BACKGROUND: Cables came from US military computer network

Nov 29, 2010, 8:54 GMT

Berlin - The 250,000 US diplomatic cables revealed by WikiLeaks were obtained from a big electronic database that is run by the US military and can be accessed by up to 3 million people, according to the Guardian newspaper of London.

When US diplomats send cables that they want the military to see, they add the tag 'Sipdis' to the string of address codes heading the message. This stands for SIPRNet Distribution. SIPRNet is an acronym for Secret Internet Protocol Router Network.

SIPRNet is a worldwide US military system, kept separate from the ordinary civilian internet and run by the US Defence Department in Washington. The idea is to spread key intelligence to all US agencies that need to know about it.

The Guardian, one of the newspapers that saw the WikiLeaks material in advance, said that in 2005, 180 US embassies were connected to the network.

The files can be accessed by anyone in the US military who has a password and computer connected to SIPRNet and who has the security clearance known as 'secret.'

The Guardian's estimate of how many people have access to the network was based on a 1993 study by the US General Accounting Office, which counted 3 million cleared to 'secret' and above. But German media quoted a lower estimate of 2.5 million.

However 'top secret' documents cannot be accessed from SIPRNet.