(Illustration: Jose Mesa, flickr)

Julian Assange has filed documents that will allow the WikiLeaks founder to run for the Australian senate, clearing the way for a campaign dedicated to ''the democratic requirement of truthfulness from government, according to The Age.

Mr. Assange has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he is avoiding extradition to Sweden (and possibly the United States). If elected, and prevented from holding office by his legal predicament, Mr. Assange has indicated that he would cede his seat to another member of the WikiLeaks Party.

We wonder if it's possible to PayPal Mr. Assange a campaign contribution.

(Publicity still via Cumberbatch Web)

It was really just a matter of time before Julian Assange's tumultuous life hit the silver screen. Well guess what: Filming commenced today on The Fifth Estate, Dreamworks' Wikileaks movie scheduled to appear in theaters November 15.

My goodness, you can already see the gleam of Oscar gold in their eyes. 

Leading up the cast as Mr. Assange is Benedict Cumberbatch who, of course, plays the titular character in the BBC's "Sherlock." (If you haven't seen it, you ought to knock off work and Netflix it right now; we'll cover for you.) You might also recognize his long face from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or the trailer for the upcoming Star Trek movie. Also appearing in the film: Daniel Brühl, Laura Linney, Anthony Mackie, and Dan Stevens, for some reason. (You bailed on Downton Abbey for this, you ungrateful bastard?)

A summary of the film, from the announcement earlier today:

Following Daniel Domscheit-Berg (Brühl), an early supporter and eventual colleague of Julian Assange (Cumberbatch), “The Fifth Estate” traces the heady, early days of WikiLeaks, culminating in the release of a series of controversial and history changing information leaks. The website’s overnight success brought instant fame to its principal architects and transformed the flow of information to news media and the world at large.

But among some of Mr. Cumberbatch's most devoted fans--i.e., obsessive "Sherlockians" on Tumblr--the publicity still above is causing mixed feelings. Sure, it's another chance to watch Mr. Cumberbatch work his cumbermagic, but look at that hair. YUCK.

(h/t Red Scharlach Points At Interesting Things)

Julian Assange

Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act have revealed that the United States considers WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange an enemy of the state. Soldiers who contact Mr. Assange or WikiLeaks could be charged with communicating with an enemy. Members of the military found guilty of such communication could be sentenced to death in a military court of law.

Technically, this status puts Mr. Assange and his site on the same legal footing as the Taliban.

As Australia's National Times reports, the government's view of the whistle-blowing organization and its founder was revealed in documents regarding an investigation into an Air Force officer's actions while stationed overseas:

The documents, some originally classified "Secret/NoForn" - not releasable to non-US nationals - record a probe by the air force's Office of Special Investigations into a cyber systems analyst based in Britain who allegedly expressed support for WikiLeaks and attended pro-Assange demonstrations in London.

The counter-intelligence investigation focused on whether the analyst, who had a top-secret security clearance and access to the US military's Secret Internet Protocol Router network, had disclosed classified or sensitive information to WikiLeaks supporters, described as an "anti-US and/or anti-military group".

The case was closed and no charges were filed, but the unnamed female analyst was cut off from further access to classified data.

The case documents are interesting reading, though they have been heavily redacted. The subject of the investigation was said to be "obsessed" with Julian Assange and sympathetic to PFC Bradley Manning, the soldier who is currently awaiting trial for allegations he gave classified diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks.

The Australian paper contacted Mr. Assange's American attorney, Michael Ratner, who said that based on his interpretation of the documents, "It appears that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are the 'enemy'. An enemy is dealt with under the laws of war, which could include killing, capturing, detaining without trial, etc."

WikiLeaks addressed the investigation on a page published Wednesday, writing that an allegation "of 'Communicating with the Enemy' indicates the extremely serious threat Julian Assange and WikiLeaks face from the United States." The statement goes on to say:

Therefore the term "Communicating with the Enemy" would appear to show that the US government term Mr Assange and WikiLeaks the "enemy". By deeming them the "enemy" they can be treated under the laws of war which could include killing, capturing, detaining without trial etc.

Mr. Assange gave a video address to the United Nations Thursday, in which he talked about the Manning case and said that the "United States is not the enemy," but it is "time for the US to cease its persecution of WikiLeaks, to cease its persecution of our people, and to cease its persecution of our alleged sources."

Mr. Assange, who faces accusations he sexually molested two women in Sweden in 2010, remains holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Screengrab

With an ill-advised tweet posted Wednesday, WikiLeaks may have won the tacky self-interest sweepstakes. The tweet, which was quickly deleted, suggested a deadly attack aimed at the American Embassy in Benghazi, Libya was justified by Julian Assange's refugee status inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

The Guardian assumed the tweet was written by Mr. Assange. Whoever posted the statement, they clearly weren't looking much further than their own navel, writing:

By the US accepting the UK siege on the Ecuadorian embassy in London it gave tacit approval for attacks on embassies around the world.

This was met with immediate harsh criticism by many who follow the account. Twitterer @GoldieSev responded, "Oh for fuck's sake Julian, everything isn't always about you! *Facepalm*."  Another tweeter, Gareth Winchester, wrote, "There is no seige (sic) on the Ecuador embassy in Knightsbridge. Stop lying."

The Telegraph quoted New Statesman and Vanity Fair writer and editor Jemima Khan, who called the tweet "absurd and shockingly offensive."

WikiLeaks posted two more tweets saying the same thing with different wording.

By the UK threatening to breach the Ecuadorian embassy in London it helped to normalize attacks on embassies, in general. It must retract.

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) September 12, 2012

By the US accepting the UK threat to storm the Ecuadorian embassy in London it helped to normalize attacks on embassies. — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) September 12, 2012

The whistle-blowers followed up with an explanation of the deletion that implied the controversial post was deleted because perhaps people were too stupid to get it:

We have deleted and rephrased a previous tweet with the word 'tacit' in it, since the word is rare and was being misinterpreted.

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) September 12, 2012

This certainly didn't help much, as at least one follower replied, "You're still assholes."

Julian Assange has more serious issues to worry about than pissing off his Twitter following. If he puts a toe outside the Ecuadorean embassy, he will be subject to arrest and extradition to Sweden, where he faces allegations he sexually molested two women during a junket there in 2010.

The fake op-ed in question. (Photo: opinion-nytimes.com)

Early this morning, a pro-WikiLeaks op-ed purporting to be penned by former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller cropped up online. It was a stunningly convincing piece of web fraud, its design practically identical to the New York Times's own homepage, with every link leading to an actual Times article or section. The only hint that it wasn't real was the URL: instead of showing as nytimes.com/pages/opinion, it read "opinion-nytimes.com." It's a tiny difference, but a monumentally important one.

The article itself, which staunchly defends WikiLeaks and the importance of qualifying it under the First Amendment, is certainly stylistically similar to the real writings of Mr. Keller. Some of the wording is rather clunky, but that seems to lend the piece the impression that its message was so dire that it was written in an emotional hurry. The faux article tries so hard to be convincing that it even borrows wording from an email Mr. Keller wrote recently to GigaOm about WikiLeaks.

The fake op-ed immediately radiated across Twitter, with several journalism and tech luminaries--including, most embarrassingly, the Times's own technology writer Nick Bilton--falling for the hoax before it was debunked. The official WikiLeaks Twitter account dove into the fray, tweeting the op-ed before following up with retweets by people conjecturing about what exactly happened. [See our update at the bottom.]

Mr. Bilton uncovered a fake Twitter account that replaced one of the lowercase "l's" in @NYTkeller with a capital "I," further complicating the story. Many thought that the op-ed was tweeted by Mr. Keller himself, when in fact it was done by a fake account.

What's more, a fake PayPal blog was created to voice support for the New York Times's alignment with WikiLeaks. Whoever staged this prank had a ton of help, or a ton of time on their hands.

So who's behind this elaborate hoax? Domain registration data indicates that opinion-nytimes.com was registered back in March, so whoever is behind this ruse was clearly waiting for the right time to launch it. (What better than a summer Sunday morning as people are enjoying their paper and coffee?)

Whoever registered it was also incredibly detail-oriented: the WhoIs information for the fake site notes the registrant as "Ellen Herb," the same person who is listed as the registrant for the real nytimes.com URL. Sneaky!

Betabeat searched for some of the related queries in the WhoIs data and found that opinion-nytimes.com possesses the same NIC handle as "blocknytimes.org," another site registered on Gandi, a French domain hoster. The fake PayPal blog also possesses the same NIC handle.

While blocknytimes.org doesn't yield many leads, there is a Twitter account for (Do Not) BlockNYTimes, which purports to be part of the hacker collective Anonymous. They're definitely supportive of the op-ed--if not directly involved with the hoax--as they've tweeted about it numerous times. They were also one of the first to tweet a link to the piece.

From what Betabeat can gather, there is a grassroots conservative group called "Block the NYTimes" that believes the Times and WikiLeaks are both guilty of treason for leaking U.S. military secrets. The official WikiLeaks account tweeted about them a few weeks ago, to which the "Do Not Block NYTimes" Anonymous group responded, "We are on it. BTW, Anonymous loves you."

UPDATE: WikiLeaks admitted that it was in on the hoax, along with "its supporters," which we assume means the Do Not Block NYTimes group. A little over an hour ago they tweeted, "Yes. We admit it. WikiLeaks (Assange & co) and our great supporters where behind the successful NYTimes banking blockade hoax on @nytkeller."

Further, they credited Julian Assange with the following quote: "If the NYTimes cannot act with honnor to defend their 'sources' from economic censorship then we'll just have to do it for them :)."

Here is a timeline of the hoax published by WikiLeaks on Pastebin.

Mr. Assange must be growing bored after being holed up in that Ecuadorian embassy for so long.

Additional reporting contributed by Steve Huff.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange really doesn't want to be extradited to Sweden for allegations of sex offenses, where he may be handed over to U.S. authorities. In a tweet at 2:40 p.m., @WikiLeaks said that the Australian activist "has requested political asylum and is under the protection of the Ecuadorian embassy in London." In a followup tweet they added, "We will have more details on the Ecuadorian situation soon."

Ecuador's foreign minister confirmed to USA Today that Mr. Assange is at Ecuador's U.K. embassy where he is seeking political asylum.

Why Ecuador, you might be wondering? Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa is a left-wing populist with a degree in economics (who closed an American military base in Ecuador in 2009) who may be sympathetic to the plight of WikiLeaks. Mr. Assange was offered residency by Ecuador as far back as 2010, when Ecuador voiced concerns about some of the findings about American policy uncovered by WikiLeaks.

"We are open to giving him residency in Ecuador, without any problem and without any conditions," deputy foreign minister Kintto Lucas said in 2010.

Mr. Assange and Mr. Correa also have a history; Mr. Assange interviewed president Correa on his show, "The World Tomorrow," produced by Russia Today, just last month.

"Where are you, in England?" Mr. Correa asks at the beginning of the interview. In fact, Mr. Assange does the interviews from house arrest.

We've reached out to the Ecuadorian embassy in London and will update when we know more.

Wikileaks's symbol for the Stratfor email leak

Wikileaks dropped a bomb on Texas-based "global intelligence company" Stratfor late Sunday with "The Global Intelligence Files," a dump of over 5 million hacked emails containing confidential information about Stratfor's informers, psych ops, pay-offs and the methods they use to make the payments. Anonymous has proudly taken credit for the hack via @YourAnonNews:

To clarify to all journalists - YES, #Anonymous gave the STRATFOR emails obtained in the 2011 LulzXmas hack to WikiLeaks. #GIFiles

— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) February 27, 2012

Considering the confidential nature of Stratfor's business, this may truly be a devastating blow:

Stratfor’s use of insiders for intelligence soon turned into a money-making scheme of questionable legality. The emails show that in 2009 then-Goldman Sachs Managing Director Shea Morenz and Stratfor CEO George Friedman hatched an idea to "utilise the intelligence" it was pulling in from its insider network to start up a captive strategic investment fund. CEO George Friedman explained in a confidential August 2011 document, marked DO NOT SHARE OR DISCUSS : "What StratCap will do is use our Stratfor’s intelligence and analysis to trade in a range of geopolitical instruments, particularly government bonds, currencies and the like". The emails show that in 2011 Goldman Sach’s Morenz invested "substantially" more than $4million and joined Stratfor’s board of directors. Throughout 2011, a complex offshore share structure extending as far as South Africa was erected, designed to make StratCap appear to be legally independent. But, confidentially, Friedman told StratFor staff : "Do not think of StratCap as an outside organisation. It will be integral... It will be useful to you if, for the sake of convenience, you think of it as another aspect of Stratfor and Shea as another executive in Stratfor... we are already working on mock portfolios and trades". StratCap is due to launch in 2012.

The email dump apparently reveals Stratfor-paid moles in the press. Describing Israeli journalist Yossi Melman, employed by the newspaper Haaretz, as "an information mule," Wikileaks states that Mr. Melman "conspired with Guardian journalist David Leigh to secretly, and in violation of WikiLeaks’ contract with the Guardian, move WikiLeaks US diplomatic cables to Israel."

Other media organizations are name-checked in the emails as well, according to Wikileaks's release. Wikileaks states that Stratfor made "secret" arrangements with outlets "from Reuters to the Kiev Post."

"While it is acceptable for journalists to swap information or be paid by other media organisations," writes Wikileaks, "because Stratfor is a private intelligence organisation [...] these relationships are corrupt or corrupting."

The Wikileaks release makes it clear that some of the motivation for dumping the intelligence firm's dirty business into the ether is, for lack of a better word, personal:

The material contains privileged information about the US government’s attacks against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and Stratfor’s own attempts to subvert WikiLeaks. There are more than 4,000 emails mentioning WikiLeaks or Julian Assange.

A quick review of some of the emails in the early release seemed to confirm many of Wikileaks's introductory claims regarding their content. Review also revealed that an article regarding the "Ground Zero Mosque," written for the New York Observer by Mark Ames in September, 2010 drew the interest of Stratfor staffers, who considered it "very conspiratorial, but interesting."

UPDATE: Stratfor has responded to the leak with a press release. The company refers to the stolen emails as "a deplorable, unfortunate — and illegal — breach of privacy" and addresses the nebulous nature of "stolen" digital data--how it can be easily altered:

Some of the emails may be forged or altered to include inaccuracies; some may be authentic. We will not validate either. Nor will we explain the thinking that went into them. Having had our property stolen, we will not be victimized twice by submitting to questioning about them.

Stratfor's statement goes on to call the release of the emails "a direct attack" and "another attempt to silence and intimidate the company, and one we reject."

More about one of Stratfor's potentially embarrassing internal documents here. Also, Stratfor's Facebook page may not be available much longer, given the tenor of some of the most recent comments.

The Wall Street Journal announced its own whistleblower websites, Safehouse, this morning. The new service has its own severs separate from WSJ.com, occurs through encrypted connections and will keep data on computers connected to the public web for as little time as possible.

A couple of quick notes that rolled in after the announcements. The fine print says that if you simply submit documents, Dow Jones, "does not make any representations regarding confidentiality."

If the leaker does choose the more secure route, they shouldn't expect to hide behind the WSJ when the going gets rough. "Except when we have a separately negotiated confidentiality agreement pursuant to the "Request Confidentiality" Section above, we reserve the right to disclose any information about you to law enforcement authorities or to a requesting third party, without notice, in order to comply with any applicable laws and/or requests under legal process, to operate our systems properly, to protect the property or rights of Dow Jones or any affiliated companies, and to safeguard the interests of others."

It's interesting to see a traditional journalistic outlet trying to adopt the strategy that worked so well for Wikileaks. But so much of that sites success was about reputation and trust. Debuting a service with a glut of legalese that makes it clear info will be flipped to authorities when an investigation goes down will not produce any Bradley Manning style leaks.

On a more technical level, Alexis Madrigal points out that hackers have found fault with Safehouse's Adobe Flash upload and inadequate encryption.

Speaking of Mr. Schmidt, goodies from his upcoming book, The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business are beginning to trickle out. Today WikiLeaks released the transcript of a five-hour conversation between Mr. Schmidt and Julian Assange, used for the book. It opens with some really riveting stuff. Mr. Schmidt: "Well do you want us to start eating?" Mr. Assange: "Well, we can do both." Guess there's not much time for leisurely meals in the life of a WikiLeaker.

But the real punch line comes when Mr. Schmidt's co-author, Google Ideas guy Jared Cohen, turns up to the discussion late, blaming Delta. It seems Mr. Assange was expecting someone a little different:

"Larry?" he asks. "Jared," Mr. Cohen replies. "Jared! Jared," Mr. Assange attempts to recover. Now that's the GIF we'd really like to see.

You oughta see the other guy Seems whoever's defacing ads these days as some pretty strong feelings about Mark Zuckerberg. Witness the work of some wag with a marker, as captured by AllThingsD's Peter Kafka.

Lost in translation Speaking of the Facebook dynasty, this week Randi Zuckerberg took to her LiveJournal account digital lifestyle site Dot Complicated to blog hard about her super fun and exciting trip to Japan. She learned so many things, you guys! Well, just a dozen, but still. She reported that the country has many non-spoken societal rules like not speaking on the subways and ratted out her baby for breaking the quiet of the train car. ("Honestly, the loudest person on the subway by far was my son, who would announce, “All done!” every time the subway came to a stop.")

Another nugget: The very first question she asks upon entering a new country is, “What apps and websites is everyone using here?" That puts our "Where the hell is the bathroom?" to shame.

Mr. Photogenic Is there anything that Kevin Rose can't do? (Well, except for save Digg.) Earlier this week Mr. Rose used his Facebook to promote his wife's upcoming book, Foodist, declaring himself "stoked" for the release. But we suspect the post was also just a chance to show off his dashing/dorky appearance in the book trailer. He should pivot to being a Pottery Barn catalog model if his coffee-drinking/investing/oversharing gig fails. Potential clients might want to remember what happened the last time he took a cover modeling job, though.

Bonus: A cameo by Toaster, the dog who gave his name to the Instagram filter.

Everyone's a critic Facebook rolled out a cleaner and more streamlined look this week, but not everyone is enamored with it. Newly minted Yahoo! millionaire, design divo and Summly creator Nick D'Alosio tweeted his meh-bivalence about it. "Good to see the directional change to flat design except the colour used is still heavy and muted." That "u" is adorable even when he throws shade!

Promo FOMO Would-be part-owner of the Brooklyn Nets Alexis Ohanian wants to know why Reddit's logo isn't on his season tickets. Hell, given the price tag, he ought to get a monogrammed commemorative edition.

I'm the trash man Jack Dorsey continues his Sisyphean struggle to clean the streets of San Francisco, all by himself if that's what it takes. Here's his latest snap from the Clean Streets initiative, filter-free and everything. A design enthusiast's work is never done.

https://twitter.com/jack/status/325319564349034497

Down with cyber espionage! Long live steakspionage! (Photo: flickr.com/discoverdupage

Recent weeks have brought a string of revelations about high-profile hacks originating in China. The latest: The Washington Post says that just about every think tank and federal agency in D.C. has been infiltrated by hackers trying to get a little insight into how Washington works. "They're trying to make connections between prominent people who work at think tanks, prominent donors that they've heard of and how the government makes decisions," one expert told the Post.

Well, former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour and his partner-in-lobbying Ed Rogers have a little news for these here foreign computer geeks. Hence their joint op-ed this week in Foreign Policy: "You Can't Hack a Steakhouse." Nosiree! 

Rather, you can learn much of what you need to know about the ways of Washington while sitting in front of a delicious plate of food, presumably paid for by either the taxpayers or, you know, lobbyists:

The Chinese government's worst mistake was to imagine that it could find out anything worth knowing by reading things that were written down, electronically or otherwise. If anyone were writing down anything useful in the first place, WikiLeaks stopped all that. The fact is, you don't have to spy -- you can just ask. You don't need to peep through the keyhole to follow the political maneuvering in Washington; just walk in to any good steakhouse and look around.

It's No Reservations as spy movie. We love it, somebody greenlight it.

"Often it's better to have a short sidebar conversation during a chance encounter at a dinner or cocktails with a 20- or 30-something staffer on a key congressional committee than a courtesy meeting with a member of Congress or a cabinet secretary," they say.

So we come to the real point of the piece, which is that you really ought to consider hiring some lobbyists to steer you through the swamp that is the District of Columbia. Figures!