[wapoamspomw]

No journalist would help their sources hack their employer for more documents. Journalists can take documents their source already has; but helping their source illegally access more documents is against the law.

Imagine if these were physical documents in a safe. A journalist helping the source crack that safe would be very illegal.

[doomrobo]

I thought Manning already had access to the documents in question. The goal of getting into another account was to cover their tracks, not to gain unauthorized access.

[wapoamspomw]

Breaking into another account is unauthorized access. Doesn't matter if that account had more, the same, or even less access than Manning's account.

[baby]

You have a very positive image of journalists :)

[pierrebai]

A journalist giving someone else a document that explain how a particular brand of safe can be cracked is not illegal. Handing someone knowledge is not illegal.

Actually cracking the safe is illegal. We've been over this for decades. Once it was about simply encrypting. Others about documents on bomb making. Or safe cracking. Or lock picking.

The information is legal. Putting it in practice to gain unauthorized access is illegal.

[belltaco]

>A journalist giving someone else a document that explain how a particular brand of safe can be cracked is not illegal. Handing someone knowledge is not illegal.

Terrible analogy. Assange obtained the actual NTLM hash from Manning of the user they were trying to crack the password of and attempted to crack it with the full knowledge that it was a top secret US military login. He wasn't sending her generic knowledge on how to crack NTLM passwords.

>Actually cracking the safe is illegal.

Attempting to crack a safe that you don't have authorization to, with the intent of stealing things from it is also illegal even if you failed to crack it.

Just like going around the neighborhood trying the doors of homes or pulling handles of cars is illegal.