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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Whistle-blowing site Wikileaks has been criticised for not doing enough to screen sensitive information found in documents released via the site. [...] What has AP found? The news organisation combed through the site and found many instances where sensitive personal information was easily viewable in documents and files.
In the worst cases the information revealed could put lives at risk or lead to people being jailed or harassed, it said.
It is not the only risk involved with information on the site. Security researcher Vesselin Bontchev found more than 3,000 links to files that contained malware. The links were in a dump of emails from Turkey's ruling political party, the AKP.
However, it has taken some action to make it harder to fall victim to malware in the AKP files - though the dangerous links have not been completely removed.
[...] Is harm being done? Human rights groups have asked Wikileaks many times to do more to censor information found in documents. They fear reprisals against aid workers, activists and civilians named in the leaked data.
In addition, AP said it had evidence that fraudsters had used credit card numbers and other personal details revealed in some documents. Other leaks have led to people losing their jobs, or have ended relationships.
The US government has condemned Wikileaks several times, saying its work has harmed diplomatic relations and put the lives of staff in sensitive positions at risk.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by nsa on Thursday September 01 2016, @03:20AM
The summary reads like a smear that doesn't allow for the possibility that Wikileaks as an organization and type of technology, has been suffering severe human rights violating persecution for many years now. Now, certainly it was a predictable potential consequence of their actions. But that doesn't in my opinion change the ethical balance here. If the U.S. government started defending, instead of persecuting, the kind of immensely valuable journalism that Wikileaks has been engaged in, then I imagine Wikileaks, and several new competing organizations would all very quickly and consequently become much more organizationally able to invest the kinds of energy needed to better redact information. At the present time however, I for one don't fault the organization for not shying away from the biggest profile leaks, and, unable to better redact the material while simultaneously not sacrificing it's journalistic value, basically throwing the leaks like a hot potato to the world. At some point some of this journalism translates into global political policies that result in tens of thousands or even tens of millions of lives being changed or lost. It's got to be one of the most difficult leadership questions to make speculative decisions like that, where the consequences can involve dozens or hundreds of innocents becoming victims, but at the benefit of hundreds of thousands of others not. Keeping the leader of the organization contained in an embassy does not sound like the optimal situation.