Scientific American: WikiLeaks

''7. WikiLeaks
The U.S. learned a hard lesson in data security on November 28 when WikiLeaks, an organization championing whistle-blowers, began publishing what it claims will amount to more than 250,000 leaked U.S. embassy cables. This release was not the first, or even the second or third, major WikiLeaks publication of the year: in April it posted a video depicting a U.S. military helicopter attack on supposed insurgents in Iraq, and in July and October it posted sensitive reports on the Afghan and Iraq wars. But "cablegate" was apparently the final straw for the U.S. and its political allies. The documents describe international affairs from 300 embassies dated from 1966 to 2010 containing diplomatic analyses of world leaders, assessments of host countries and internal discussions about international and domestic issues.

Although no hacking seemed to be involved (many observers think that U.S. Army Pvt. Bradley Manning simply copied the data and gave it to WikiLeaks), the furor shows that modern technology makes securing information difficult—and retaliation easy. After WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (pictured) was arrested on December 7 in the U.K. based on unrelated allegations of supposed sex crimes, his supporters went on the offensive, launching cyber attacks against the Web sites of MasterCard, PayPal, Visa and other organizations as well as people perceived to have wronged Assange and his operation.''

Sciam