Music and movie pirates may not be the only ones trolling peer-to-peer networks for booty. The secret-spilling site WikiLeaks may also have used file-sharing networks to obtain some of the documents it has published, according to a computer security firm.
The allegations come from Tiversa, a Pennsylvania-based peer-to-peer investigations firm, that claims it passed information of WikiLeaks’ file-sharing activity to U.S. government officials, according to Bloomberg.
Tiversa asserts that on Feb. 7, 2009 it monitored four computers based in Sweden, where WikiLeaks’ primary servers were based, as they conducted 413 searches on peer-to-peer networks seeking Microsoft Excel files and other data-heavy documents, some of which were subsequently published online by WikiLeaks.
If the allegations are true, it would not be the first time that WikiLeaks published documents that were obtained through hacking or online surveillance rather than from a whistleblower or other insiders who intentionally leaked documents to the site.
Full story: Did WikiLeaks Publish Documents Siphoned from File-Sharing Networks? | Threat Level | Wired.com