Assange and Wikileaks

death wish, double agent or hero?

[webjourneyman]

Founder of Wikileaks Julian Assange has reportedly gravely insulted the governments of following spook service employing countries:

China
N-Korea
USA
UK
Russia
Germany
France
Iran
More to come ...

So, is this the most clandestine online suicide ever by Assange using Wikileaks, is there a smokescreen somewhere or something else?

Edit: Or Assange and Wikileaks : Death wish, Double agent or Douchebag?

[kaled]

Idealist I think is the word, possibly prefixed by naive.

QUESTION
Why is nobody speculating about the source of the DDOS attack?

The obvious culprit is the US Government, however, that would mean they are operating a botnet. Does nobody find that interesting?

Did they set up the botnet? Do they have their own team of virus/trojan writers?
Did they hijack a botnet?
Are they paying organised crime bosses to do their dirty work?

And again, why is nobody asking any of these questions?

Kaled.

[lawman]

I enjoy reading about the massive amount of buffoonery that that goes on between the world's governments. Except for Muammar Gaddafi who uses his position to hire a really hot nurse. For some reason that makes sense to me. ;)

[vivalasvegas]

Why is nobody speculating about the source of the DDOS attack?

The obvious culprit is the US Government, however, that would mean they are operating a botnet. Does nobody find that interesting?

Did they set up the botnet? Do they have their own team of virus/trojan writers?
Did they hijack a botnet?
Are they paying organised crime bosses to do their dirty work?

And again, why is nobody asking any of these questions?

I was wondering the same things.

[kaled]

What amazes me is that one low-level officer was able to download all this stuff. Without a doubt, the UK comes across as feeble but, boy oh boy, does the US come across as dumb just for losing control of all this information.

And if this rape charge turns out to be a stitch-up as most people assume, the US is going to look far worse. Barack Obama started off much better than I expected but his presidency is beginning to look more and more like a car crash in slow motion (from this side of the pond anyway).

Kaled.

[ChanandlerBong]

what about all the companies that are now abandoning wikileaks. Amazon, their domain name company in CA, now paypal. Way to do the govt's dirty work for them!

[kaled]

I simply assumed that the US Government was having quiet chats with the relevant CEOs. Who knows, maybe someone will leak a recording of one of those chats - now that would be funny!

Kaled.

[lawman]

I notice in this thread you assume a lot. :)

[wheel]

I believe the dude running wikileaks is probably a lot of both - hero and douche. And there's some reality to the release causing some harm, but I think in this case the harm is mostly to governments and their secrecy and the positive effects of releasing this info outweighs the negatives. Not enough whistleblowers around these days.

I am also surprised at the companies backing away from the site. They haven't been formally charged with anything yet, all these companies will drop you like a hot potato if they don't like you? interesting.

[piatkow]

I was wondering the same things.

Me too

boy oh boy, does the US come across as dumb just for losing control of all this information.

Even dumber are the people saying that he should be tried for treason. He would need to be a US citizen to commit treason in the USA.

[rocknbil]

^ ^ ^ This question remains unanswered for me, if this information is so sensitive, how did Assange get ahold of it? Kill the messenger, I guess.

[Rugles]

They have a former soldier under arrest for several months now. He is the likely leaker.

Assange got these cables months ago. Weeks ago he gave them to major news media outlets. So the information has already been distributed. Hence the reason there is little urgency by the authorities.

[ChanandlerBong]

and now their Swiss bank account has been frozen. You know, those Swiss banks that have always been SO fussy about who they give accounts to!

[Rugles]

Seriously, they don't close accounts of war criminals and billionaire narco traffickers. Yet this guy gets the bums rush. Makes no sense.

I think they need to re-evaluate their priorities.

[kaled]

I wonder if the US Government will go to as much effort to bury the numpties that thought
a) Let's compile a list of vital US interests around the world
b) Let's place the list with all the other ultra-low security stuff, like highly confidential memos

The list seems to have been compiled in 2009 - that's two years after wikileaks opened for business.

When a lion kills an antelope - it's bad luck for the antelope but when a man goes paddling in a river that's known to have crocodiles in it and gets eaten, it's not bad luck it's a Darwin Award moment.

The UK has had more than its fair share of idiotic data losses but in most cases it's been caused by no more than a handful of idiots. Between all the security agencies at work in the US that had access to this material, did no one think "what if..."

My first thought when the "Vital Interests" list was released was The Website Strikes Back.

Kaled.

[yaix2]

Now they actually arrested him.

But what's the reason? Maybe a warning message to the journalists at The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, and El Pais to not continue publishing or face the same fate?

[wheel]

But what's the reason?

I believe the purported reason has to do with some 'romantic' escapades he's had in the past. They are potentially very serious charges, but quite frankly the timing makes them seem trumped up.

[lgn1]

Now Visa and Mastercard has suspended Wikileaks, so they are trying to bankrupt wikileaks.

It will not work. If they are unable to stop the flow of money to all those engaged in evil acts; how are they going to stop the flow of money to an organization, that is a shinning light in the darkness.

[milosevic]

I made a blog article on my employer's website about China's business practices last year. About 2 weeks after that my personal e-mail account was hacked into (the originating IP seeming to be an Amazon AWS server), around the same time as the reported hacks from China on Google (which included various gmail accounts - see [guardian.co.uk...] ). Some without knowing me or the full details of the circumstances would put this down to coincidence, but I really don't think so, especially as the Guardian article specifically talks about the use of Amazon AWS servers. Now I know I'm probably on some sort of watchlist as a China dissident just because I blogged about them arresting Rio Tinto employees.

The censoring of Twitter and under-reporting of the stories in the conventional media with a lack of questions as @kaled points out seems like a move indeed towards Chinese style censorship, where the aim is is to pull the strings of media and steer public discussion behind the scenes.

I don't want to post something on Twitter about Wikileaks where it is permanently indexed and could be interpreted at any time down the line by potential future employers as me being a loose cannon or controversial. Maybe Twitter isn't the place to discuss politics (especially after the recent Robin Hood Airport incident), but it's also how people aren't discussing this on the street, or know only that "some documents got leaked on the internet but the guy what runs it is a rapist weirdo".

I think most disturbingly, US government agencies sent out a memo advising employees to not to read or talk about wikileaks material (even in their free time!) or it could affect their career prospects.

Are the techniques of hushing and censorship working on keeping the average, say, Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper reader in the dark?

[kaled]

The US government would do much better to simply take this on the chin rather than throw their weight around. Most of the cables seem to be no more than mildly embarassing. Apart from the list of vital interests, I've seen nothing in the least bit surprising...

Even comments about UK troops not being up to the job - not a big surprise, not because UK troops are rubbish but because of who was speaking - I dare say similar comments have been made about US troops but those would not be in this list!

Even the list of vital interests is of little consequence - the primary enemy that might find this list interesting is Al Qaeda, and they are far more interested in killing people than attacking infrastructure, etc. They may change, but I very much doubt it - that would go against the nature of the beast.

Kaled.

[MatthewHSE]

I'm astounded at how casually people here are taking this - even taking Assange's side. Sure, governments may be doing some unethical things; undoubtedly they are. But exposing it all can only cause things to blow up that might otherwise have been handled more diplomatically.

Real-world people *will* die as a result of his site. Real-world wars may even be fought. And governments aren't going to change anything anyway, except perhaps try harder to keep leaks from happening. So everything Assange calls "collateral damage" is really just fodder for his ego trip.

[jecasc]

@MatthewHSE
Actually I believe more people are dying every day from governments doing unethical things than ever will die from releasing any documents.

What should make people think however is this: Governments all over the world are collecting data: where you are flying, who you called, when you connected to the internet, when you used your cell phone, where you where when you used it, whom you called with it and so on. And they promise this data will only be used to catch terrorists and that it's safe.

And they are "keeping it safe" not by implementing technical measures to secure the data, or by limiting the access to the data, or by logging who looked at what data and for what purpose. They keep your data safe by passing laws and letting government employees sign agreements not to copy any data.

And its the same everywhere. I remember a government offical in my country answering when asked about a security hole in the encryption of new biometrical information stored in passports: We have already addressed this issue and have passed a law that makes the unauthorized access to this information illegal...

[kaled]

Real-world people *will* die as a result of his site.

At best that's a speculative guess - I could equally make a guess that real-world governments will learn to act more honourably, however I'm inclined to guess that they'll pass laws to dissuade potential whistle-blowers instead.

Let's be realistic about this, so far no one has even resigned over this, or to put it another way, no careers have died yet let alone people.

For instance, who's going to die from this story [bbc.co.uk...]
And, once again, not much of a surprise to those of use that read between the lines - merely confirmation. And confirmation of what most of us suspect anyway doesn't get people killed. Seriously, I have yet to be even mildly surprised by anything so far, so those people that are actually involved are certainly not learning anything dramatically new (with the possible exception of the vital interests list).

Kaled.

[milosevic]

But exposing it all can only cause things to blow up that might otherwise have been handled more diplomatically.

Just how can you know that? You are making a massive, massive presumption there. Information can be a huge tool of disarmament too, especially when it comes from a neutral origin of reportage.

[lawman]

If not for massive, massive presumption, this thread would be a shadow of itself, milosevic. :)

[Visit Thailand]

I am very suspicious of the whole wikileaks saga, but what worries me most is how easy it would be to slip a few complete lies in amongst what appears on the surface to be genuine documents and not one person would bat an eyelid. They say the best lies are those founded on a truth, and wikileaks seems to be a perfect foundation for someone to manipulate the world.

[graeme_p]

@MatthewHSE, this stuff is available to a huge number of people. Any intelligence agency or "bad guys" could have got hold of it very easily, and probably have.

[Whitey]

Australia blames US for Wikileaks

Australia's foreign minister has said the US is to blame for the release of thousands of diplomatic cables on Wikileaks, not its Australian founder, Julian Assange.

Kevin Rudd said the release raised questions about US security.

Mr Rudd said he did not "give a damn" about criticism of him in the cables.

[bbc.co.uk...]

Over 2M diplomatic participants with access to these cables can hardly be considered secret.

They say the best lies are those founded on a truth, and wikileaks seems to be a perfect foundation for someone to manipulate the world.

Absolutely. There are likely motives behind this and the front men publishing it rarely know more than the controlled releases they receive. Who knows what this all means in it's totality and what's been selectively slotted in there for someone to leak.

Leak some truths , see how the World responds and then evolve political transparency to a higher level. It may take the next 2000 years, but let's hope not. This movement is one attempt to take a step forward.

If Assange was Chinese he'd probably be given the Nobel Prize as an advocate for World Peace and be imprisoned in China as an activist.

[enigma1]

I'm astounded at how casually people here are taking this

Yea ok, perhaps if they pay us, we could take it to a different level. But right now they don't.

The fact is, any site with enough exposure can influence public opinion and create noise. And of course everything comes with the territory. I don't know what to believe out of this, I see it as politics without relationship towards my interests.

Now if I could utilize just 1% of the online traffic generated by this, I would retire young.

[lgn1]

Hactivists has taken the Mastercard site down with a DOS attack. Maybe Mastercard will follow "Innocent until proven guilty" policy next time.

[webmasterworld.com...]

[edited by: lawman at 1:27 pm (utc) on Dec 8, 2010]
[edit reason] Add Link To Relevant Thread [/edit]