Wikileaks exposes censorship and poor document security by NATO

by Steve Ragan - Mar 2 2009, 12:20

Wikileaks has released a thirty page document from the U.N., which relates to the war in Afghanistan. The document outlines exactly what is to be said to journalists and other media, how it is to be said, and what not to say. This in itself will come as no shock. What makes the leak interesting is that Wikileaks obtained it by cracking the password used to protect it. The password was “progress”.

The document, according to the Wikileaks memo, was posted to the Pentagon Central Command (CENTCOM) website (http://oneteam.centcom.mil), which is now offline.

Why NATO would want to censor the information given to the media in the age of near instant television feeds and communications is a mystery. However, according to the Wikileaks post, there are some interesting tidbits and rules when NATO is speaking to the media.

“Among the revelations, which we encourage the press to review in detail, is Jordan's presence as secret member of the US lead occupation force, the ISAF,” Wikileaks said, adding four other bullet notes, including one that requires that “…Under no circumstances should the mission end-date be a topic for speculation in public by any NATO/ISAF spokespeople.”

The document is a thirty page memo titled "NATO in Afghanistan: Master Narrative" and is one of four that Wikileaks posted. Each of the four documents was protected with the same weak password – progress.

Clearly, when you read the documents they are unclassified. However, they were important and sensitive enough to password protect. If that was the case, why was such an obvious password used. While Wikileaks didn’t mention how long it took to crack the password and unlock the documents, using a list of words that are political in nature would have made the process a walk in the park.

If there is a lesson to learn here, it is that if you want to use passwords to protect something, make the password worth the security you expect. In this example, using a passphrase like ‘progress’ to protect a document that is “For Official Use Only” is just lazy.

The second lesson is that apparently NATO wants to censor and keep information from the press, but would that really shock anyone?

If you want to read each of the four “progress” documents, the link is here.

The Tech Herald: California court tosses out First Amendment – orders Wikileaks taken down

The Tech Herald: Judge reverses ruling; Wikileaks back in business

The Tech Herald: Sarah Palin has e-mail account hacked by activists

The Tech Herald: Wikileaks ends up leaking its own internal information

The Tech Herald: NCSAM: Passwords - friend or foe?

Around the Web