Andy Greenberg - This machine kills secrets: how WikiLeakers, cypherpunks, and hacktivists aim to free the worlds information

THIS MACHINE KILLS SECRETS

How WikiLeakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the Worlds Information

ANDY GREENBERG

DUTTON

DUTTON

Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Copyright 2012 by Andy Greenberg

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Svartar Rosir/Black Roses and Horror of War by Birgitta Jnsdttir printed by permission.

REGISTERED TRADEMARKMARCA REGISTRADA

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Greenberg, Andy.

This machine kills secrets : how WikiLeakers, cypherpunks, and hacktivists aim to free the worlds information / Andy Greenberg.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-101-59358-5

1.Computer hackersPolitical activity. 2.Secrecy. 3.Official secrets. 4.Whistleblowing. 5.Computer crimes. I.Title.

HV6773.G74 2012

364.16'8dc23

2012004309

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

For my father, Gary Greenberg, and the memory of my mother, Marcia Gottfried

CONTENTS

CHARACTERS

(IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE)

JULIAN ASSANGE

Founder of WikiLeaks, former hacker, cypherpunk, and activist who demonstrated the power of digital, anonymous leaking by publishing record-breaking collections of secret corporate and government material.

DANIEL ELLSBERG

Military analyst who from 1969 to 1971 exfiltrated and leaked the top secret Pentagon Papers to The New York Times and seventeen other newspapers.

BRADLEY MANNING

Army private who, at the age of twenty-two, allegedly leaked a trove of secret military and State Department documents to WikiLeaks that would become the largest-ever public disclosure of classified materials.

ADRIAN LAMO

A former hacker and homeless wanderer to whom Manning confessed his leak. Lamo turned Manning in to army investigators.

TIM MAY

Intel physicist, libertarian, and crypto-anarchist thinker who would cofound the cypherpunks in 1991 and create a thought-experiment prototype for cryptographically anonymous leaks called BlackNet.

PHIL ZIMMERMANN

Applied cryptographer whose Pretty Good Privacy program (PGP) brought free, strong encryption to the masses. His investigation by the U.S. Justice Department from 1993 to 1996 ignited a debate over users right to uncrackable encryption.

DAVID CHAUM

Inventor and academic whose anonymity systems, including DC-Nets and Mix Networks, would inspire the cypherpunks and lead to tools like anonymous remailers and Tor.

ERIC HUGHES

Mathematician, cryptographer, and cofounder of the cypherpunks who ran one of the Internets first anonymous remailers.

JOHN GILMORE

Former Sun Microsystems programmer who would cofound the cypherpunks as well as the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

JOHN YOUNG

Architect, activist, and cypherpunk who founded Cryptome.org in 1996, a leak-focused site that has published thousands of names of intelligence agents and their sources, along with hundreds of secret encryption and security-related documents.

JULF HELSINGIUS

Finnish systems administrator and privacy advocate, Helsingius created the Penet anonymous remailer and faced legal pressure from the Church of Scientology that demanded he turn over the identity of one of his users.

JIM BELL

Engineer and libertarian whose 1997 essay Assassination Politics described a system of using encryption to facilitate anonymous, untraceable, and crowd-funded contract killings.

JACOB APPELBAUM

Activist, hacker, and developer for the Tor anonymity network who befriended Julian Assange and became the WikiLeaks primary American associate.

PAUL SYVERSON

Logician and cryptographer in the Naval Research Laboratory who is credited with inventing the anonymous communications protocol known as onion routing.

NICK MATHEWSON AND ROGER DINGLEDINE

Two MIT researchers who worked with Syverson to develop onion routing into a usable tool and then a nonprofit known as the Tor Project.

PEITER MUDGE ZATKO

Former gray hat hacker who served as a spokesperson for the hacker group the L0pht. Now leads the cybersecurity division of the Pentagons Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, including its program to find a method of rooting out rogue insiders known as CINDER or Cyber Insider Threat.

AARON BARR

Former chief executive of HBGary Federal, a small D.C. security firm that touted his methods for unmasking anonymous hackers and leakers.

THOMAS DRAKE

National Security Agency whistleblower who was threatened with prosecution under the Espionage Act for communicating with a reporter regarding alleged financial fraud and waste at the agency.

BIRGITTA JNSDTTIR

Icelandic member of parliament, poet, and activist who worked with WikiLeaks and is pushing a collection of radical transparency bills through Icelands legislature known as the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative.

DANIEL DOMSCHEIT-BERG

German former WikiLeaks associate who worked closely with Assange but was pushed out of the group in the fall of 2010. He has since engaged in a bitter feud with Assange and founded his own digital whistleblower group known as OpenLeaks.

ATANAS TCHOBANOV AND ASSEN YORDANOV

Two Bulgarian investigative reporters who founded the independent media outlet Bivol and were inspired by WikiLeaks to create the Bulgaria-focused leak site BalkanLeaks.

ANDY MLLER-MAGUHN

Former member of the board of the German hacker group the Chaos Computer Club. Mller-Maguhn worked with WikiLeaks and served as an intermediary in the dispute between Assange and Domscheit-Berg.

THE ARCHITECT

Secretive and pseudonymous engineer who worked with Assange and Domscheit-Berg to set up a revamped submission system for WikiLeaks in late 2009 and 2010. After a falling-out with Assange, he joined Domscheit-Berg at OpenLeaks.