Cranberry Twp. Company Probes WikiLeaks
CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP (KDKA) -- In the uproar over the release of secret documents by WikiLeaks, the Cranberry Township internet security firm Tiversa is taking center stage, developing information that contradicts founder Julian Assange and may aid in his future prosecution.
"This is the most significant information found to date against WikiLeaks and their sources," said Robert Boback, Tiversa's founder.
WikiLeaks maintains that all of its information comes from anonymous whistleblowers, but Boback says it has evidence WikiLeaks and its supporters have been actively trolling the internet themselves, grabbing sensitive documents and committing crimes by posting them.
"Now they would say, 'I'm European and I don't really care about U.S. law.'
"Well, the soldiers and the people that are fighting in the field – they do care about it and their lives are at risk, so they're putting their lives at risk and if we can do something to help protect those individuals, we're going to do it," Boback said.
Monitoring so-called peer-to-peer networks, Tiversa says it found four computers in WikiLeaks home country of Sweden mining secret U.S. intelligence, such as the layout of the Pentagon's Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii. Two months later, the same document appeared on WikiLeaks.
"There are operators in the field that support WikiLeaks, that probably are downloading this type of information and submitting it to them for publication," said Tiversa's Rick Wallace.
Tiversa has turned over these findings to the U.S. Government and expects consequences.
In December, supporters of Assange launched cyber attacks on Visa and MasterCard for refusing to process payments to the WikiLeaks site and the Swiss bank that froze Assange's account. It's called operation payback and Boback says Tiversa's actions have put his firm in their crosshairs.
"We're very cognizant that they consider us a threat, so now in speaking out against WikiLeaks, we do put a bull's eye on our back, but as we say we're about to do the right thing," Boback said.
