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.
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.
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: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.
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?
Re:Le effect Streissand. (Score:5, Interesting)
Effet Pierre-sur-Haute
Might as well make it local.
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.