Talk:United States diplomatic cables leak

Untitled

Not sure how to do this, but here's the story on how the cables got redacted. I told people how to do it. That paragraph describing it on the main page is speculative gibberish. https://web.archive.org/web/20140816145138/http://nigelparry.com/news/guardian-david-leigh-cablegate.shtml

This is good too: https://unspecified.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/wikileaks-password-leak-faq/

For the record, the latter parts of this are also speculative nonsense: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/leak-at-wikileaks-a-dispatch-disaster-in-six-acts-a-783778.html

Here's Greenwald's article from the time correctly noting the source/process of the redaction: http://www.salon.com/2011/09/02/wikileaks_28/

A messy problem about temporary password or file or webserver

There are a number of sites saying Leigh said Assange gave him a temporary password that would expire after a few hours. However Leigh in the book and in interviews like says Assange assured him the site would expire within a matter of hours, but says nothing about a temporary password that I can find. The Guardian said that they had been "told it was a temporary password which would expire and be deleted in a matter of hours." I think sources have cnfused the two evn though only David Leigh and Assange were involvd in negotiating the transfer according to Leigh's book.

I'm not exactly sure what to say in the article. Since this article goes in depth about the business perhaps have the quotes from both Leigh and The Guardian but avoid the ones that probably confused the two. The politico cite above with the interview with Leigh could give some of the other stuff Leigh says too. NadVolum (talk)

References

NadVolum (talk) 00:32, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

I was just coming here to say I thought the section needed work, and to tag you to ask your thoughts before I started on it.

I was gonna point out the things you did, and also say maybe we dont need the file hash and the Twitter user stuff.

I think we also need to explain what "primary publisher" means here, and what it doesnt. Is it a legal technicality or is Cryptome the a co-publisher? If they are, we should talk about that a little more. Either way we should explain Softlemonades (talk) 12:46, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

When the newspapers published stuff from Wikileaks they required Wikileaks to always publish the leaks a few hours in advance so Wikileaks would be the primary publisher even though they already had the facts and had set up their stories. This was to protect them from prosecution for publishing the facts. In this case Cryptome is the primary publisher and Wikileaks only published the unredacted cables after it saw they were already out in the open. I'm not sure of the legal implications but I'd have thought the newspapers have good legal advice for that sort of situation. NadVolum (talk) 16:58, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

When the newspapers published stuff from Wikileaks they required Wikileaks to always publish the leaks a few hours in advance so Wikileaks would be the primary publisher even though they already had the facts and had set up their stories If theres a citation for that then I think the rest of your reasoning is good and would be really good context Softlemonades (talk) 17:44, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

We can't put stuff like that together in the article, that would be original research. The lawyer said it was not primary and as far as i can see that was not challenged, but then again that was an extradition hearing so the prosecution didn't really have to counter anything. All we can do is report what was in the news. NadVolum (talk) 23:00, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

The article says Leigh said he thought the password would expire. As I said above I don't believe he has said that, the Guardian said that and he said he thought the site would disappear. There's no need to make out he's even more stupid than he was. NadVolum (talk) 23:31, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

We should just present and attribute both shouldnt we? Softlemonades (talk) 16:18, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

I think that would be best thanks. I thought it best to raise the problem at the talk page in case people cite the source which is very probably wrong. I think both can go in under the denial business in biographies. NadVolum (talk) 22:58, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Additional Greenwald comment

I didnt think it fit in the section and since it wasnt responding to anyone or anything in particular, I took it out. It might go better in Reactions to the United States diplomatic cables leak which could go into more detail Softlemonades (talk) 12:55, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

I thought it put the criticism of the leaks in perspective. Anyway, it does point to an imbalance in the article. The content of the leaks are at least as important as the reactions to them. The article currently does not reflect that. Burrobert (talk) 13:12, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

I get what youre saying but that particular quote from him seemed kinda straw man, so I just dont think this is a good example to use. Theres no BLP issue or anything like that to object to, so if you wanna reinsert it I wont revert it again, but if there are any other examples I think that would be better

Anyway, it does point to an imbalance in the article. The content of the leaks are at least as important as the reactions to them. The article currently does not reflect that. Youll have no argument from me. There should at least be stuff on its impact, if we dont want to summarize too much of Contents of the United States diplomatic cables leak. But we can probably do better than the contents section that says "it talked about topics" now that the body doesnt include file hashes and IP addresses anymore Softlemonades (talk) 13:44, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Had a quick look at the "Contents of the United States diplomatic cables leak" page and was not very impressed. Linking to it won't solve the problem of a proper coverage of the leaks. Would suggest compiling a list of the most significant leaks for coverage on this page. Not every group of cables need to be covered. Significant ones include the killing of an Iraqi family and bombing of their house (covered here under "Consequences of the release"??), spying on UN personnel ... Burrobert (talk) 14:12, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

I feel the actual contents of the leaks and the reactions to them should be in separate sections from the actions against Wikileaks and the ins and outs of some not being redacted and suchlike stuff. Of course one has to say who released a particular load of leaks and when but the two threads are pretty separate after that. NadVolum (talk) 17:11, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Well put Softlemonades (talk) 17:47, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Sounds good to me Softlemonades (talk) 17:45, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Start date in the lead

In the lead we say that it started in November 2010, and in the Sequence of leaks section we point out that hte first cable was published in February 2010. Maybe we should point that out or change the wording in the lead Softlemonades (talk) 08:09, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

The difference appears to relate to the party which published the cables. Wikileaks began publishing cables in Feb and its partners such as El Pais, Der Spiegel etc. commenced publication in Nov. The first sentence needs to be changed accordingly. Some research may be required to determine whether the term "Cablegate" refers to the earlier or later publication. Burrobert (talk) 11:25, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

I will contact webcite to fix the link we need

So if you click on https://www.webcitation.org/query?id=1294550273571039&date=%400&fromform=1 you will see it is corrupted. That is the citation we need for 2,017 number in the article and what was used before (you need to click on date field to get it) in https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_States_diplomatic_cables_leak&oldid=428427700&action=edit 2A00:1370:8184:FC01:31FC:8534:FB31:556E (talk) 16:39, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

an archive of an IP that says its a mirror of Wikileaks is WP:PRIMARY at best and not encyclopedic claim. adding a citation to a dead URL and a broken archive is not right

and what was used before it was used more than 10 years ago, that doesnt mean it should be used now. and it was used then because it was current then. its not now. Softlemonades (talk) 17:07, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

There are not and will not be any better sources. WHAT? 2A00:1370:8184:FC01:31FC:8534:FB31:556E (talk) 23:18, 25 July 2023 (UTC)