WikiLeaks Blames Guardian for Cable Leak

Newspaper leaked password for unredacted files, WikiLeaks complains
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 1, 2011 5:43 AM CDT
WikiLeaks Blames Guardian for Cable Leak
WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange arrives at the High Court in London for a hearing last month.   (AP Photo/Sang Tan)

A lesson in the importance of changing your passwords, courtesy of WikiLeaks and the Guardian: An unredacted version of WikiLeaks' entire trove of US diplomatic cables has been leaked online and WikiLeaks says it's all the newspaper's fault, the BBC reports. A message from the site posted on Twitter accuses Guardian journalists of committing a "previously undetected act of gross negligence or malice" by leaking top-secret decryption passwords. WikiLeaks warns that it has commenced legal action.

The Guardian counters that while a password was mentioned in its book WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy, the paper had been told it was a temporary password that would be deleted within hours after the cables had been accessed. The same file with the same password, however, later appeared on file-sharing site BitTorrent. "It's nonsense to suggest the Guardian's WikiLeaks book has compromised security in any way," the paper said in a statement. "No concerns were expressed when the book was published and if anyone at WikiLeaks had thought this compromised security they have had seven months to remove the files." (More WikiLeaks stories.)

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