Domscheit-Berg: A classical red herring

Daniel Domscheit-Berg at the re:publica 2011. (Photo: Jonas Fischer/re:publica; Source: Flickr: CC-BY-2.0) Source link: http://blog.zdf.de/hyperland/2011/08/domscheit-berg-ein-klassischesablenkungsmanoever/ Following serious accusations by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange against his former companion Daniel Domscheit-Berg now fights back: the mistake he publicized should have been published by WikiLeaks itself to warn endangered persons. The letter by the WikiLeaks lawyer Johannes Jony Eisenberg written to him is a classical red herring. The cyberwaves are getting higher. Times have long passed since the dispute between Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg was about who ate whose Leberkse or if Julian really is a cat-abuser. Instead of that: tough accusations presented by the WikiLeaks lawyer Jonny Eisenberg, cofounder of taz and powerfully eloquent representative of the newspaper in some law suits. Now he represents the interests of Julian Assange and in his name he accuses Domscheit-Berg of having an enhanced dosage of malice, not keeping agreements and obligations and therefore endangering lifes. A leak at WikiLeaks as trigger of the dispute What did happen? Domscheit-Berg revealed to the Freitag journalist Steffen Kraft end of last week that there was a leak at WikiLeaks. A file containing all unredacted US cables, so the documents of the US State department which got leaked to WikiLeaks last year, appeared some time ago in the internet. The encryption key belonging to that file was also hidden somewhere in the net those who get both could lay their hands onto all cables including clear names of informants. A gold mine for intelligences looking for talkative employees or underground-groups wanting to penalize alleged snitches. The fact that Domscheit-Berg published this Faux-Pas of WikiLeaks it seems to be an irresponsible affront for Eisenberg and Assange. With your actions you perhaps endanger the life and legal interests of third parties, Eisenberg writes to Domscheit-Berg according to news agency dpa. His (DDBs) behavior is highly suitable to actually cause the threats you claim to be afraid about. That there was in fact a mistake is obviously not denied.

Domscheit-Berg justifies his actions In a statement presented to Hyperland Domscheit-Berg justifies his actions with the fact that he and other persons who knew of this mistake for months hoped for Assange to react in a responsible way and to warn the affected persons with a public statement. But they decided to ignore the subject and to keep quiet about it Domscheit-Berg writes in his statement following a request of Hyperland. This cant be in the interests of potentially affected persons. Those who invest enough resources into that topic, such as intelligences, surely have found that mistake already by themselves. Every day, on which the public doesnt know about this problem, would be a risk for those persons who dont know that they have to protect themselves from the consequences of this grossly negligent handling of highly sensitive information. According to Domscheit-Berg the messenger of bad news is again turned into the culprit. From my point of view this letter is a classical red herring, the computer scientist continues. Of course they try to distract from the real problem and as always I am the scapegoat for that. After all this would be the third mistake WikiLeaks made in the handling of the US cables, after the cables got first unintentionally to the British journalist Heather Brooke and then to the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten. No joint responsibility for possible harms According to that Domscheit-Berg declines a joint responsibility for possible harms following the now known leak. I spoke with a journalist I trust about this problem. There was a clear agreement about not publishing any details about how or where the material can be found and Mr. Kraft kept that agreement. Daniel Brckerhoff | 31. August 2011 | 16:48h|