This week, WikiLeaks editor and self-proclaimed freedom of information crusader Julian Assange is getting a lesson in irony: there has been a leak at WikiLeaks. German paper Der Freitag claims it has uncovered a batch of online unredacted diplomatic cables that came from WikiLeaks.
Editor Steffen Kraft said he found a "password protected csv file" that contained a 1.73GB cache of diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks. Kraft said the file's password was easy to find.
WikiLeaks usually redacts documents before it releases them, meaning it removes the names of informants or vulnerable sources. Many of the of the documents uncovered by Der Freitag had been published by WikiLeaks in the past, but they're not official WikiLeaks files and they have not been edited for sensitive information in the usual way. Its pages contained "named or otherwise identifiable 'informers' and 'suspected intelligence agents' from Israel, Jordan, Iran, and Afghanistan," Der Freitag said.
In light of the sensitive nature of the informatino, Der Freitag has not published these documents, nor provided proof of their existence, but Der Spiegel, another German paper, has chimed in to confirm that they're real.
WikiLeaks began to publish more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables last fall, and has released this treasure trove of documents gradually, in pieces. TechCrunch pointed out that WikiLeaks coincidentally dumped a "large number of cables" online last Friday, the same day Der Freitag published the news of its discovery.
So who's to blame for this WikiLeaks leak? Kraft was not hesitant to suggest that former WikiLeaker Daniel Domscheit-Berg could be responsible. Last week, the former WikiLeaks spokesperson claimed that he destroyed more than 3,500 unleaked documents including a copy of the U.S. no-fly list and data from Bank of America. Domscheit-Berg said he shredded documents and deleted data in order to protect sources for whom Assange could not guarantee safety. But it's possible those documents weren't actually destroyed. Regardless, Domscheit-Berg has joined staff at WikiLeaks publishing partners the Guardian, the New York Times, El Pais, and others as a possible suspect.
However, considering the broken relationship between Assange and Domscheit-Berg, Kraft's implication might not be off-base. Domscheit-Berg deflected from WikiLeaks to open rival site OpenLeaks, and he also penned a tell-all book about his stint at WikiLeaks that painted Assange in a less than favorable light.