"Chipollino" against the mafia

Mafialeaks - hacker site about organized crime

In Italy, followers of the hacker organization Annonymous launched the Mafialeaks website. The goal is to betray previously unknown information about organized crime. The source of information on the plan of the creators of the resource should be the victims of the mafia themselves - primarily entrepreneurs who are forced to pay tribute. The New Times analyzed the chances of Internet activists for success

The arrest of the Boss Mafia Francesco Matron named the monster. He has been on the run since 2007. Salerno, August 17, 2012

Lirio Abbate, a journalist-investigator from the Roman weekly L'Espresso, since 2007-almost seven years! - Lives under the protection of the police. Abbot has long been engaged in the activities of the mafia, and has long been threatening from it - a special resonance caused his articles about the criminal world of Rome. But now the mafia has announced a real hunt on the abbot, which, as it turned out, began to receive exclusive information from the creators of Mafialeaks: they chose the abbot as a counterparty for publishing information previously posted on their site.

The mission is fulfilled

Many consider the abbot a hero - he agreed to sign revealing articles with his name. In Italy, it is dangerous. According to the Orphanage for Information, which operates under the patronage of the Italian National Federation of the press and the professional association of journalists, over the past seven years, 1568 Italian journalists have been threatened by the mafia. “A terrible and bitter figure, unworthy of a Western country. This is the level of Putin's Russia, ”L'Espresso wrote on this occasion.

Journalist Lirio Abbate (taken in November in the editors of L'Espresso) is not afraid to sign exposure articles based on Mafialeaks's documents with his name

However, the danger is not only by journalists-investigators, but also those who agreed to take out the CROs from the hut, that is, the informants inside the mafia, primary information miners. Everyone knows Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning - insiders like them, having issued secret information, are subjected to persecution by the judicial authorities of their country - strictly according to the law. But it is worth opening their mouth to some of the former mafiosi or victims of the mafia, as an invisible tribunal immediately sentences them to death: the mafia has its own laws. “We want to protect those who have something to say. All. Send questions - we will answer, ” - a letter received by the New Times from the creators of Mafialeaks was anonymous and very short. But in the future they did not get in touch. So I had to look for answers on the Mafialeaks blog: “The mafia runs his affairs every day in front of everyone, and she still managed to act without interference thanks to fear. We believe that it's time to start inserting the mafiosi of the stick into the wheels. ” The creators of the site are not a timid dozen people, despite all the conspiracy of the venture. Rebels? In any case, the date for launching the site was chosen “Talking” - November 5, the day of the powder conspiracy, which cost Gai Fox, whose mask became the symbol of Anonymous*, and indeed all rebels and disagreements.

In fact, the project allows you to make anonymous denunciations about mafia activity: in the era of smartphones, Internet activists notice, there is nothing easier. Special software will not make it possible to track the IP address of the sender of information; In addition, the transmitted data is encrypted. So far, the Mafialeaks team works on pure enthusiasm. “Perhaps in the future we will provide details for donations, but for each of them we will report on the network,” the organization’s blog said.

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“In Italy, over the past seven years, 1568 journalists have been threatened by the mafia. The figure is worthy not of the Western country, but to Putin's Russia "

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According to Mafialeaks activists, only the philosophy of individual disobedience against the greatest evil of Italian life can prove to people that this is a colossus on clay legs, and at the same time show the essence of the mafia: “If every citizen takes responsibility to fight the mafia, it will disappear. Rather, it disappears inside us at the very moment when we decide to say no.

The repentant members of the criminal clans, as well as their victims, are prevented by the so -called Omert. In the narrow sense of the word, this is the Mafia Code of Honor: the members of the Family do not have the right to disclose its secrets. The credo of “Silent, hide and Thai” was erected to the highest degree. Those who are too much “trembling with the tongue” received the nickname “Quakvarakva” in mafia jargon - these are a subhuman “who should live like ducks in puddles, since in their life there is no more sense than in the life of ducks.” Quote is the famous phrase of Don Mariano Arena from the novel by the Sicilian writer Leonardo Shashy “Owl appears during the day”, written back in 1961. In a broader understanding of Omert, it means burrowing the head in the sand, circular guarantee, fastened with fear, the intentional silence of what is happening in front of everyone. “The silence of honest and dishonest” - this is how this phenomenon described this phenomenon.

Mafialeaks activists are sure: “To destroy the wall of the Omer and silence that protects the mafia organizations” will help innovative technologies.

Cleaning the bulb

“I demand help and protection from the state” - entrepreneur Injacio Kutro during a picket near the building of the Italian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Rome, December 2010

The name of the Sicilian entrepreneur Injacio Kutro knows the whole of Italy. He is one of the most famous “witnesses of justice” in the country (as italy is called the victims of the mafia who cooperate with law enforcement agencies). Once, local mafia clans demanded that they pay tribute from Kutro, but he refused. This went on for more than seven years, Kutro suffered threats, arson of equipment at his company, but in 2006 decided to declare everything to the prosecutor's office. The police held a powerful raid, dozens of mafiosi were arrested. But Kutro did not make it easier. The businessman went bankrupt and lost his livelihood - no one else dared to entrust the orders of his enterprise. Only after persistent public campaigns in support of “witnesses of justice”, such as Kutro, the entrepreneur received financial assistance from the government.

It is clear that not all victims of the mafia racket are ready to divide the fate of Kutro. The good, even truly revolutionary news for them is precisely that thanks to the Mafialeak Internet platform, the mafia's exposure got the opportunity to avoid revenge. The resource uses open software, which at the same time allows the user to remain unidentified on the network.

To gain access to the resource, you must install Tor Browser Bundle on a computer - an anonymous Internet access network. Tor at one time was developed by specialists of the American Navy, and later declassified. According to official figures, the number of its users ranges between three and four million, while the number of “nodes” (nodes) that provide the network exceeds four thousand. The principle on which Tor is based is similar to cleaning the bulbs (hence the name-Tor, The Onion Router): An encoded traffic moves between several chain links (intermediary servers) that remove the encoding layers. (It is no coincidence that some users in Italy call Tor “Chippollino”). And only the last node sends unchifted information to the destination. Thus, it is almost impossible to track the IP address of the primary sender.

First

Tor provides anonymity not only of users, but also of servers that are located under pseudo -dodium.onion. We are talking about the so -called “hidden services” (sites opening only through Tor), which include Mafialeaks.

The platform operates on the basis of open software Globaleaks, it is usually used around the world for journalistic investigations. In general, everyone can download it and create their own platform. “Globaleaks allows even non-professionals to create an individual platform for receiving confidential information,” explains The New Times Fabio Pietrosanti, a specialist in the field of Internet security from Milan, he created Globaleaks in 2011.

Globaleaks was widely used in Holland. With the participation of 28 media, the Publeaks Foundation Foundation was created, which supports the same name, created for anonymous revelations: we are talking about violations and crimes in state and other areas.

In Italy, a similar platform called Irpileaks was launched this fall by Investigative Reporting Project Italy, whose scientific committee includes the former investigation department of the British newspaper The Guardian David Lee. However, Mafialeaks is the first site of this kind, aimed precisely to fight the mafia.

“If an anonymous receives me, I must crumple it and throw it into a garbage bucket ... There is no much difference between the denunciation on paper and on the Internet”

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“We were surprised when we learned about the birth of this project. It didn’t even occur to us that our software could be used in this way, ”the Pietrosanti shares with The New Times with his impressions of the new resource. Globaleaks, he explains, guarantees the confidentiality of the transmitted data due to their encryption using the PGP program (Pretty Good Privacy). Thus, even when attacking the server, it will not be possible to access information.

The Mafialeaks team at the initial stage of work is forced to act as a kind of moderator, encrypting files for each of the addressees. “The sender of information (these may be documents, testimonies or just a description of the place) himself chooses who to address it,” explains Pietrosanti. “The recipient of the data can download them using a special code for twenty days (then the information will self -destruct), as well as enter into correspondence with the sender on the platform.”

So far, among the real addressees of Mafialeaks, in addition to Lirio Abbate, freelancer Antonella Beccaria is also included - she writes for the Il Fatto Quotidiano newspaper, and the Telejato Sicilian television channel.

Just a tip?

Law enforcement agencies, however, are very skeptical of Mafialeaks.

“According to our Criminal Procedure Code, anonymous notes do not represent any value from the point of view of legal proceedings. Moreover, there is a risk that someone is in such a way trying to reduce personal scores, ”explains Francesco Messineo, the prosecutor of the republic at the Palermo Court and the head of the district control against the mafia in a conversation with The New Times. The only application that nameless denunciations can be obtained is to give the judicial police. The specific information contained in such messages (for example, an indication of the place where the weapon is hidden) can be verified and only then acquires legal meaning.

“If I will receive an anonymous, which says that X killed Y, I have to crumple it and throw it into a garbage bucket,” agrees Armando Spataro, deputy prosecutor of the republic at the Court of Milan. “In this sense, I don’t see a big difference between anonymous letters on paper and on the Internet.”

Both prosecutors are calling for open indications and trying to convince citizens: the state will help those who openly go against the mafia, especially since a special program for protecting witnesses works, thanks to which they move to a classified place.

“In Italy, the general culture in the field of IT technologies is still at a very low level, hence the entire skepticism,” explains the prosecutor's negative grades of Fabio Pietrosanti. - After all, cases have already been identified when an anonymous source was effectively used for judicial purposes. As for the Internet, there are already studies in this regard that proving the potential of the law enforcement of Mafialeaks. ” For example, if a video recorded a crime is sent through the platform, in accordance with the Italian Code of Criminal Procedure, the Code may be reckoned with material evidence. And the officials for the informing of the famous crimes are punishable by fines or even imprisonment. “Mafialeaks, by and large, fell into a point,” notes Pietrosanti. “Let's just find patience.”

Photos: AP Photo, L'Espresso, Lefotodimarina.com