WEBVTT - How does WikiLeaks work?

0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:03.840
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Brainstuff from house stuff works dot com, where

0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:15.200
<v Speaker 1>smart happens Him Marshall Brain with today's question, how does

0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:19.720
<v Speaker 1>wiki leaks work. Let's imagine that you have learned a secret,

0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:23.040
<v Speaker 1>and this secret is so important or so damaging that

0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:26.159
<v Speaker 1>you need to tell someone. But let's also imagine that

0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:30.000
<v Speaker 1>you need to remain anonymous. For example, you might fear

0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:33.839
<v Speaker 1>that you would face retaliation, jail, or perhaps murder if

0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:37.519
<v Speaker 1>people found out who revealed the secret. What would you

0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:40.720
<v Speaker 1>do in a situation like this, You might go to

0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:44.000
<v Speaker 1>the government, or perhaps to the police, but you might

0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:46.640
<v Speaker 1>be concerned that the government might be a part of

0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:50.199
<v Speaker 1>the problem, or that they might bury your secret or

0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:54.440
<v Speaker 1>do something to you that would be unfortunate. In other words,

0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:57.600
<v Speaker 1>if you have a big, dirty secret, especially one that

0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:00.840
<v Speaker 1>involves the government itself, it may be hard to get

0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:04.520
<v Speaker 1>the word out anonymously. In that case, you might want

0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:09.119
<v Speaker 1>to try wiki leaks at WikiLeaks dot org. WikiLeaks describes

0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:12.640
<v Speaker 1>itself in this way. Wiki Leaks is a not for

0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:17.240
<v Speaker 1>profit media organization. Our goal is to bring important news

0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:20.880
<v Speaker 1>and information to the public. We provide an innovative, secure,

0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:24.360
<v Speaker 1>and anonymous way for sources to leak information to our

0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:29.920
<v Speaker 1>journalists that anonymity is important to maintaining Wiki Leak's incoming

0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:34.080
<v Speaker 1>flow of information. WikiLeaks claims that it has never blown

0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:37.720
<v Speaker 1>the cover of any informant, and WikiLeaks provides a number

0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:40.880
<v Speaker 1>of ways to submit material, as well as instructions for

0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:45.800
<v Speaker 1>ensuring anonymous Internet submissions. Based on its promise and track

0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:49.600
<v Speaker 1>record of anonymity, WikiLeaks has been able to break several

0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:53.200
<v Speaker 1>important releases of secret material, and this really gets to

0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:56.960
<v Speaker 1>the heart of the Wiki leaks process. First, someone has

0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:00.520
<v Speaker 1>to gain possession of secret material in some way, and

0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:03.680
<v Speaker 1>then that someone has to trust Wiki leaks enough to

0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:08.120
<v Speaker 1>send it in where might the leaked material come from?

0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.600
<v Speaker 1>In the case of the Sarah Palin Yahoo email account

0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:15.960
<v Speaker 1>and the Climate Research Unit email account, a hacker had

0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:19.120
<v Speaker 1>to break into the accounts and steal the emails. In

0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:22.600
<v Speaker 1>the case of the British National Party membership list, the

0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:27.160
<v Speaker 1>website for that organization accidentally posted its membership list on

0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:30.280
<v Speaker 1>its website for a short period of time and someone

0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:33.800
<v Speaker 1>snagged a copy before it disappeared. But by far the

0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:37.799
<v Speaker 1>most common and most damaging source of leaks is insiders

0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:40.680
<v Speaker 1>who secretly collect the information and then send it to

0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:43.919
<v Speaker 1>Wiki Leaks. Insiders might do this out of a sense

0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:47.720
<v Speaker 1>of justice or as a form of retaliation against an employer.

0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:52.280
<v Speaker 1>Whatever the motive, several of the resulting leaks have been spectacular.

0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:56.400
<v Speaker 1>For example, an insider managed to leak an audio and

0:02:56.520 --> 0:03:01.080
<v Speaker 1>video stream recorded during an Apache helicopter attack that killed

0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:05.160
<v Speaker 1>civilians in Iraq. This leaked video is the one that

0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:08.240
<v Speaker 1>put wiki leaks on the map, because WikiLeaks was the

0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.519
<v Speaker 1>sole outlet for that video, and the video was so

0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:15.920
<v Speaker 1>incendiary that most major media outlets around the world picked

0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:20.560
<v Speaker 1>it up. It was incendiary because two Reuters reporters were killed,

0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:23.800
<v Speaker 1>because the US military tried to cover up the incident,

0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:28.760
<v Speaker 1>and because the military personnel involved used rather amazing language

0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:32.880
<v Speaker 1>during the attack that did not reflect well on US forces.

0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:37.120
<v Speaker 1>Since that watershed moment, WikiLeaks has benefited from several more

0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:42.640
<v Speaker 1>major insider releases. For example, WikiLeaks released hundreds of thousands

0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:45.760
<v Speaker 1>of pages of information known as the Iraq War Logs,

0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:48.400
<v Speaker 1>and it has also come into possession of hundreds of

0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:52.840
<v Speaker 1>thousands of U S diplomatic cables. These cables revealed behind

0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:56.560
<v Speaker 1>the scenes comments and actions by US diplomats that have

0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:59.920
<v Speaker 1>proven quite embarrassing to the United States and its allies.

0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:04.080
<v Speaker 1>If you think about it, wiki leaks should not be necessary,

0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:07.200
<v Speaker 1>at least in the United States. The U s Government

0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:09.720
<v Speaker 1>is supposed to be government by the people and for

0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:13.840
<v Speaker 1>the people. Such a government should be completely transparent to

0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:18.200
<v Speaker 1>the entire population in every action it takes. Unfortunately, the

0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:21.800
<v Speaker 1>US government appears to be far from transparent, and wiki

0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.280
<v Speaker 1>leaks is helping to remove that opacity, one leak at

0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:29.760
<v Speaker 1>a time. Be sure to check out our new video podcast,

0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:32.960
<v Speaker 1>Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuffwork staff as we

0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:38.120
<v Speaker 1>explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The

0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:40.719
<v Speaker 1>how stufforks i Find app has arrived down at it

0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:42.080
<v Speaker 1>today on iTunes