Image via Wired.
Here is an amazing roundup from Andy Baio via Waxy.org (thanks to @mecredis):
The Story So Far
Wikileaks is offering the diplomatic cables directly from their website, with 278 available from over 250,000 to be released in stages over the next few months. View them here, or any number of mirrors. Alternately, StateLogs lets you browse and search the complete collection.
The Guardian offered the best coverage, in my opinion, including a data dump of all the metadata in CSV format and on Google Fusion. The Guardian's liveblog from Monday showed how the story rolled out as it happened, and today's liveblog is an excellent up-to-the-minute list of the fallout.
Reuters country-by-country summary of the revelations in the release.
In a long interview with Forbes, Julian Assange says that half their leaks are from the private sector, they're getting an exponential increase in leaks, and are planning a leak for a major U.S. bank is up next in early 2011. Bank of America shares were down on the rumors. In today's interview with TIME, he says Hillary Clinton should step down.
If you're wondering about Assange's broader motivations for Wikileaks, this great post surfaces some of his earlier writing about hampering America's ability to keep secrets. (Or you can dig around yourself through his old blog, available from Archive.org.)
Personally, I'd love to hear more about James Ball, a data journalist who worked closely with Wikileaks to analyze the data. In this NBC Nightly News interview, he says he's not an employee, but in another Telegraph interview, says he's paid by Wikileaks. I'd love more details.
Marc Ambinder explains some of the technical details about how modern diplomatic cables are stored and transmitted. In short: PDFs in Outlook PST files transmitted over SIPRnet (which was disconnected last week) and then burned to a mislabeled CD while lip-syncing Lady Gaga.
Interestingly, Wikileaks didn't give the leak to the New York Times, who instead received them from The Guardian. Their series of followup articles have been good.
Visualizations
The Cablegate data dump's browsable in a number of ways, with interactive visualizations using Tableau Public. (Tableau originally wrote about it, but deleted the post.)
StateLogs, a Cablegate browser designed by French journalism nonprofit OWNI in collaboration with Slate.fr, offers a tag cloud of the most popular subjects in the cables.
Der Spiegel posted an interactive visualization of the cables by country, and both The Guardian and El Pais made similar static visualizations.
Ed Summers tried to visualize the social graph of the cables, looking at the sending and receiving stations of the cables. (Code's on Github, if you want to have fun with it.)
You can download all the files yourself from the Pirate Bay.
Who supports Wikileaks?
Not many public figures!
Daniel Ellsberg, the former military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. In an NBC interview, the Bradley Manning of the 1970s said the release was "useful... and the public deserves to know." And Noam Chomsky, who also assisted with the Pentagon Papers.
In the media, the Guardian's Simon Jenkins wrote a compelling column defending Wikileaks, saying, "It is for governments - not journalists - to guard public secrets, and there is no national jeopardy in WikiLeaks' revelations." Salon's Glenn Greenwald, Slate's Jack Schafer, and The Economist's Will Wilkinson also defended Wikileaks.
The newspapers that had access to the material didn't take a position, but obviously felt the material was newsworthy. The New York Times discussed the decision to publish, and responded to readers' questions today.
In one of my favorite articles so far, the New Yorker's Blake Eskin draws parallels to Facebook and other online privacy scandals.
It won't surprise many that Pirate Bay cofounder Peter Sunde positions it as a free speech issue.
With its heavy libertarian streak, I'm surprised more prominent people in technology haven't spoken up.
Who's against Wikileaks?
Most US politicians, left and right, came out forcefully against Wikileaks. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: told reporters, "It is an attack on the international community, the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations, that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity."
NATO condemned the release, saying "it endangers civilians and military personnel... It is illegal, irresponsible and dangerous."
George W. Bush, Senator Joe Lieberman. Rick Santorum calls the Wikileaks release "terrorism." Mike Huckabee wants Assange executed. Sarah Palin wrote on Facebook that Julian Assange is "an anti-American operative with blood on his hands."
Most world governments denounced Wikileaks. China won't comment on the contents of the leak, but blocked access to Wikileaks, citing the preservation of US-China relations. The Russian government wants to destroy Wikileaks before they leak KGB info. In the UK, Downing Street and Sir Malcolm Rifkind MP (Chairman of the UK Intelligence and Security Committee and former Foreign Secretary).
Wikipedia cofounder (and critic) Larry Sanger wrote that, "I consider you enemies of the U.S. — not just the government, but the people." He expanded on his view in a larger essay, stating, "Julian Assange is no hero. He is a twit... He gives hackers a bad name."
Adrian Lamo, the ex-hacker who Manning confided in, condemned the leak in a series of amusingly odd press releases. He likes pie.
In The Middle?
Jimmy Carter doesn't think the release will be as damaging as Hillary Clinton believes. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates agrees.
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claims the release wasn't an accidental leak, but a psychological warfare campaign by the United States.
The Internet Responds
Taiwan's NMA News does the obligatory CG reenactment.
The Wikileaks website suffered ongoing attacks, but is holding up well after moving to Amazon EC2. Jester, a "hacktivist for good" who targets terrorist websites, took credit for Tuesday's DDOS.
Dan Gillmor posed some thoughtful questions for Wikileaks, journalists, and the U.S. government.
Julian Assange fan art, from Fuck Yeah Julian Assange.
Also: Julian Assange and Bradley Manning costumes from Halloween. (No Rule 34 yet, though.)
4chan could not be reached for comment.
