Wikileaks to go mobile (Not an app)

The infamous site Wikileaks is looking to move itsoperations to a boat in international waters! Holy shades of Snow Crash! Theboat idea is being widely reported by several credible news organizations andrepeated amongst social media network members today. The earliest incarnationof the story I can find puts Fox News as patient zero for this informationspread.

I want to go on record with my opinion right now: I don’tbelieve it. To me buying a ship sounds more like a Hollywood plot than aanti-censorship strategy by a group of competent hackers for three reasons: itwas an unnamed source, lawlessness of the open sea is a double edge sword, andnobody is that bad at disaster recovery planning.

My boss, Rob, often writes about FUD and security. Rob’s originalOccupy Wall Street article is a shining example of his almost inhumanobjectivity. After mentioning the possibility of Wikileaks going nautical hetold me he didn’t believe it. The story is too sensational is his argument.Rob’s staunch anti-ship stance caused me to reread the stories. With the fresheyes evaluating the story I have to agree with him. Citing unknown sources is shoddyjournalism. Without sources this article is no better than schoolgirl gossip.Instead of Johnny likes Suzie we get Julian is fond of maritime law.

The premise of the boat strategy seems to rest on the beliefthat in international waters (about 12 miles off the coast of a country)Wikileaks avoids being subject to the laws of a target’s country. This beliefis a fallacy. The “international waters immunity” myth is baffling to me. Themyth seems to spring to life solely from people repeating it so often that itis assumed to be true. You cannot do what ever you want in international watersand get away with it.  Since I am not alawyer I will not engage in an ad-nauseam discussion of the semantics of law.

Being in international waters doesn’t mean you can dowhatever you want; just what you care to defend against. This makes the 70% ofthe earth covered in water a briny version of prohibition era America: itslegal if you can bribe or shoot your way out. If a backer has enough money tobuy a boat large enough for use by Wikileaks then the fallacy of unlimitedfreedom would not come as a shock. I didn't see any articles discussing this point.

Once out in international waters the same freedom that theleakers seek could actually hurt them. After thinking about Wikileaks operatingin international waters with a place like Sealand I thought about the easyaccess to military grade training that a few years ago was only for specialforces high-speed teir-1 types. Take a look at this class from the firearms andtraining company, Magpul.

In this class I will learn how to employ a maritime assaultforce, non-compliant/opposed boarding, and hook and climbtechniques. That’s all I need to board a craft and take the Wikileaksinformation by force. 

If I don’t want to take training the draw down of USforces Afghanistan and end of operations in Iraq means that there is a largenumber of paramilitary types that are available for hire. While jaunting offthe deep blue sea sounds like a good idea at first the security concerns cannotbe overlooked; you can face lawyers on land or mercenaries on the sea. Sinceone of the goals of Wikileaks was to stop wars it doesn’t seem that they wouldbe very good at repelling a boarding party.

The example of mercenaries is reductioad absurdum (thanks to Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory for adding that phrase to my vocabulary) on my part. The point is that you are trading one set of problemsfor a different set that Wikileaks is incapable of handling.

Lastly I just don’t think that aWikileaks boat makes sense from a network availability standpoint. The boatwould have to use a satellite link or some sort of line of sight connection forInternet connectivity. Both can be jammed. After Wikileaks spent time to havetheir site mirrored by supporters there is no sense in a move that would make silencingthem a arms race of who has a bigger radio.

In order to be effective Wikileakswould need an armada, not a ship. Armadas are costly these days. The initialhardware costs are just the start of the problem the daily operations wouldexhaust the would-be digital pirates donation based budget instantly.

The biggest problem of Internetconnectivity is where it terminates. What ever government is at the other endof the internet connection can disable it at any point and leave Wikileaks inno better shape than if they were in a more forgiving hosting location. In ITspeak why would they inherit all this new risk to their new operations with verylittle reward.

I will admit there is a scenario thatwould make the reports of a SS Leaker plausible: Bit Torrent. If the shipremained stealthy and only needed Internet connectivity to start the seeding ofa new torrent based release there is some technical validity to the idea. Theelectronic face of the organization, the web servers and such, could be hostedanywhere as long as they weren’t holding any secrets. This would be like theIrish Republican Army splitting into public and guerrilla warfare halves so theycould perform attacks then do press releases about it.

I am sure this idea was thought up in a chat room as a “whatif…” scenario then was repeated enough until a reporter got hold of it. Setaside the coolness factor of being mistaken for a Bond villain and the purposedmove to a ship really doesn’t make any sense for Wikileaks. They would betrading one type of trouble for another and would still need a way to providereliable network connectivity. I don’t think risking Davey Jones’ locker isthe answer, I think different leaders are. Since the Wikileaks fervor seems tohave died down I guess any publicity will help the cause since starting apolitical party really hasn’t done Pirate Bay any good.

These are just my ideas; I have no insider knowledge on thealleged hoisting of anchor for Wikileaks. 

[This was originally written on February 1st when the story broke, I just took two weeks getting it on the site. As far as I know aside from the initial story there hasn't been any additional information since I wrote this.]