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WikiLeaks Distances Itself From Anonymous Hackers, Military Bans Thumb Drives

by Amar Toor on December 10, 2010 at 11:10 AM

thumb driveNow that WikiLeaks has leaked thousands of sensitive documents into the world, the U.S. military is stepping up its efforts to make sure that it won't happen again. According to Wired, the military has decided to ban all personnel from using DVDs, CDs, thumb drives and any other form of removable media that can transfer data from computer to portable device. Anyone who violates the policy will face a court martial.

The move comes in apparent response to Army Private Bradley Manning, who is accused of downloading files from the Defense Department, and handing them over to WikiLeaks. The military is also exploring other ways to limit what its personnel can share, and DARPA has reportedly begun working on a system that can "greatly increase the accuracy, rate and speed with which insider threats are detected... within government and military interest networks." That project, however, probably won't be finished for a while. (This explains the military's decision to implement the recent stop-gap measure.)

Meanwhile, 'Anonymous' members continue to attack sites of companies that have severed ties with WikiLeaks, and Julian Assange's organization apparently wants nothing (officially) to do with them. Spokeswoman Kristinn Hrafnsson tweeted: "We neither condemn nor applaud these attacks. We believe they are a reflection of public opinion on the actions of the targets."

Tags: anonymous, BradleyManning, cd, data, dvd, JulianAssange, politics, privacy, security, thumbdrive, top, Wikileaks

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