Wikileaks to publish 500,000 9/11 pager messages

This is important.

Nothing short of emotional pornography in my view.

What is the point of this?

Wikileaks just pushes out whatever they get after verifying its provenance.

One can certainly argue historical value but I don't think that holds up in this case.

Not to deny the validity of your opinion, but debates about the appropriateness of this are based on value judgments and thus there is no 'right' answer, nor will such discussions have any effect on the availability or content of the data.

You are of course correct on both counts.

It's in a pretty standard tab-delimited text format which should make it easy to analyze with a spreadsheet. They're putting out small chunks at present, full text archive to follow tomorrow (which will probably be hundreds of megabytes).

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And also agree that it could be a rubbernecking bonanza, the release of new information is always good.

I feel sorry for the people who are going to be getting calls from crazy people.

I feel the same way. Seems to me they should have purged those. I don't think you can argue they are of historical significance (as a blanket statement).

yeah that is going to be 'fun'.

In this case I am torn between privacy and release of information. As I understand it this isn't 100% public officials pages. Some IT guy get's a page that a server is not responding... I am not sure I agree with releasing that. Even if it is ultimately meaningless. OTOH disclosure is good.

Oh well. They are out now so we shall see what gets mined.

How long do you suppose it will be before we are analyzing split seconds on time stamps and misinterpreted abbreviations?

I'm on the phone to the union right now.

Umm... this is raw pager traffic to anyone and everyone. There is nothing expressly "official" about most of it.

Most of it seems to be numeric pages, or automated messages to IT geeks reporting server issues.

There are a lot of duplicates of Yahoo! news alerts.

Scroll through the samples posted:

http://911.wikileaks.org/files/messages_2001_09_11-16_25_2001_09_11-16_29.html

2001-09-11 16:29:52 Skytel <005345983> D ALPHA
Hey Vic, just wondering if I could come over for dinner tonight. Feel like I could use some company for awhile. If your are busy, thats okay. I could also bring something if that would help. What a day. John

2001-09-11 16:29:52 Skytel <007549241> C SH/TONE

2001-09-11 16:29:52 Skytel <005139252> B ALPHA
can you give me a call when at cell when you have a moment charlie 408 499 XXXX

2001-09-11 16:29:52 Skytel <005180591> D SH/TONE
402-xxxx

2001-09-11 16:29:53 Arch <1426641> A ALPHA
H ST to 1099 18TH STREINSTALL PC & VERIFY PRINTHAMILTONT/ ISC 816-501-xxxx

2001-09-11 16:29:53 Metrocall <002323446> B ALPHA
Msg:Marie M Helms (704) 382-xxxx. Please call about the distribution list for international employees.

2001-09-11 16:29:53 Metrocall <002589120> A ALPHA
Frm: Clement Bottino Sub: RE: Follow up Txt: Thanks f

2001-09-11 16:29:53 Metrocall <002589125> B ALPHA
Frm: Clement Bottino Sub: RE: Follow up Txt: Thanks for the inquiry. We have decided to wait until the end of the year before we make our purchase. I will be back in touch. Clement DISCLAIMER: Priviledged/Confidential In

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I've x'd out stuff here, but none of that looks particularly "official" to me.

I'm not going to get into cutting and pasting...I'm thinking to just wait until it's all up there then write some scripts to process it (I have some programming skills and the message format is very simple). I'd say about 2% is 'official' traffic, bits of military or emergency team stuff, 10-20% automated status messages, 10-10% preprogrammed reminders, automated news alerts (eg everything that starts Y! is from Yahoo) and so on. Actual interesting, relevant information will probably only make up 1% of the total.

FBI confiscated all possible videos from surrounding areas around the pentagon moments after the attack and then sealed them.

What makes you think they didnt have this angle covered?

"Wikileaks didn’t identify the source of the messages, but the site has a solid track record for releasing authentic information.

Unencrypted pager traffic has been subject to interception by hackers and others for years — an easy video tutorial made the rounds just last May. But Wikileaks implies this data came from an organised collection effort. “While we are obligated ... to protect our sources, it is clear that the information comes from an organisation which has been intercepting and archiving national US telecommunications since prior to 9/11.”

utter rubbish. If someone had these it wouldnt be over 8 years later they surfaced. The Neocons released this now because their ship is sinking.
Everyone knows 911 was an inside job.

On with the dog and pony show.