Posts Tagged ‘Daniel Domscheit-Berg’
Who is Julian Assange? Who is Daniel Domscheit-Berg? As described in “Inside WikiLeaks”
Julian Assange is off the media screen; but the over 250,000 leaks are still being published, disseminated, and sold to various media.
What happened to Julian Assange? Daniel Domscheit-Berg in his “Inside WikiLeaks” describes the problems that WiliLeaks was plagued with as a publishing medium and the authoritarian and single-minded behaviors of Assange is the running of this project.
Daniel Domscheit-Berg wrote:
“My idea was to install a permanent work center and hiring steady collaborators. I even contacted the German military and located a few potential bunkers at affordable prices. The concept was for WL to become “The most aggressive press organization“. Julian changed position: He opted to remain an “Insurgent Operation” and not settle in any publicly recognized headquarter. Julian was under the strong impression that he was followed and secretly investigated. Consequently, Julian refused to facilitate decisions on withdrawing money from the Wau Foundation.
The Wau Foundation was ready to pay us salaries, and Julian blocked the entire plan. As money started to come in after releasing the video “Collateral Murder”, shot in Iraq, discords with Assange were exacerbated. The transactions with the foundation was pretty straightforward: The foundation extended the sum that Daniel requested and Daniel remitted the invoices. The late Wau Holland was a computer scientist and a philosopher; his foundation aided with grants on projects that enhanced freedom of the press.
Thanks to the video “Collateral Murder” shot in Iraq, donations started to come in. Collateral Murder showed a US helicopter shooting at civilian Iraqis coming out of a van. The foundation Wau Holland in Germany had agreed to receive the donations, handle the fiscal and tax deductions procedures, and sending requested expenses.
By summer 2010, the account climbed to $600,000. By the time Daniel Domscheit-Berg quit WL, he said that he estimated that the foundation had accumulated one million.
Daniel Domscheit-Berg claims in his book “inside WikiLeaks” that the project had spent $75,000 by September 2010 on state of the art equipment, like 7 servers, decrypted mobile phones, pagers by satellites…During the 6-month stoppage of Wikileaks, due to the previous archaic equipment and server, WL continued to receive documents while restoring the network.
What pleased most Assange is someone calling him Mandax, the code name he used when a young computer hacker; he was overjoyed hearing Mandax when he was not known around 2007 and when he got famous.
Assange would travel light, a simple backpack carrying his outmoded portable computer. Julian would arrive at the last minute for a convention, hoard the computer at the press room, and never relinquish it.
Three days later, the once well-pressed clothes were dirty: He didn’t bring cloth change, and gladly accepted gifts for cloth and other objects since he would not carry money.
Assange, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, and the Architect stayed for an entire month in a hotel suit in Island, ironing out a law proposal for the parliament to declare Island a heaven for free press.
Since they had to meet with deputies and politicians, Daniel Domscheit-Berg made it a point never to get out without pressed and clean cloths. This behavior angered Julian and reprimanded Daniel of trying to taking over WikiLeaks and out-staging Julian.
The air of the room, containing over 6 persons and working around the clock, got filthy; especially that they ordered food and no one would clean up the leftover. Once, Daniel opened a window to refresh the climate and Julian was harsh in his reaction, a behavior that prompted Daniel to return to Berlin.
The relationship between the two associate got nasty and Daniel quit WikiLeaks. The Architect, the most important programmer and the one who updated and modernized the servers and platform, joined Daniel. The Architect took with him all the programs that he created, bringing back WikiLeaks to its archaic state.
WikiLeaks Finances: As detailed in “Inside WikiLeakds” by Daniel Domscheit-Berg
In 2008, WikiLeaks had three accounts PayPal for donation deposits. On March 2008, after the Julius Bar Swiss bank leaks, the account was of 1,900 Euros. By March 3, the donations were of 3,700 Euros, and by March 11, WL amassed 5,000 Euros. On June 2009, a US journalist informed us that the accounts on PayPal were frozen, though PayPal continued to receive donations that reached $35,000 in August 2009.
PayPal requested the form 501c3. Thus, Daniel Domscheit-Berg got on the task of of acquiring the status of a society. He realized that PayPal customer services had no physical employees, but using programs run by Indian subcontractors. We access for the account for one day, and then, more formality requirements were demanded to be fulfilled.
Julian Assange contacted in September 2009 “The Nanny”. The Nanny was in her forties and an energetic longtime friend of Julian. Finally, it was a female journalist in the New York Times that got engaged and unfroze the account. Daniel wanted to purchase new equipments and servers because the only server they had was obsolete and any problem could jeopardize the entire security of the system. Julian refused to update his server, preferring to focus on screen public companies or offshore companies but he didn’t do anything of that kind.
In April 2008, Julian opened a personal account at Moneybookers with a direct link on WL page for donations. In August 2010, the account on Moneybookers was closed for government authority investigation, but the account had been previously emptied.
Daniel tried twice to apply for the complex procedure for a grant of two million dollars by the Knight Foundation, but failed. The last attempt reached the fourth stage in the competition. Julian made it difficult for Daniel to arranging a face to face interview. The foundation of John S. and James L. Knight had extended grants for $105 million to media organizations
Thanks to the video “Collateral Murder” shot in Iraq, donations started to come in. Collateral Murder showed a US helicopter shooting at civilian Iraqis coming out of a van. The foundation Wau Holland in Germany had agreed to receive the donations, handle the fiscal and tax deductions procedures, and sending requested expenses. By April 2010, the account was about $100,000. By summer, the account climbed to $600,000. By the time Daniel Domscheit-Berg quit WL, he said that he estimated that the foundation had accumulated one million.
The late Wau Holland was a computer scientist and a philosopher; his foundation aided with grants on projects that enhanced freedom of the press.
Daniel Domscheit-Berg claims in his book “inside WikiLeaks” that the project had spent $75,000 by September 2010 on state of the art equipments, like seven servers, decrypted mobile phones, pagers by satellites…During the 6-month stoppage of Wikileaks due to the previous archaic equipments and server, WL continued to receive documents while restoring the network.
The transactions with the foundation was pretty straightforward: The foundation extended the sum that Daniel requested and Daniel remitted the invoices.
Case of the Julius Bar Swiss bank: “Inside WikiLeaks” story
Daniel Domscheit-Berg wrote in “Inside WikiLeaks”:
“On January 2008, I had started working as volunteer for WikiLeaks, when the first batch of documents were leaked to us relative to a famous Swiss bank called Julius Bar. The documents sent to our mailbox contained plenty of numbers, organigrams (or flow charts of responsibilities and high level personnel), business procedures, and contracts…Internal correspondence, notes, and computation were included in the hundred of pages that Julian Assange and I had to analyze and digest.
The documents revealed hundred of rich people bypassing fiscal laws by rerouting their wealth to the Caiman Islands. The accounts ranged from $5 million to hundred million. The Swiss bank Julius Bar had fine-tuned its complex system of erecting screen financial societies that would secure the flux of capital.
Julian Assange and I did a few side research and on January 14, 2008, we published our report on Internet. We had dispatched press releases to a few media.
This Tuesday at work, I glanced every 5 minutes on my portable computer to check the reactions on Google News. We had no means to find out who consulted our site (hits) since this would contradict the anonymity principle of WikiLeaks. Julian Assange and I never called one another; we communicated by chatting on the net.
The first reaction arrived at 8:30 pm on January 15.
The sender of the mail was a lawyer from a law firm. The lawyer wanted the name of the leaker of the documents! We were excited to test our security system that was fine theoretically. Thus, we asked the lawyer a few more details so that we know who is the client he was defending. We let this lawyer presume that we had our own lawyer. Actually, the only volunteer lawyer, Julie Turner lived in Texas and we could not get in touch with her.
I was using the name of my cat for pseudonym Daniel Schmitt: I had no inkling to letting banks detectives coming to sniff around me. Mails started to flood us, particularly from American media and civic rights movements that rallied around our case: Protection of sources and freedom of press, stupid. The thematic of “alert launchers” as heroes was more developed in the USA than in Europe.
A legal complaint was lodged against us in California by the bank lawyers, where the domain wikileaks.org was created. The judge ordered the shutting down of our domain name on account that most probably, the leaker must have signed a confidential clause in his contract!
A wave of indignation irrupted around the world and journalists wanted to interview us. I spent days responding to the mails. The CBS News titled “Free speech has a number” and mentioned our IP address 88.80.13.160. WikiLeaks was propelled quicker than we imagined without the lawyer complaints. The judge had no alternative but to reverse his decision.
We published all our correspondence with the bank’s lawyers. Many individuals in the list of tax evaders were implicated and they tried to bribe us in order to removing their name from the list.
Julian Assange and I were the only persons writing, sending press releases, and replying to mails, though people had the impression that a large team of employees and volunteers were involved. If the new literary analysis program was applied to our writing, people would have discovered that only two individuals were behind that job.
Daniel Domscheit-Berg divulged that WikiLeaks managed to hire only two technicians but Julian failed to secure any consistent and serious volunteers. The server was an outdated equipment and if it failed, the entire enterprise would have gone down the drain.
The case of the Scientology cult: In “Inside WikiLeaks”
In “inside WikiLeaks” Daniel Domscheit-Berg explains how they started to receive documents and video on the Scientology cult.
“After the leaks on the Julius Bar Swiss Bank, we started receiving leaks from “Anonymous” on our chat sessions. The “Anonymous” were recognized by their Guy Fawkes’ masks on You Tube. Guy Fawkes is the guy who attempted to detonate the English parliament in 1605.
The “Anonymous” said:
“You might get the impression that we are trying to scare you off, but this is not the case. The Scientology Church trail and harass members protesting their activities. We are simply protecting ourselves from intimidation tactics that we witnessed other members being submitted to. The Scientology Church is very rich and employ an array of lawyers to pursuing aberrant legal cases.”
The “Anonymous” sign their message: “Knowledge is free. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us!”
The frustrated and scared initiates of the Scientology Church grabbed the opportunity to leak their information through WikiLeaks because they believed to be secure from legal prosecutions. Tapes, video, and documents on this cult steamed to WikiLeaks.
We first published the internal manual of the sect, a manual only members who acceded to level 3 can purchase, after mortgaging their homes and are reduced to slave for this Church for pocket money.
The member ascends the echelons in a carrier kind manner in order to reach the level “Clear” in the Thetan level hierarchy. Who are these Thetans?
They are curious creatures who suffered from overpopulation and revolted when our universe was composed of 76 planets. An intergalactic warrior Xenu traveled among the planets and rounded up all the Thetans and dumped them in a volcano in Hawaii and bombed them. According to the Scientology Church, the spirit of a few dead Thetans hover around earth, looking out for primitive human bodies to enter”
If you are having any problem, rest assured: One of the Thetan managed to dwell in you! That is the doctrine of this highly scientific cult. Can you believe many members mortgaged their home in order to buy this “rare” and highly secret and sacred story book?
Whoever fails to progress quick enough in the cult levels must be rehabilitated.
The member is dispatched to the “Rehabilitation Project Force” (RPF) for reeducation or “introspection process”. This cult also own it fleet of specialized boats , called “Sea Org” for rehabilitation purposes.
The rehabilitated member has to undergo humiliating and debilitating series of punishing activities. This non-accomplished member has to sleep in an integral rubber suit and isolated from the remaining crew; he has to eat the leftover of the crew after they have eaten; he has to be constantly running and refused normal pacing; he has to empty the shit pot…before he is permitted to resume his “spiritual’ progression.
The death of 36 year-old Lisa McPherson in 1995, resulting from rehabilitation procedures, forced the cult to facing the legal system. The investigation ended in 2000 for lack of proofs! But the parents of Lisa settled out of court for an undisclosed sum in 2004.
Wikileaks also published lists of businesses and organization dealing with the cult. The founder L. Ron Hubbard pretended in his conferences in the 1950’s of being several million years old and had traveled the universe as an observer.
On a personal level.
In the late 80’s, I was a graduate student and pretty curious of whatever was going on around me. I might have read a posted ad. on sessions for interpreting dreams. In the beginning the sessions were free of charge and then we were asked to contribute and later we were to pay $10. The small booklets on the subject of dreams cost also $10.
In these sessions, the focus was on the appropriate techniques for concentrating, like closing our eyes and imagine a sea, a blue sky, a green field…with someone talking on how to enhance our imagination, relaxing…
At times, we were to listen to tapes with background sounds related to what we are focusing on. We were asked to light a candle at home and look at the flame and do not waver our mind outside focusing on the candle light… I realized that I am not susceptible to these kinds of hypnosis…
One day, an older lady visited the group of about 15 persons and tried to predict our physical well-being, such as the types of diseases that we are prone to and should be aware of…The lady would close her eyes and claim that she is receiving information from somewhere. If we wanted a copy of the taped “visions” we had to cough up $10.
This curious exercises was becoming pretty expensive for a student and I desisted. I recall that the name of Hubbard was mentioned as the founder of this school of Scientology…My hypothesis is that all cults select their members from among the susceptible people, ready to relax their control and letting be led my the “voices”.
In this university town, all kinds of religious sects Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Unitarian…had their churches close to the university. I visited most of them, at least once, on Sundays.
The common denominator among the sects was investing on chorals for their Sunday ceremonies. The rich sects built sophisticated organ system, those long many pipes of different lengths.
They were mostly conservative and there was no way to discriminate them on their theological differences. Jesus was mentioned frequently but never the Virgin Mary as in the Catholic Churches, especially in Latin American countries.
The Presbyterian sect served communion. Eventually, the university reserved a particular room for the Moslem students to pray.
I once attended church at a negro Baptist church in San Francisco: There was plenty of clapping, dancing, singing but the preach was unavoidably about Moses crossing the desert with his followers. This Moses story was very common during the slavery period.
I guess the Scientology cult had no such public facilities to exhibit their wealth and popularity. When I think that Tom Cruise and John Travolta are still staunch high level members in the Scientology cult is pretty unsettling.
OpenLeaks vs WikiLeaks: What is your preferred strategy to disseminating “secret” documents?
Posted by: adonis49 on: April 12, 2011
OpenLeaks vs WikiLeaks: What is your preferred strategy to disseminating “secret” documents?
WikiLeaks, founded by Julian Assange, is basically a publishing medium on the net, of documents received from sources in businesses and public institutions. The main purpose is to enhancing transparency in the environment of doing business , public institutions, and in decision making among establishments so that the wide public can express their opinion and decide accordingly, based on informed sources.
WikiLeaks was highly centralized and it lacked the resources, financial and qualified volunteered manpower, to handling the flood of documents arriving from everywhere and of different nature. For example, Assange preferred to exhaust the mine of documents from one source before focusing on another source provider, exerting all kinds of persuasion means.
“Inside WikiLeaks“, published by Daniel Domscheit-Berg, divulges who sent sources of documents, who received them, who managed the documents, who filtered out the pieces of intelligence, and who published them…
All this stages in the process involve political decisions from the operator handling the data.
Daniel Domscheit-Berg, the launcher of OpenLeaks, another alert platform, worked for a year at WikiLeaks. Daniel was a specialist of information security on networks of international enterprises; he militated for transparency in enterprises and the freedom of disseminating information on Internet.
Any censorship of documents and information is fundamentally a political decision.
Thus, if WikiLeaks demands transparency in business enterprises and public institutions, it is normal for people to ask: “What are the political guidelines of Assange and the operators in WikiLeaks?”
When an engaged person, working for a non-transparent establishment, sends a secret document, he expects that the information is transmitted and revealed. If the document is not taken seriously, the sender has the right to know why. The sender has the right for an answer: “Why should I lose a job if I have no idea of the guidelines and procedures for not publishing my document?”
OpenLeaks empower the source or the sender of document to disseminate his information to his target receivers.
OpenLeaks provides the know-how of the latest technology infrastructure to the source and the right of exclusive period before the document in published in the open network, if the source allows the information to be disseminated to every partner.
OpenLeaks is a decentralized operation and two distinct groups bear the responsibility of either receiving the information or publishing the documents. In each group, individual specialists operator shoulder the responsibility in his line of specialization.
You are expected to decide on documents that are not within your line of specialty. For example, energy, agribusiness, municipalities of small and large cities, local politics, national politics, international institutions, legal matters…
The receiver of a particular document will verify the source and the authenticity of the document before any filtering process before publishing on the open net, after receiving acknowledgment from the source to doing so.
Thus, the partners are diversified from the sources and to the receivers. You can be an ONG, a syndicate, a school of journalism, a media, a municipality, an international organization, a civic development association…
What publishing alternative would you select if you want to leak a document?
Do you have any other alternative strategies and institutional structure for other future alert platforms?
Adonis Diaries 