Talk:Daniel Domscheit-Berg

Alias
Daniel Schmitt What do you do with an alias, like Daniel Schmitt, the name DDB used for WikiLeaks? Perhaps a more experienced user could make the tweak. Doug Grinbergs (talk) 17:56, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * There's an |other name= field that we can add to the userbox, and we can mention the name in the intro. I'll do it provisionally, until someone familiar with the syntax conventions rolls through. Thanks for your other fixes! Ocaasi (talk) 23:39, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Along similar lines, what is his country of birth? Almost every reference I've seen about him says he grew up in Germany but was not born there. So where was he born? RhodesScholar (talk) 02:13, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikileaks and Israel
This page (in Arabic) states that Domscheit said Assange had meetings with Israeli officials to ensure that no leaks damaging to Israel would be released. I know this is a bit of a far-fetched idea at the moment but can anyone find other sources claiming the same thing?--Aa2-2004 (talk) 09:55, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Found a couple more sources here and here.--Aa2-2004 (talk) 10:17, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

And one more here.--Aa2-2004 (talk) 10:21, 21 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think those are very reliable sources to base that on, and Contents_of_the_United_States_diplomatic_cables_leak suggests that they are incorrect anyway. SmartSE (talk) 11:05, 21 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I take your point about the sources but nothing in Contents_of_the_United_States_diplomatic_cables_leak suggests that they are incorrect. Hopefully the book out next year will clear up this issue.--Aa2-2004 (talk) 12:24, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Assange has previously stated that various materials related to Israel will be released in 6 months. If he's on schedule, that'll be like 4 months now, but wikileaks always seems so far behind schedule that we're more likely talking 1 year. I'd imagine some newspaper has all the Israel cables however. If not le Monde or the Guardian, then presumably Aufenpost. Assange & the newspapers might be delaying the release the Israel material so as to maximize the effects of the current material, like all the Arab stuff. I'm sure no one foresaw the effects of the cables in Tunisa, Egypt, etc. but obviously it's good that Arab countries spend some ignoring Israel to focus on their own governments, and then confront more news about Israel later.

So let's wait & see what wikileaks releases about Israel.

Btw, wikileaks has said that Daniel Domscheit-Berg was never all that terribly involved. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.176.232.81 (talk) 13:58, 10 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Where does Assange say that Israel leaks will be released in 6 months?--Aa2-2004 (talk) 19:50, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Source
Here's a nice write-up from Forbe's Andy Greenberg. If anyone wants to mine it for new info, go for it: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0117/focus-daniel-domscheit-berg-indoleaks-wikileaks-stepchildren.html Ocaasi (talk) 11:31, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

See also http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2011/02/09/wikileaks-fires-back-at-defector-over-book-claims/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.176.232.81 (talk) 14:00, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

New Stuff
Two big things this week: the book is coming out and OpenLeaks had a forced launch. Any help updating would be great.

Book
 * http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/02/wikileaks-book/
 * http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,744718,00.html
 * http://www.hindustantimes.com/Assange-abused-my-cat-WikiLeaks-insider/Article1-660787.aspx

Launch
 * http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=12785761
 * http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/01/27/openleaks-site-leaked-forces-premature-launch-wikileaks-rival/

More background
 * http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/wikileaks-revolt/

Ocaasi (talk) 16:00, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Spokeperson and Number Two
The current revision includes Daniel was a "spokesperson and effective number two in WikiLeaks", citing a web-only student publication, where the linked article does not even claim he was the "number two". Contrary, Wikileaks spokeperson Kristinn Hrafnsson said that he "was a spokesperson for WikiLeaks in Germany [...], but he was never the spokesman for WikiLeaks" (http://wlcentral.org/node/1254). I am aware, there currently is a conflict between those two parties, but maybe reflecting the dispute on the roles he had in the article might make sense. 85.179.82.72 (talk) 00:29, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The Annenberg Journalism blog may be a 'student publication' but it's the top 3 student journalism publication in the world. Annenberg center is world renowned.  Also, a writer from the Guardian's new profile/biography used the exact same phrase.  Domscheit-Berg's role is disputed only from the Assange camp and only since DB left.  And have you seen WikiRebels?  We can mention that Assange now disputes DB's role, but not the fact that for the past several years, DB has been described as playing it. Ocaasi (talk) 01:44, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Removed accusation of false accusation
Removed pending discussion: He was wrongly accused of being a US citizen by Aaron Barr in papers which leaked after a hack by people allegedly connected with Anonymous.


 * This needs a source at this article. What's our source for linking it 'allegedly' to Anonymous?  What's the relevance of this to his biography?  Does it belong at all, and if so in which section?  Thanks, Ocaasi (talk) 01:37, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

More information
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/wiki-war-3500-unpublished-leaks-destroyed-forever-as-assange-hits-out-20110822-1j5gw.html This information should be included on the wiki entry but I'm too lazy to do it — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.227.196.207 (talk) 07:29, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Chaos computing camp 2011
whilst Der Spiegal is correct in its reporting of the letter being sent to Daniel, its not correct about the substantial issue. You cannot remove someone from an organisation that never has been a member in the first place. I am sure that their plenty of T party members who want to remove Michael Moore the documentary maker from membership of the republican party, but I doubt he has ever joined. Thus an announcement by them that he has been removed from their membership lists is more an issue of people fantasy's than a matter of news.

Btw I was at Chaos Camp 2011, I know people in Orga (the main organising team), I was an Angel. I was also sitting in the tent at Open Leaks when Daniel spoke about the incident to a journalist. The whole thing is a storm in a T cup. As far I could tell Daniel was bemused by the whole incident. The whole incident bespeaks more about people exhaustion at the event, both in organising it and enjoying it. X-mass (talk) 07:17, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The fact that he never was a member would be quite relevant to mention, but one would need to cite a publicly accessible source. And yes, it seems that many have wondered about the merits of CCC's action (and in particular about Andy Müller-Maguhn's role in it, not an uncontroversial figure himself), but considering the attention that it gained from the media and Assange's followers, it seems hard to ignore in this article. Regards, HaeB (talk) 10:52, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Neo Nazi organisations
The article is confusing neo nazi with right wing organizations. I changed to "neo nazi" from "right wing". Don't be fooled by the German official propaganda in Der Speigel. Nazi is short for national socialism, socialism is left wing, not right wing. Assange himself clearly says neo nazi groups in the Wikileaks tweet - a direct quote, this should be used before the article in Der Speigel. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A03:8600:10FB:FBB4:0:0:0:101A (talk) 16:13, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * You yourself seem to be confusing the heart of the matter: just because "Nazi" included the term "socialist" does not make them socialist and therefore, left-wing. That's the most elementary of mistakes.  It's as silly and uneducated as claiming that, since the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia's name contains "liberal" and "democratic", they must be liberal and democratic (the exact opposite of that hard-right-wing party's positions). The left-wing is anti-authoritarian (among other things), which was antipodal to Nazism. Bricology (talk) 23:23, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The Nazi party clearly had left-wing, socialist origins. The SA (under Röhm, Hitler's closest associate at the time) often took the side of workers in strikes and other labor disputes, attacking strikebreakers and supporting picket lines. Along with other members of the more radical faction within the Nazi Party, Röhm advocated a "second revolution" that was overtly anti-capitalist in its general disposition. Part of Hitler's appeal was his apparent goal of a "classless society". (All this can easily be checked in other Wikipedia articles). Of course he then proceeded to eliminate all opposition, both inside the Nazi party and outside it, to create a totalitarian state under his personal control, but such a state cannot accurately be described as either "right wing" or "left wing". Totalitarianism can come from either the political left or the political right, and historical examples abound of totalitarian states originating from both left-wing and right-wing parties. In itself, it is inconsistent with both the egalitarian ideals of the left, and the personal freedom ideals of the right. Longitude2 (talk) 14:09, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

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Deletion of data?
Did he erase keys when he left wikileaks, effectively erasing the encrypted leaks?

Family Guy Guy (talk) 23:54, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

OpenLeaks appears to be defunct
Burrobert (talk) 05:51, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Neither its Twitter nor its Facebook account have posted anything since 2013.
 * Afaict its website only posted content in December 2012. By 2014 its content had disappeared. The domain was listed as expired by September 2021. The domain is now owned by someone called Edmond Schamberger who is the founder of a company called Open Leaks IT.
 * A web search for information about OpenLeaks retrieves nothing beyond 2012.


 * Probably but theres no source for that. Ive looked before and havent found anything, not sure how to clarify
 * A web search for information about OpenLeaks retrieves nothing beyond 2012 Do you mean 2013? In a July 2013 interview, Domscheit-Berg said that work on OpenLeaks would continue, but "without much public involvement." from the article Softlemonades (talk) 13:07, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes 2013 appears to be the last sighting. That interview mentions that "Something has fallen by the wayside, currently including the accessibility of the website". The website has now disappeared and is owned by an unrelated person. The business still needs to sell something, which means having an online presence in some form. The complete absence of an online presence through a website and social media indicates that the business no longer operates. The German wiki for OpenLeaks says OpenLeaks became inactive in 2013 but there was no source. It seems that the venture produced nothing and ended in farce at the 2011 CCC meeting. We can't say much without a source but I have placed an update tag on the section which may alert readers that something is amiss. Burrobert (talk) 14:56, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Agree I think thats good for now. May be well get lucky and hell say something in a future interview Softlemonades (talk) 15:24, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I found https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/what-is-a-hacktivist/ but I dont know what to add Softlemonades (talk) 21:16, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Recent reversions
Some questions about three recent reversions. Burrobert (talk) 15:22, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The first edit relates to my deletion of the sentence "In Domscheit-Berg's book he criticizes Julian Assange's leadership style and handling of the Afghan War Diaries". It has no source. If the book itself is to be used as a source then there are other problems. Firstly, it is a primary source. It is not a good idea for editors to be selecting parts of large primary sources to include in articles. Secondly, no page number was provided for the text.
 * The second edit was made because the editor believed the text that I added was repetitive. The point of my addition was to make it clear who had destroyed the 3,500 documents and to indicate that Domscheit-Berg himself admitted to the destruction of the documents. That was not clear in the earlier version. Secondly, we initially said "In response, Domscheit-Berg said that some of WikiLeaks' claims about destroyed files were "false and misleading". Why not be specific about which claims Domscheit-Berg said were "false and misleading"? It is in the source we had been using.
 * The third edit was reverted because of an issue with grammar. The sentence which I changed said "Jacob Appelbaum brought up rumors that OpenLeaks was connected to German intelligence and Müller-Maguhn expressed skepticism". There are a few problems with this sentence. Firstly, it is ambiguous. Is Müller-Maguhn expressing scepticism at the rumours mentioned by Appelbaum? That is not what the source says. In order to eliminate this ambiguity I included details of what Müller-Maguhn said ("he was not convinced that OpenLeaks used openness to ensure the projects integrity and trustworthiness"). In this regard, the term "openness" is being used in a technical software engineering sense. The second problem with the original sentence is that it does not adequately summarise what Müller-Maguhn said.


 * Thanks for taking it to talk
 * 1. Its criticism by the subject of the article in a book by the subject of the article, so we can be more loose about mentionig it. Theres still BLP for Assange, so itd need more RS to describe the criticism. But to say he criticised him is fine I think. And the whole book is about his time there isnt it?
 * 2. Yeah its a good distinction, I took out the number so we dont repeat that right away but youre right
 * 3. It still sounds wrong but you and Cambial agree and I dont understand but youre saying "openness" is definitely right so ok Softlemonades (talk) 15:38, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

OpenLeaks split
Ive added a lot of information about OpenLeaks, and the section has stuff thats more about OpenLeaks than Domscheit-Bergs role in it. Should we split the section to an article dedicated to OpenLeaks and take out the stuff here thats not about Domscheit-Berg? Softlemonades (talk) 00:39, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
 * It is not a huge amount of text and the readable prose is well within recommended limits. Openleaks started in 2010 and disappeared without trace in 2013. It produced no disclosures and, in its only public test it was unable to get online. As Shakespeare said "OpenLeaks is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". So let's leave it where it is. Burrobert (talk) 12:40, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Ok Softlemonades (talk) 13:51, 8 February 2023 (UTC)