[DanielBMarkham]

So I'm the Russian intelligence community, and I've had the U.S. launch codes for several decades.

I decide to wreak some havoc inside the National Command Authority, possibly as part of some larger strategic objective. So I go to Wikileaks and release the codes.

In this case, in whose interest is Wikileaks acting? Not the U.S. citizen's. Not the rest of the world. Clearly their acting as an agent for the Russians. (Russians are used here as a prop. Substitute any players you like)

The more I think about it, the more the idea of anonymous information leaking seems fraught with lots of problems. Overall, yes, a great idea. But I have some serious questions. As a third party with access to sensitive information, I can play all sorts of games using Wikileaks.

EDIT: I'll add a couple more examples so we don't get lost out in the weeds.

The Chinese decide to invade Taiwan. As part of that, over a period of several weeks Wikileaks "discovers" several documents detailing how certain Taiwanese officials were caught doing drugs/molesting children/robbing banks/beating old people. Most of these stories are true (but old), and generate quite a bit of negative press in the United States. Mixed in at the end, however, are totally false stories guaranteed to cause the greatest public outrage. The MSM has no time to vet the stories just before the Chinese invade, and since it's a 24/7 cable news world and since Wikileaks has a good track record so far and it runs them the MSM runs them too. Public opinion is sternly against giving Taiwan any assistance, creating a decisive edge for the Chinese.

The Israelis decide they are going to have to attack Iran to prevent it from developing nukes. Over a couple of weeks, suddenly documents are found from the French and Saudis "proving" Iran has a nuclear prototype bomb. More documents are "found" showing that the Iranians are prepared to use it on Israel. Let's assume these docs are real, although from the Israelis standpoint it doesn't matter. Finally docs are found that show the Israelis have decided to go through the United Nations and have given up trying to stop Iran with force. These last docs are released just a day or two before the attack.

The difference between a newspaper and Wikileaks is that a newspaper deals in credibility. Wikileaks just deals in leaks. That makes the model horribly broken and easy to manipulate. Just think of the fun an intelligence agency could have with something as simple as marital infidelities. Used to be you'd have to set up an entire operation to get stuff published with some kind of authority. Not anymore.

[anatoly]

I'm sympathetic to your overall argument, but not to this specific example. It's very much in US interests to know that someone else knows the launch codes. The consequences of having them made public (a public scandal, the cost of changing them, internal investigations, etc.) are much less dire than the alternative - when your potential enemy knows them and you're not aware of the fact.

[invisible]

Alternatively, WikiLeaks may find that it's in the public's best interest to alert the DoD that someone submitted launch codes. And hey, it ends up resetting the other country's advantage.

Or it may find that in the second case the documents originate from China and ignores them - or finds that they are from the past and unimportant now. Officials get churned in and out, so this could be easy to disprove.

I think they'd likely be better off NOT getting involved with nuclear technology related posts in general, though. They really just need to do VERY due diligence on other factors. Perhaps they should have paid people be able to review documents prior to mainstream release (sort of a "Beta" release) with a big red alert stating that the leak is pending Beta public review for facts.

[analyst74]

The Russian intelligence agency does not have to release the code through wikileaks. If they have it, they can release it anyway they want, there's nothing the CIA can do about them.

[borism]

Wikileaks is a medium for whistleblowers. No such resource can be nor is trusted blindly, no matter what past track record shows. Every leak is evaluated on it's own merit.

It is also public, which means it's there for public benefit. Of course governments or other parties can and do fiddle with it, but information that's in the open will be evaluated and eventually will either be confirmed or denied to fit into larger picture.