20110220

BofA Used Private Intel Firms to Discredit WikiLeaks

Shining the light on coakroaches tends to make them scurry. In Bank of America's case, the potential that WikiLeaks would shed light on their greed was enough for them to hire private intelligence/propaganda firms to discredit the entire whistleblowing operation.

How unfortunate for BoFA, HBGary Federal, Plantir and Berico that their own servers got hacked by Anonymous, who liberated their nefarious and underhanded plans to give WikiLeaks a bad reputation. That the Department of Justice was involved should be even more troubling to American citizens.

Bank of America using Private Intel Firms to Attack Wikileaks

In a document titled "The WikiLeaks Threat" three data intelligence companies, Plantir Technologies, HBGary Federal and Berico Technologies, outline a plan to attack Wikileaks. They are acting upon request from Hunton and Williams, a law firm working for Bank of America. The Department of Justice recommended the law firm to Bank of America according to an article in The Tech Herald. The prosed attacks on WikiLeaks according to the slides include these actions:
  • Feed the fuel between the feuding groups. Disinformation. Create messages around actions of sabotage or discredit the opposing organizations. Submit fake documents and then call out the error.
  • Create concern over the security of the infrastructure. Create exposure stories. If the process is believed not to be secure they are done.
  • Cyber attacks against the infrastructure to get data on document submitters. This would kill the project. Since the servers are now in Sweden and France putting a team together to get access is more straightforward.
  • Media campaign to push the radial and reckless nature of WikiLeaks activities. Sustain pressure. Does nothing for the fanatics, but creates concern and doubt among moderates.
  • Search for leaks. Use social media to profile and identify risky behavior of employees. 
More:  http://wikileaks.ch

Evil always loses in the end.

20110219

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

The latest release from The Zeitgeist Movement.