THE entire unedited collection of diplomatic cables held by WikiLeaks has been revealed on the internet, in what is a worst-case scenario for the United States and a damaging blow to the whistleblowing website.
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The release could put at risk hundreds of people who have co-operated with the US around the world, particularly in the Middle East.
It will also cause headaches for intelligence agencies including ASIO. At least one of its senior officers has been named.
Rumours had been circulating on the web for days that the password to an encrypted file holding WikiLeaks's entire trove - 251,287 US State Department cables - had been discovered.
Yesterday, the file and the password became known and, in an online frenzy, the entire cable database was made public.
The cables contain the names of diplomatic sources, sensitive information and even identify intelligence officers.
It is a blow to WikiLeaks, which is being criticised for being unable to manage its own security.
In only a brief examination of the file, Fairfax discovered several names that had been redacted by WikiLeaks or its media partners, but were revealed in the raw cables. One of those names was that of a senior ASIO officer whose identity is protected by law in Australia.
It is understood the leak occurred partly because a journalist at The Guardian, David Leigh, included the password in his book WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy. The password was useless without the correct file. During the past two days that file was identified and made public.
With the unedited cables rapidly spreading across the internet, the WikiLeaks chief, Julian Assange, hit out at Leigh and the newspaper, accusing them of failing to protect the information.
''A Guardian journalist has negligently disclosed top-secret WikiLeaks' decryption passwords to hundreds of thousands of unredacted unpublished US diplomatic cables,'' he said in a statement on wikileaks.org. He also said the organisation had contacted the US State Department to warn them of the impending release of the files.
The whistleblower was running a vote on Twitter asking the public if it should release the entire database now it had been leaked anyway.
The Guardian responded yesterday by saying the book was not responsible for the leak.
''[The book] contained a password, but no details of the location of the files, and we were told it was a temporary password which would expire and be deleted in a matter of hours.''
The reporters are on Twitter: @bengrubb and @dylanwelch
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