Exclusive transcript: WikiLeaks reveals ass call from a zoo
Leaked voicemail trove includes names and phone numbers from random callers to DNC
WikiLeaks has started to promote a subset of the documents retrieved from the Democratic National Convention (DNC) as “The DNC recordings”, offering the world 29 MP3 files retrieved from the DNC voice mail system. The Register's crack forensics team can reveal that one of the voice mails may be what experts refer to as “an ass call” and was probably made at a zoological garden.
The Register's labs team makes that assertion after listening to the first (MP3) of the voice mail files listed by WikiLeaks. We present that explosive transcript here:
Child: (inaudible)
Adult: Bring the elephants in, zookeeper.
Child: Bring in the elephant, zookeeper.
Adult: I want to see the elephants.
Child: I want to see the elephants.
Adult: Yeah. I love Daddy.
Child: (hesitant) I love Daddy.
Adult: That's real good.
After extensive analysis, The Register's forensics squad believes that the two people in the conversation are talking about actual elephants and not talking in code about the Republican Party's elephant logo.
Our analysis further suggests the call may have been filtered through denim, making it what's known in law enforcement circles as an “ass call”. For the non-technical among you, such calls occur when a mobile telecommunications device's interface is inadvertently activated while said device is located in its user's pants. The result of that unplanned interaction is transmission of content unplanned by users and often frustrating to recipients.
Our alternative hypothesis is that this voicemail is a fragment of a call in which a carer calls a parent or other relative to re-assure them of a child's well-being. Which surely proves just how corrupt American politics has become.
WikiLeaks is making much of the fact that one of the voicemails is from William Eacho, a former ambassador to Austria appointed by President Barack Obama, and asks for details of a soiree with the Commander In Chief. Eacho is known to have made and organised substantial donations to Obama's campaigns, a fact WikiLeaks believes justifies its release on the grounds that the voice mail's content reveals how networks of influence operate.
Like all of the voice mails released by WikiLeaks, including the ass call, the originating phone number is included in the MP3 file's metadata. Like many of the MP3s, this one features Eacho speaking his name the phone number on which he can be reached.
All are now on the record.
Elsewhere in the dump from the DNC, WikiLeaks revealed personal details of many small donors to the DNC. ®