack Russian or Chinese information because, especially in dealing with the former, he could end up dead. And, of course, democracies and open societies such as the U.S. are much easier to hack than police states like Russia and China.

To read  The Japan Times’s story on this, please hit this link.

Experts had warned Democrats about cybersecurity gaps

 

Bloomberg reported July 27  that experts had warned the Democratic National Committee  last fall that its computer network was open to attacks by state-sponsored and other hackers but it didn’t follow the  cyberexperts’ security advice.

The revelation is  another blow to party officials humiliated by the theft and public disclosure of e-mails that have led to a political firestorm. The hacking was done by Russians working for the regime of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

Bloomberg reported: “Computer security consultants hired by the DNC made dozens of recommendations after a two-month review, the people said. Following the advice, which would typically include having specialists hunt for intruders on the network, might have alerted party officials that hackers had been lurking in their network for weeks — hackers who would stay for nearly a year.

“Instead, officials didn’t discover the breach until April. The theft ultimately led to the release of almost 20,000 internal e-mails through WikiLeaks last week on the eve of the convention.” Wikileaks is run by Julian Assange, who is an ally of Mr. Putin.

To read the Bloomberg article, please hit this link.