French Intelligence Agency Forces Removal of Wikipedia Entry 179
saibot834 writes "The French domestic intelligence agency DCRI has forced a Wikipedia administrator to delete an article about a local military base. The administrator, who is also the president of Wikimédia France, has been threatened by the agency with immediate reprisals after his initial refusal to comply. Following a discussion on the administrator's noticeboard, the article (which is said to violate a law on the secrecy of the national defense) has been reinstated by a foreign user. Prior to pressuring the admin, DCRI contacted the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), which refused to remove the article. WMF claimed the article only contained publicly available information, in accordance with Wikipedia's verifiability policy. While the consequences for Wikimedia's community remain unclear, one thing is certain: The military base article – now available in English – will get more public awareness than ever before."
Great test case (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a terrific test case on secrecy laws. No one violated laws, no one is using secret information. All the proper people were notified and there was a clear cut request / order and a clear cut refusal to comply. At the same time this is military information. This is just about the perfect test case.
Whut? (Score:1)
No one violated laws, no one is using secret information.
So how is this a "terrific test case on secrecy laws"? If this goes any further than it has, this is a test case for the French military's ability to overstep its authority. Nothing more.
I expect this "case" to go no further.
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I'm gathering the French govt has the ability to prevent the republication of already public information. Those sorts of laws are common in Europe and Canada.
Re:Whut? (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a jurisdictional question: can the French government punish a French citizen for simply being part of the same organization as a non-Frenchman who breaks French law?
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If it did, wouldn't that have given them better leverage over twitter?
Recall the french government sued twitter after they refused to hand over the names/IP addresses of some people who committed the horrible crime against humanity of trolling somebody else.
Instead of complying, twitter basically told them to GFY. I'd imagine that if there were any french people working for twitter, they would have been snagged by that.
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Those are smaller more petty bureaucrats or police with less international leverage then higher level military ranking officials with special official positions only given out to single people and probably attachment to the French version of 3 letter agencies though. So in this case the guy is probably out of luck and must comply or else.
Thats were the "just" part comes in.
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How about in Italy? [bbc.co.uk]
(Yes, I know it was overturned on appeal, but still...)
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There's a jurisdictional question: can the French government punish a French citizen for simply being part of the same organization as a non-Frenchman who breaks French law?
If the question is "Can the government do <something>?", the answer is always "yes, if they have the means to do it".
If the question is "Is it permitted/legal/moral/ethical/right for the government do <something>?", I humbly submit that it is irrelevant.
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no organization on the planet has the ability to prevent republication of already public organization. Not if it's on the internet. There are no laws that can enforce such a concept successfully.
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*already public information.
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Let me introduce you to my little friend "born secret" [wikipedia.org].
As far as I know, it remains in the arsenal of ideas surrounding extra-special classification of extra-special data, as absurd as it seems: the idea that you can stuff the genie back into the bottle.
I believe the laws involved are still on the books, and the idea was never completely challenged and overturned, so it's lurking out there.
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no organization on the planet has the ability to prevent republication of already public organization.
European governments do it all the time in newspapers and television.
Not if it's on the internet
That's why this is interesting. Because it is much harder on the internet but there is a whole body of law that assumes it is possible and needed.
There are no laws that can enforce such a concept successfully.
Sure there are. Consider child pornography laws which make it a major felony to sell, distribute,
Re:Great test case (Score:5, Informative)
And in a wonderful example of self-reference, this Slashdot article is referenced in the Wikipedia article.
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It's never ceased to amaze me how with a set of eyeballs and maybe
ibid binoculars you can to a high degree determine the goings on on
military intallations. All the while being under a regime 'you're not to
know, not to publish'.
The military and intel are indeed 'dumb' and mindless institutions,
operating on reflexes sooner than rational human thought. Actually
that''s not a bug, it's a feature. The feature though becomes useless
where there's interaction with society. Like here.
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Depends on the installation. Many aren't doing anything particularly secretive or even restricted or classified, so they don't bother.
But if you try to do some of your "observation" around say, Area 51, armed guards will come out in fairly short order to shoo you along. Even if you're
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I would think any french government secrets laws would apply to french citizens no matter where they are.
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I would think any french government secrets laws would apply to french citizens no matter where they are.
Not sure about this. While numerous national laws apply to overseas citizens (e.g. child abuse laws in Canada, Aus and the US), French citizenship is a little different. You cannot renounce French citizenship; it's simply not possible. So secrecy laws and various others which can and sometimes do conflict with human rights might be harder to enforce in a court of law.
But hey, the Napoleonic code on which French law is based differs significantly from Common Law, with which I'm more familiar, so I'm nearly c
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No question. It happened. how many people follow the French talk page of Station hertzienne militaire de Pierre-sur-Haute. How many read the articles now in English? I'm sure this article is now copied to dozens of websites including historical versions with even extra information.
Le effect Streissand. (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder what that French agency which likes to create French words instead of using ones derived from other languages will coin to name the Streissand effect.
Re:Le effect Streissand. (Score:4, Insightful)
Unlike the usual cases, the Streisand effect does not really fit here.
Sure it will happen.
But the french intelligence agency does not care about 'public attention'. They care about what information other intelligence agencies can obtain about their bases.
And if those are interested in said base at all, they will find the info wikipedia has on it, with, or without Miss Streisand's help.
Re:Le effect Streissand. (Score:5, Interesting)
The KGB folks said that on the contrary, it was actually harder for them. Yes they had an easier time acquiring and extracting information from the U.S. But it was mixed in with an ocean of conspiracy theories, entertainment, hoaxes, marketing exaggerations, gossip, etc. Separating the signal from the noise was a daunting and sometimes impossible task. They couldn't be sure if a report of a new top secret plasma energy canon was real, or if it was just someone spilling the plot of a new sci-fi movie secretly being produced. And they had to waste a tremendous amount of resources vetting out stories in the National Enquirer in case they were true.
Obscurity isn't the only way to enhance security. Seems to me something like wikipedia, where anonymous people all over the world can edit entries, would be a great way to sow misinformation.
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You are talking about counter intelligence.. but you don't look deep enough. This might be the work of the infamous counter counter intelligence.
Re:Le effect Streissand. (Score:5, Interesting)
Effet Pierre-sur-Haute
Might as well make it local.
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I didn't even know France had a military.
I don't know what the big deal is for them (Score:2)
I don't understand why they are so pent up over this military base. The radio station will only tell their troops where to fall back.
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Only if it happens in Quebec. In France, they just tend to incorporate it as-is. Stop signs in France say "Stop". Stop signs in Quebec say "Arret". And the French words for e-mail and such... originated in Quebec.
So Quebec will have to come up with a new name "to keep French pure" while the France French will probably just call it whatever seems appro
Re:Le effect Streissand. (Score:5, Funny)
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Nobody can spell Lundun properly, not even us Brits!
Except for those with a bit of historical knowledge, who know that the correct spelling is "Londinium [wikipedia.org]". ;-)
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Thanks I learned a great deal on slashdot today. I will always hold this knowledge in a special place in my heart.
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+1 Sarcasm
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I will always hold this knowledge in a special place in my heart.
Left ventricle?
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Since when did the Romans use the letter 'u'? Londinivm.
To be reeeealy nitpicky, I believe they actually spelled it LONDINIVM.
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A good example of a Latin word with both "v" and "u" is "vacuus", meaning void.
Re:Le effect Streissand. (Score:5, Informative)
Welcome to the Internet, France. Wiki ain't local. Suck it.
That said - This article has pretty much nothing of interest in it except maybe a tiny bit of cold war trivia only of interest to the most die-hard "must know everything" historians. That, therefore, makes me suspect this base's official purpose as a cover for something much, much more interesting. Thanks, France, for drawing attention to this!
Re:Le effect Streissand. (Score:5, Insightful)
That said - This article has pretty much nothing of interest...
In this case you're probably right, however one shouldn't forget that intelligence job is to gather tiny bits of information that might look of no interest to average people to reconstruct schemes in contexts that are of interest to them (and other intelligence services). It's a profession.
It is the same problematic as with Facebook lambda users for example who say "Due, I don't publish very private information about myself there, so what, and who cares...", when you warn them about their privacy. They simply ignore there are specialists out there, how powerful data mining systems are and how they are capable of spotting, linking and gathering tiny elements of information where themselves just see nothing.
I just want to say that intelligence agencies know what is sensible or of interest to them and what is not. We, outsiders, don't.
But sure they got a Streisand effect here...
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Trying to hide something that is in plain view like this is a fools errand and has backfired badly I suspect that it's a civil servant
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But sure they got a Streisand effect here...
Yes, but it's called the 'Maurice Chevalier' effect.
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Wiki ain't local.
Um, neither was Greenpeace [wikipedia.org]...? :p
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Welcome to the Internet, France. Wiki ain't local. Suck it.
Or as we in KAOS like to put it:
STARKER! ZIS IS DE INTERNET! VE DON'T COUNTRY ON DE INTERNET!!
Re:Le effect Streissand. (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, that's a common mistake. This obviously isn't the Streisand effect, but the closely related Streissand effect.
The Streisand effect is when you have something that you really do want to keep private, but in your zealous quest to do so it becomes more public much to your chagrin.
The Streissand effect is when you have something you don't really care if it stays private and make a zealous quest to keep it quiet, making it look like a Streisand effect, when the intention was to try to set a precedent that could be used in he future to encourage people to not try to make the other really private stuff, the stuff you *really* want to keep private, public for fear of your reaction.
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Aside from the joke about the misspelling of "Streisand", this is on the money. Forcing an admin to delete one article is subject to the Streisand effect. Forcing admins to delete an article every month for the next year will result in the Internet getting tired of hearing about it, and at some point getting the articles deleted actually won't attract any attention.
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Sorry, accidentally modded your post down, when intended to mod it +1 Funny. This post should undo that.
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Brilliant - I'm going to have to have a look for a plugin that misspells words but still leaves the content readable. I'd try writing one, but am too busy smashing Kerbals into the Mun.
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by suing.
Re:Le effect Streissand. (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, valid criticisms. Those I like. Such as pointing out that only the worst type of loser chooses to check the box 'Post Anonymously'. If you have an opinion, speak it. Being afraid of judgment from people you have never or will never meet shows an extreme lack of self esteem. Type out your opinions like an ADULT and be done with it.
"smart-assed immature punks' are the people who honestly think anyone gives a damn about spelling mistakes on the internet. Should I berate you endlessly for not putting a comma between miserable and worthless as you should have? It would be a waste of both our times and we both know it. Adult only references a person's age, not their ability to not act like a know-it-all piece of shit who feels that everyone should be grateful at being corrected on a matter they care nothing about. Save us the shame of knowing about your neurotic tendencies and keep them to yourself.
Military intelligence (Score:2)
That's military intelligence for you. Nice radio station you have there, France.
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"Military intelligence", is that something analogical to "celibate Irish friar" or "honest politician"?
No. It is statistically possible to find examples of said friar and politician.
"Military intelligence" is more in line with "Santa Claus" and "Easter Bunny".
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"Military intelligence", is that something analogical to "celibate Irish friar" or "honest politician"?
No. It is statistically possible to find examples of said friar and politician.
I think they called the last one "Honest Abe", I'm pretty sure the species is extinct.
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Interesting bit of history, Honest Abe was one of the most deceptive military leaders our country has ever known. He used the North's 'high speed' (for the time) rail and instant telegraph communications to spread FUD to his advantage.
Honest Abe was far from honest.
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Well duh.
If someone has "Honest" in their name, they aren't. Just like if a country has Democratic in its name, it isn't.
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"Military intelligence" is more in line with "Santa Claus"
The Easter Bunny I'll give you. But it was statistically possible to find Nicholas of Myra, and it is still statistically possible to find a seasonal courier, recognizable from its sales associates in red coats in shopping malls, that specializes in delivering toys and hobby products on December 25.
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What is so secretive and important about a radio tower and roughly 20 personnel? Especially when they have three more of those.
Hell, there's more informative articles on Gitmo, Diego Garcia, and Area 51... and those are still up.
I think someone in the French military got their panties in a wad about nothing...
Re:Military intelligence (Score:5, Funny)
I think someone in the French military got their panties in a wad about nothing...
- careful, it's France. You don't insult the panties that the French military is brandishing without suffering a severe ... retreat.
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Awesome link. Its a shame. But this seems to be the modus operandi of people with power like this.
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I think someone in the French military got their panties in a wad about nothing...
Wikileaks has leaked the last communications that French Intelligence had with Wikimedia Legal. Quote:
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_station [wikipedia.org]
Its funner to transmit retreat over and over since WWwhatever in code. They probably have been given an order to transmit it and forgot why they were doing it, no one knows why and they just don't because they will carry out their order till the end of time.
Heck I can envision galactic space-fairing dictatorships rising up fantastically to carry on the sacred coded retreat order given millennium ago. Broadcasting it throughout all of the known universe. The human
compromised, fullstop. (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't need to devour spy novels or watch 007 all night long to understand one simple aspect of the story (as reported in the summary, at least): once news about X leak out, X is to be considered COMPROMISED.
In this case it is blatant. Something that shouldn't have been there is available? assume the bad guys got it, if it is important, STFU if it's not important.
So, this move from the French secret service is muscle flexing, or counterintelligence (making people concentrate on a decoy), or a way to make openness and free exchange of information look contrary to national interests.
It is not a way to increase national security.
Re:compromised, fullstop. (Score:5, Informative)
I think the important part of the wiki article (English version) is that it mentions nuclear attack orders may be relayed through the station and that there are four others, with additional wiki links to those stations.
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>I think the important part of the wiki article (English version) is that it mentions nuclear attack orders may be relayed through the station and that there are four others, with additional wiki links to those stations.
oh ok then, they simply want to draw the hackers' attention to the base so that a nuclear first strike can be blamed on a hacking attempt :)
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Yes, however the fact being that this information was apparently in a TV show broadcast on French regional TV and now available from the station's web site probably makes any campaign against Wikipedia redistributing it somewhat moot.
(captcha: retracts, i.e. what Wikipedia doesn't.)
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Or maybe they expect that as long as the article exists, someone may be dumb enough to edit in something really important.
Must not have happened yet.
And.... (Score:1)
Too easy... (Score:5, Funny)
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Reminds me of the old joke..
Q: How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris?
A: Unknown, it has never been tried.
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And the attempt succeeded. Ok, there were some British soldiers there, too. But the vast majority were French army.
Not really (Score:2)
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No, that was six British divisions and 39 French divisions. The French had closer to 900,000 men. The British Forces performed admirably, but were not exactly giving it their all; the BEF was most of the UK's officer corps and Kitchener at least was planning for the war to last a lot longer than the French or Germans had any idea. His plan was for the BEF to serve as the nucleus for a much larger (~1 million) army. Obvs can't do that if they're dead. And "well outside Paris" must mean something different to
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Oddly, I always thought that the the insults against the French were just friendly teasing (cheese eating surrender monkeys!) until I read about Freedom Fries. I then became physically ill.
The French have been awesome fighters and a very strong people which is why it was fun to poke at them a bit... but apparently, some people did not get the memo and took it all seriously without viewing all of the historical facts. *sigh* Sometimes I wish I lived on another planet with more highly evolved species.
Bienevenue au l'effect de Streisand, monsieur! (Score:1)
:)
The French article had ZERO hits ... until now (Score:5, Interesting)
Let me show you something: page view statistics from the last 90 days [stats.grok.se].
The article had ZERO hits for months ... until yesterday.
Re:The French article had ZERO hits ... until now (Score:5, Funny)
Which means, no one else knew about it!
Finally Slashdot is delivering real news!
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That link goes to the recreated article. The original article is still available as well to the admins. These stats are most likely just for the new page not the original.
From the discussion (translated):
I recreated the article, if the government seeks a victim you would be nice to direct them to me. And tell them that I fuck. - GaAs ( d ) April 4, 2013 at 22:39 (CEST)
Could have been worse (Score:5, Insightful)
ALL YOUR BASE (Score:5, Funny)
I heard that in a 24 season (Score:2)
OMG (Score:2)
How can an intelligence agency be so stupid?
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Not helpful (Score:2)
The summary has a link [wikipedia.org] to a supposedly restored page. But it appears to be encoded or written in some dead [youtube.com] language.
Bruce Schneier (Score:2)
A couple of days ago, Bruce Schneier posted a blog entry that seems relevant. There's something in the military mindset about secrecy that I don't understand, and perhaps none of us do.
How people talked about the secrecy surrounding the Manhattan project. [schneier.com]
Atomic bomb secrecy (Score:3)
The Manhattan Project was successfully kept secret from the Germans, which was the primary goal. The German atomic program [wikipedia.org] never got very far. How well the secret was kept is known, because, after the war, the major German physicists were interned in a big house in England and the house was bugged. The "Farm Hall Transcripts" record what they said. They didn't know how to enrich uranium in quantity. They didn't know how to make a workable bomb. Their calculations on assembly time for a gun bomb were way
Re:Bruce Schneier (Score:4, Insightful)
They're doing it all wrong. (Score:2)
The scientists building *MY* unstoppable superweapon will not be sequestered in the fortress of doom, nestled in the mountains of despair, on the far side of the desert of death. They will be working in an anonymous office park in silicon valley. Their cover story will be that they are working for a bioinformatics startup, and can't talk about what they're doing in there because of both an NDA and HIPAA.
No one will ever notice until it's too late to stop me.
And bing maps have a very nice shot of it (Score:2)
<URL:http://binged.it/ZG9LQ0>
Submitter here (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case the problem was not that Wikipedia was centralized. The Wikimedia Foundation in the US did not comply with the agency's demands.
The problem was that the administrator's real name was publicly known (he's a public figure [wikipedia.org] and it's his username) so that they were able to find someone under French jurisdiction. Most admins and non-admins use pseudonyms and are thus immune to real-life pressure.
All in all, I'd say the system worked. The admin had to give in to the immense pressure, but he was sensible enough to publicly announce what he did, thus enabling foreign users to reinstate the article. Now, the really threatening cases are those with gag orders, such as given by US intelligence agencies.
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The problem was that the administrator's real name was publicly known
That wasn't the problem. Let's not blame the victim here.
The admin had to give in to the immense pressure
Yeah ... hey, Wikimedia, how about an "I am making this change under duress." checkbox on the edit page? Automatically drop editing privs for the account and flag the change for review. Leave the change, though, so those with the gun to his head can walk away satisfied.
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You misunderstand. Whoever in the French military gave the take-down order pretty much confirmed that the information is genuine, and important. Foreign intelligence agencies don't often get a free kick like that.
Weird thing is, intelligence agency have tried and true methods for casting subtle doubt on compromised information. And not one of those methods involves bursting into a room, pointing at the thing and yelling "Hey! Everyone! I'm from the French military and this thing, this thing right here, whic
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And not one of those methods involves bursting into a room, pointing at the thing and yelling "Hey! Everyone! I'm from the French military and this thing, this thing right here, which I'm pointing at, this thing is very important to us!" [Except in all-caps. And purple blink font.]
Maybe that's what they want you to think...
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True. But utterly irrelevant to my point.
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Yeah. Take a lesson from the British [wordpress.com] on how to handle such matters.
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I believe 0000 is very commonly used
Nope. Its the President's birthday. All you have to do is to get hold of a copy of his birth cert ....... Oh, crap!
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Security: If you don't protect the unimportant bits, everyone knows which *are* the important bits.