The author misses the key point of WikiLeaks: Assange doesn't which to make diplomacy public: he empowers any member of an organization to denounce its contradiction. According to a alarming report by the Washington Post, the current US Intelligence community employs more then two millions people — some who disagree with it and are ready to take risks like Manning. Countries with limited, empowered civil servants don't have anything to fear.
For instance, no nuclear engineer will even leak secret launch codes: why sabotage a project that your support? They might leak information about secret deals with nations that he believes his government shouldn't secretly associate with.
The goal of WikiLeaks (and this is why I commented here and not on the post itself) is communities like Zappos, where every worker is independent, criticizes freely, but agrees enough with the direction to remain loyal. What this prevents is having frustrated people like Manning approached by actual enemies, and have a similar access used for harm.
The nuclear launch codes actually were leaked a while back. It turns out they were all zeroes, and always had been. The folks in charge of choosing the launch codes didn't agree with the policy decision to have launch codes, and the folks who made the policy decision (McNamara I think) weren't authorized to know what they were.
But you're probably right that that leak wasn't by a nuclear engineer, since I doubt any of them were authorized to know the launch codes either.
I'm pretty sure that none of this is still classified.
You're talking about the PAL codes[0] which were, indeed, 00000000 for a long time. That's entirely separate from another set of 'launch codes' that the Commander in Chief is never far from[1].
This might be true but it doesn't mean that anyone could launch a missile by keying in 00000000. And if it is true, it just means that the Air Force resented having one of many of their layers of security defined by someone else.
For instance, no nuclear engineer will even leak secret launch codes: why sabotage a project that your support? They might leak information about secret deals with nations that he believes his government shouldn't secretly associate with.
The goal of WikiLeaks (and this is why I commented here and not on the post itself) is communities like Zappos, where every worker is independent, criticizes freely, but agrees enough with the direction to remain loyal. What this prevents is having frustrated people like Manning approached by actual enemies, and have a similar access used for harm.