Or was it ArsTechnica?
Anyway…

Short
https://www.boingboing.net/2011/02/15/the-implosion-of-sec.html

Long

+

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/the-ridiculous-plan-to-attack-wikileaks.ars

Longer

+

https://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/87dc140e-3099-11e0-9de3-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1E3621iOg (registration needed)
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/how-one-security-firm-tracked-anonymousand-paid-a-heavy-price.ars
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/virtually-face-to-face-when-aaron-barr-met-anonymous.ars
https://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/02/11/campaigns/index.html
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2011/02/hbgary-federal-hacked-by-anonymous/

Uptade

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/anonymous-vs-hbgary-the-aftermath.ars

https://www.hbgary.com/
https://www.bericotechnologies.com/
https://www.palantirtech.com/
https://www.hunton.com/

The general model behind Wikileaks comprises:

• A system that allows someone (the leaker) to release information to an organization (receiving organization) leaving no traces that lead to him. As a variation, the possible traces may be in the only possession of the receiving organization. In this case the organization either guarantees to keep them secret or destroy them effectively. At last it is a matter of trust: if the leaker trusts the system behind the receiving organization, he will relase the information. Otherwise, he will not.
• A receiving organization that receives the so called “leaks”, verifies and evaluates them and evacuates them to the public or to some other organizations for publishing (publishing organizations).
• In case there are publishing organizations involved, they add some context to the leaks and publish them to the public.

Today there are entities working by this model other than Wikileaks which, at least by now, haven’t attracted (much) public attention to them.

All these organizations have had some permeability within their workforce, they share some of the procedures, general systems and tools they use to achieve their goals.

At this point of time most look at the actual scenario these entities draw. Fewer look forward to future scenarios. When they do, most of the attention goes towards the implications in the specific field where they are being used in: international relations and, laterally, journalism.

But once the systems are in place and have proved to be effective (in the case of Wikileaks, the person who is held responsible exposed himself, it was not because of a failure in the system), why should them be kept bound to secrets related to diplomacy?

Once they spread (and they will), why not use them to reveal administration’s misbehaviors?

And why not use them to report the (naughty) private life of famous people or VIPs?

Or to circulate the life of your neighbor, at least?

I bet there’s a market for that…

We’ll see…

“Simulacra and Simulation (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism)” , University of Michigan Press, 1995, p106

There is no more hope for meaning. And without a doubt this is a good thing: meaning is mortal. But that on which it has imposed its ephemeral reign, what it hoped to liquidate in order to impose the reign of the Enlightenment, that is, appearances, they, are immortal, invulnerable to the nihilism of meaning or of non-meaning itself.

This is where seduction begins.”

Handle these links with care, you’ve been warned:

<added>

• NHD,  hacker folklore

</added>

• Entrevista a Assange en «El País».
• Toward a Taxonomy of Secrets.
• Eco.
• Anonymous.
• 4chan.
• LOIC.
• Tor.
• Liberté.
• P2P DNS then.
• P2P DNS now.
• Ben Laurie.
• History Insurance.
• Wikileaks Leak.
• CIA, Soros, etc.
• OpenLeaks (available december 13th? UPDATE 12/15/2010, still «Coming soon!»).

Go to an esoteric book shop and you’ll find that every book on the shelf (on the Holy Grail, the “mystery” of Rennes-le-Château [a hoax theory concocted to draw tourists to a French town], on the Templars or the Rosicrucians) is a point-by-point rehash of what is already written in older books. And it’s not just because occult authors are averse to doing original research (or don’t know where to look for news about the non-existent), but because those given to the occult only believe what they already know and what corroborates what they’ve already heard.

Umberto Eco