wikileaks

For any of those doing some last-minute seminar reading on WikiLeaks, I'd direct you to this documentary which was broadcast on More4 on Tuesday night.

Headlines in last week's news and media pages might have given you the impression that major companies were seriously threatened by cyber warfare launched by the Anonymous group.  Those headlines started after companies including Visa and Paypal withdrew their support for WikiLeaks and became the target of cyber attacks. A report by Ben Cohen of Channel 4 News has revealed that the situation was not as serious as the headlines suggested. Ben's evidence indicates that fewer than one per cent of cyber attacks were caused by "hacktivist" groups and that few individuals are actively involved with the Anonymous group. Channel 4 invited me to contribute to the piece. It cost me most of a day's holiday, so I'll be intrigued to know what you make of the story. 

As promised, here are a small selection of pieces on Wikileaks. 

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100726_wikileaks_and_afghan_war?utm_sou...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/7917955/Wikil...

http://en.rsf.org/united-states-open-letter-to-wikileaks-founder-12-08-2...

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/08/09/100809taco_talk_davidson

On Monday Wikileaks released a mountain of documents on the war in Afghanistan through the Guardian, the New York Times and German weekly Der Spiegel.

The picture painted is chaotic: failed attempts to win the 'hearts and minds' of the Afghan people, numerous incidences of civilian casualties and evidence that both Iran and Pakistan are helping the Taliban.