Tech Musing #3 "Panama Papers: inside the Guardian's investigation into offshore secrets"

Article: http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/16/panama-papers-inside-the-guardians-investigation-into-offshore-secrets 

Overview
An article was posted to the Guardian on April 16th, 2016 titled "Panama Papers: inside the Guardian's investigation into offshore secrets" by Juliette Garside. I have found this article to be the most complete when it come to putting the Panama Papers Scandal into perspective and understanding the timeline of events. Garside begins with the foundation of the scandal, recounting the contact of the "John Doe" wishing to unload some data. From there, Juliette discusses the manner in which the investigation was conducted. She talks about the "red flags" that were identified including the Icelandic Prime Minister walking out of an interview, the stepping down of Mossack Fonseca founding partner, Ramon Fonseca, and the arresting of two Mossack Fonseca employees. Garside then delves into series of events that led to publishing this massive amount of sensitive information.

25 February 2015 - During this time, correspondence with the information source, "John Doe," has been established and information is prepared for unveiling.

June 2015 - News organizations discuss how the information will be delivered to the public and how the information will be handled.

September 2015 - The Guardian secures its position in the information unveiling and participate in the discussion of new handling.

December 2015 - The size of the scandal is beginning to be put into perspective with 2.6 terabytes of data available and accounts of dealings of Vladimir Putin valued at $2bn. This is also the time that Mossack Fonseca employees were arrested, but released while two other Fonseca employees fled the country.

4 March 2016 - Mossack Fonseca is officially informed that information regarding the details of some of their "sensitive" accounts has been acquired and viewed.

11 March 2016 - Icelandic Prime Minister walks out of interview. Ramon Fonseca resigns from adviser position with Panamanian president.

15 March 2016 - Wife of Icelandic Prime Minister uses Facebook to announce that her husband had no official hand in the accounts held at Mossack Fonseca. Coming days before the release of information, it is hard to not sense panic from the pair.

6.48pm, Sunday 3 April - Edward Snowden tweets a link to official leak article.

7pm GMT, Sunday 3 April - Information was revealed to the public.

Relavance to Course
This article is very relevant to our course material. Firstly, there has been much discussion about the case in general, and this article offers a linear, clear point of view. Secondly, we have learned much about information security and privacy, two core concepts of this scandal. It will be interesting to see the aftermath of this scandal and the potential financial repercussions to some of the world's powerful people.