Whistleblower’s Telegram channel closed after Israeli government leak

The Telegram channel of Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), a journalist collective specializing in publishing hacked material on the Internet, was closed after more than a million leaked documents from the Israeli Ministry of Justice were published.

The leaked documents, reportedly published in April 2024, contain “personal data of senior ministry officials as well as confidential correspondence [and] internal and secret ministry documents,” the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Last July, some of the leaked files published by DDoSecrets were used to show that Israel had seized and suppressed state secrets that were the subject of a lawsuit against Israeli spyware vendor NSO Group.

Last week, The Guardian Thanks to further documents from the leak, it was revealed that Israeli officials were attempting to circumvent an intelligence law in the United States as part of their pro-Israel lobbying efforts there.

It has been suspected that the Internet Referral Unit of the Israeli Public Prosecutor's Office, which reports to the Israeli Ministry of Justice, is behind the shutdown request.

The unit, sometimes referred to as the “Cyber ​​Unit,” is led by Dr. Haim Wismonsky and is responsible for monitoring the internet for leaks and reporting them to the platforms that host them.

According to a recent Haaretz Article, one of the victims of the cyber unit's efforts is the Telegram channel of a “WikiLeaks-like website [whose goal is to] provide a safe online haven for leaks of various kinds.”

Many see DDoSecrets as the successor to the now almost defunct whistleblower website Wikileaks.

In conversation with HaaretzWismonsky explained his unit's deletion requests by saying, “These are efforts that require creativity and decisive action using a range of legal tools.”

However, this may also prevent journalists from reporting on the details contained in the leaked documents, especially since the Israeli government has obtained a court order prohibiting Israeli media from reporting on the leak.

The new Arab has contacted Dr. Wismonsky and the Israeli Embassy in London for comment. No response was received at the time of publication.

Leaks and news blackout

DDoSecrets has one of the most extensive databases of leaked materials on the Internet and in June released one of its first databases on the ongoing war in Gaza, titled “Op Cyber ​​​​Toufan.”

The database contained approximately 20,000 documents from Israeli government organizations and companies, including personal information of Israeli citizens obtained from the Ministries of Health and Welfare and Social Security.

Further publications followed in July, this time with documents related to the Israeli army and the ministries of defense and justice.

Links to the data sets would then be shared on Telegram on a channel called “Library of Leaks.”

However, a few days after DDoSecrets posted links to the leaked material on its Telegram channel, it was closed.

Lorax Horne, editor at DDoSecrets, said TNA that Telegram did not provide an explanation for the removal of his channel from the platform, but claimed it was a form of “censorship.”

“The shutdown of the DDoSecrets channel represents an escalation and it is dangerous for Israel to confuse DDoSecrets with the hackers' channels,” Horne added.

Shortly after the leaked documents surfaced, Israel's National Cyber ​​Directorate launched an investigation into the leak and imposed a news blackout on all leaked material, prohibiting Israeli media from reporting on it.

Such court orders have been used in Israel in the past to prevent access to material published on the Internet.

In 2016, the magazine +972 reported that the Israeli authorities had imposed news blackouts on journalists and TNA Contributor Richard Silverstein, which he had published in the USA.

Telegram’s arbitrary enforcement of take-down policies

It is not clear on what basis Telegram decided to shut down the DDoSecrets channel, and the Terms of Service section does not provide many details about what Telegram considers to be sanctionable actions on the platform.

In the past, Telegram founder and owner Pavel Durov had spoken out against the use of news blackouts by government agencies.

In a December 2021 post, Durov said: “[US] Authorities don't even need a court order to extract private information from messaging apps like WhatsApp… Telegram is one of the few messaging apps that doesn't abuse the trust of its users.”

But according to the US magazine Wired, Due to court orders, Telegram has since shared the personal data of some of its users with national authorities, particularly German and Indian authorities.

In connection with the Gaza war, Telegram quickly closed several channels linked to Hamas after the October 7 attacks.

Telegram was accused of failing to take action against a channel allegedly run by the Israeli army's psychological warfare department – the so-called “72 Virgins-Uncensored” channel – which shows extremely graphic videos of potential war crimes committed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza. The channel remains active to this day.

In the ten days following the Hamas attack, Israel's Internet reporting agency submitted around 143 requests to remove content from Telegram. It is unclear how many of these requests were granted.

The new Arab has asked Telegram for comment, but no response was received at the time of publication.