True or not, the storey demonstrates how valuable even a small amount of information can be in a situation where one might think that the number of troops, the quality of the weapons, the cunning of the generals, or the lay of the terrain are more important factors in determining the outcome of a battle. Given that the result of a whole war may have been determined by the knowledge of a single mountain trail, here are ten considerably greater information dumps that impacted the entire planet.
Operation Mincemeat was a British intelligence officer's audacious plan to mislead Adolf Hitler about an impending Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Greece. The man's death may have unintentionally been the pivotal moment that led to World War II's triumphant ending. Ian Fleming, who collaborated on the idea with others, believes it may have contributed to Soviet victories on the Eastern Front.
09. Leaks from the Manhattan Project
Truman received a call on July 16, 1945, informing him that the first atomic weapon had been successfully detonated. The next day, Stalin convened with his nuclear experts to examine the possibility of arming the USSR with this lethal new technology. Fortunately for Stalin, numerous double spies and experts with Communist sympathies worked in Western nations and were eager to leak knowledge to the Soviets.
Daniel Ellsberg was an ex-Marine working on a top-secret Pentagon investigation investigating the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War. He photocopied roughly 7,000 pages of information before visiting members of Congress and asking them to use their congressional immunity to enter the documents into the legislative record. After being refused several times, he took the extremely dangerous choice to disclose the study to the press.
07. Watergate Scandal
In response to the Pentagon Papers, President Nixon formed a secret crew known as the White House Plumbers to prevent future leaks. This group hounded, audited, and monitored opposition politicians, journalists, and even Hollywood personalities with the purpose of discrediting them. In 1972, agents hired by the CRP stormed into the Democratic headquarters for the second time, but this time, police apprehended and detained five of the invaders.
06. The Plame Scandal
In 2003, Valerie Plame was exposed as an undercover CIA operative specializing in weapons of mass destruction. This was retaliation for her husband's criticism of George Bush's public statement that Sadaam Hussein had acquired weapons-grade uranium from Niger. In 2006, Plame unsuccessfully sued Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Lewis Libby, and Richard Armitage.
05. The Iraq War Diaries (Wikileaks)
Wikileaks published almost 400,000 U.S. Army field reports and shared them with international media. It was the largest ever leak of military information. They detailed thousands of uninvestigated accounts of torture and murder of civilians. At least 66,081 innocent people lost their lives during the campaign, they said.
04. The NSA Leak by Edward Snowden
On May 20, 2013, Edward Snowden arrived in Hong Kong to begin a more turbulent and paranoid life. The former CIA technical assistant revealed himself to be the source of a leak to The Guardian newspaper in the UK. The U.S. government unsealed charges of espionage against Snowden in July later that year. They revoked his passport before he flew to Russia, where he has been living ever since.
03. Brokers in the Dark
In 2017, a hacking group called the Shadow Brokers began auctioning off hacking tools to the highest bidder. The online auction resulted from a hack that had targeted Equation Group, an elite hacking team that was operated by the NSA. Wikileaks announced they had also gained access to everything being sold off and decided to publish all the information and tools they had at their disposal. These tools have been used extensively by countries including China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea in major ransomware attacks.
02. The Panama Papers
In 2016, an unidentified insider leaked millions of documents that exposed a global network of politicians and public officials who had done business with former Panamanian offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca. Public figures from more than 50 countries were accused of corruption and money laundering. The implications of the Panama Papers are still being deciphered today, as the sheer mass of data means it will take years before all of the connections and links between various dummy companies can be fully understood.
01. The Pandora Files
The Pandora Papers are similar in many ways to the Panama Papers leaked in 2016. Both concern shell companies used by the rich and powerful to acquire properties and hide movements of vast sums of money using offshore tax-havens. The true extent of the web of information to piece together from the millions of leaked documents will take many years to fully realize. The unfortunate conclusion is that the practice of illegally obtaining and moving unregulated and untaxed money by the super-rich continues unabated.
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