Wikileaks: Something is up
morgue.isprettyawesome.com
morgue.isprettyawesome.com
In the summary they claimed that the US was recommending trying to fire/expose anyone who posted on wiki-leaks. However, all the article really said was "If people are fired or exposed for publishing on wiki leaks, this will probably serve as a deterrant." Two very different things. The summary was full of exaggerated claims like this one that really, in my opinion, made wiki-leaks look stupid.
The point is that wikileaks has a really awesome ideal, which is to expose bad things that are secrets. However, I worry that they are trying too hard to make everything into a conspiracy theory.
We need to step back and say, "Ok, so in some movies there are conspiracy theories like the ones we're presenting. And those movies are highly entertaining because they are so ridiculous. So, do we believe this because it is true or because we want it to be true?"
In the end, I would really like to know if the US government, or any government, is shooting journalists. But only if it really is true. Otherwise we're no better than schizophrenic conspiracy theorists and it really won't make a difference.
So to tie it in, is something really up with wiki-leaks? If it is that would be good information. But I would not be surprised to find out tomorrow that these claims were highly exaggerated.
Sorry, but I don't buy it. Military encryption is designed to resist attacks done by enemy governmental agency.
They say thank you for all the $/CPU but lately I've read they were in dire need of cash to continue running the website, yet, they spent that money on cracking some alleged secret material...
Oh, and I'm pretty sure that cracking governmental material is considered an act of war, that would be pretty stupid to admit that publicly.
Sorry, but all of this sounds like kids living in a paranoid delirium or people trying to get attention (to raise money?).
This in itself is probably leak-worthy, in that quite realistically, other organisations with more at stake and more resources will likely have done the same without broadcasting the fact. And the chances are that these others will use this ability with more serious consequences [than posting the footage online].
I've seen many things from Wikileaks that are classified in nature and if they think that it's ok to do that they're mistaken, IMO.
I do however applaud their efforts with respect to net censorship and scientology secrets.
http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
Even went so far as to agree to other point (EDITED out rude comment). Oh well, hey at least you responded with rational discussion. Oh wait you just voted down because you disagreed.
It's pretty easy for our enemies to set up scanners in the field and capture streams of data to analyze later. If the hack is generic enough and the method was used enough I can see how this could be potentially VERY bad.
That being said, I think we're using very simple encryption on our UAVs video feeds. So it's probably the equivalent of locking the front door and not as big a deal as I've made it out to be.
The point I'm really trying to make is that they are actively trying to acquire and release classified information, which is direct disregard for the law. If they were to "go away" I would neither be surprised, nor feel compassion.
What kind of society have we come to where it is revered to break the law in order to exact some change on our government?
It is illegal to who? If I came upon classified DoD information, I would publish it with my own name, and let them have fun trying to figure out how to stick their laws to someone who is not their citizen. Plenty of wikileaks ppl are not Americans -- you cannot expect them to follow your laws.
> What kind of society have we come to where it is revered to break the law in order to exact some change on our government?
You know, the one where the last time the government got too uppity you decided to kill/exile the lot?
> The point I'm really trying to make is that they are actively trying to acquire and release classified information, which is direct disregard for the law. If they were to "go away" I would neither be surprised, nor feel compassion.
So you believe an ordinary citizen shouldn't break the laws against his government, but the government should be allowed to break its own laws against the citizens. At least be coherent, if they "Went away" that would mean a vast array of laws would be broken.
> Plenty of wikileaks ppl are not Americans -- you cannot expect them to follow your laws.
A more than valid point. I had not considered the community nature of the site, nor the state in which it's owners are based.
> You know, the one where the last time the government got too uppity you decided to kill/exile the lot?
I assume you're speaking of the war in Iraq. Hmmm... I see a significant difference between a citizen breaking the laws of his own country (as this is what I was referring to) and a country breaking no laws to stop a tyrant who was slaughtering his own people. Wow I'm sure this will be a popular opinion here.
> So you believe [...] the government should be allowed to break its own laws against the citizens. [...] if they "Went away" that would mean a vast array of laws would be broken.
Well, I was assuming that if the owners/maintainers of the site went to jail then the site would go away. I was not trying to say that the government should reject 1st amendment rights.
Again I was assuming 100% US citizen involvement in this. It was a bad assumption, granted.
No, I mean the American Revolution.
Minor nitpick: you mean consistent.
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
Where the "going away" part would hopefully be against the law too.
The law which they didn't agree to abide by in the first place. Born into a country with a law you don't agree on enforced upon you, why should you stick to it if you both disagree with it and agree to take the consequences?
You seem to be arguing that it's bad simply because it's illegal, which is both circular (it's bad because it's bad), and annoyingly naive (respect authority for no other reason than it's authoritative).
> The ramifications of doing so with respect to hacking the encryption algorithm could possibly cause far greater damage that the release of the video itself
You have a better argument here, but one I disagree with - did you miss the last decade of XP security holes? Security by obscurity isn't a strong defense. If it's weak enough for ordinary people to break, the intelligence agencies of the world who care would make mincemeat of it.
> The point I'm really trying to make is that they are actively trying to acquire and release classified information, which is direct disregard for the law. If they were to "go away"
The hypocritical point you are trying to make is that you respect the law like a good citizen, and because they don't respect the law in the same way as you do that makes them scum who are unworthy of compassion, and as a result you'll happily become like them and disgregard your support for equality and human rights laws so they can suffer, while still feeling superior to them because you abide the law, while at the same time you are not doing so.
> What kind of society have we come to where it is revered to break the law in order to exact some change on our government?
What kind of society have we come to where people are unable to consider that 'law' and 'doing the right thing' might not the same thing?
Disregard human rights? Are you serious? Wow. I read and re-read what I've written and I still don't see that. I guessing you have misunderstood something I've said, but rather point out that I was vague in some way you use diagnosis bias to infer things that I've never said. I'm betting that were interpreting "go away" differently.
Not "arested, tried and sentenced". If that's what you meant then that's different - but it doesn't address whether it's right and fair for that to happen, only that you think it should happen because the current legal system says it should.
I mean probably, but if we're really talking about the wikileaks team being detained for serious business, can we realy trust that no one went and logged onto their twitter account to tell people that these weren't the droids they were looking for?
I'm going to assume they're likely fine, but a post on Twitter hardly provides complete assurance of that. Unfortunately I'm not sure there's really a provable way to deal with this problem that wouldn't compromise too much information.
John Connor: Max.
The Terminator: [impersonating John's voice] Hey Janelle, what's wrong with Wolfie? I can hear him barking.
T-1000 impersonating Janelle: Wolfie's fine, honey, Wolfie's just fine. Where are you?
The Terminator: [hangs up the phone] Your foster parents are dead.
It sounds like there'd be some risk involved..
Or host it in a country that likes to irritate the US government. Iran comes to mind. Venezuela would surely be open to it as well.
If Osama Bin Laden can find hosting there is no reason why a group of clever engineers can't as well.
This is the internet, after all.
What would happen is, they will call CIA first to verify the authenticity. Then CIA will threaten them and will claim this is 'classified' and if they don't immediately turn it over, heads will roll, hard drives will be shredded, offices will be closed for an indefinite time for investigation and so on. NYT will not touch this stuff with a ten foot pole.
From a more general perspective. Large news media outlets have very close and 'cosy' relationship with the government. They treasure that relationship as that gets them quick and timely access to government related news releases. That is just news that writes itself. Whatever spews out the Department Of State goes straight to the viewers/reader. All news media outlets need to do is add advertisement on top. Being cut off from that, means spending serious time and money on investigative journalism. Flying people around the world to dangerous areas, spending months on finding good leads and researching. NYT will just not take that risk.
"Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts" http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/politics/16program.html
This is most likely about murdering civilians in a botched air strike by CIA. CIA can and will shut a place down if they believe there is classified information there. I have heard of offices being raided and all hard drives shredded.
I think your belief that big, supposedly trust-worthy newspapers like the NYT are independent and publish such things, is not warranted anymore. They only publish what suits their interests, i.e. in some specific cases they may refrain from publishing, but that is exactly what counts, sadly.
First, the "confession" -- whosever they are trying to elicit -- has more value if given out of paranoia.
Think about it this way: you have a brief glimpse into something wrong that happened, but you don't know the full story. Let's say you know 10% of the full story.
If you come forward with the evidence, the accused party need only acknowledge or refute the 10% that you've divulged.
However if you make them think you know a whole lot more than 10%, you might end up pressuring them to give a confession that will reveal a much larger amount of the wrong deed.
Second, pressuring a government to admit wrongdoing is better PR for Wikileaks than disclosing leaked information. Wikileaks is treading on delicate territory already with their mission statement. When classified information becomes whistleblower-deserving information is a debatable topic. Because of this, Wikileaks has to manage their PR very carefully, lest they be viewed as the enemy-to-all, friend-to-none. By pressuring organizations to admit wrongdoing rather than publicly accusing them of it, it's a win-win: the information gets out, and WikiLeaks doesn't have to be in the press again for leaking "stolen" information.
In this case, if the "leader of the free world" is responsible for something so dramatic that this is happening, then it is of the utmost importance to share it with the world. We must do what we can to stop abuses of power.
If we can't stop them, then we must make each of us reflect on the injustice leveled on others in order that we may have what we have. At some point, we must recognize that the evils we perpetrate are not worth it. I would love to see a resurgence of conscience, that is so poorly absent from our modern society full of invisible ills, purple pills, and political shills.
And lately especially of the US govt.
Our govt. holds secrecy of classified information above morality. I am sure CIA and other such agencies have blood on their hands, and they have done many morally questionable things in the name of 'national interest'.
For them morality is only manifested as legal limits -- the amount of stuff they can get away before being found legaly guilty of something. This means two things, they will try to influence the legislative branch to widen up the laws so they can have more 'freedom' (this happened after 9/11, Patriot Act, torture laws etc)., but it also means that they will do things that are clearly illegal if they are sure these things will never be publically released or opened. I think we are dealing with the later -- as set of things that will be hidden forever but un-exectedly got out.
Wikileaks breaks govt.'s modus operandi. At some point there will be a person working for them that will hold morility above their freedom, and professional duty ( and /put tin foil hat on possibly their life). In the past it was much easier to handle and contain such leaks, this becomes much harder with the wikileaks infrastructure.
I am not defending the government here. The truth should and will come out. I just hope wikileaks people know what they are doing and know how to protect their sources. If they compramise their whistleblowers somehow, they will lose credibility.
EDIT (type): second paragraph, 'about' changed to 'above'
Or 'we have captured someone in Albania today, flew him to Latvia to get tortured, but it turns out it was the wrong guy. We have let him go and we are very sorry. Our government will pay him some restitution for the harm caused.'.
Then our citizens will start to ask questions. 'How come our government is doing that?', 'Why not bring them to trial?', 'What about world court? should they hold the trial instead?', 'What are our tax dollars used for?' and other such discussions.
I think a lot of this information will not compromise national security, but it is compromising our image internationally. And I think that is why it is hidden. It is shameful and wrong. Not because it can be used to launch rockets or crack our cyber-security.
Bombing civilians shouldn't just be a mistake you sweep under the carpet, because if it were your own civilians you'd move heaven and earth to have them honored.
The moral issue is very important, but sometimes getting focussed on a single moral issue can violate even higher moral mandates.
http://www.damninteresting.com/ive-got-the-same-combination-...
Nice rhetoric, but I don't buy it. Methinks the author of said quote has never been a soldier.
Since then, I've spent more time thinking about life and death and it is through that reflection that I feel fear. I try to imagine not existing. It's hard and I come to some place of blackness which is much more terrifying than that last time I almost died, but in all fairness to soldiers, there were no bullets flying by me, bombs exploding, or adrenaline in my veins.
I'm not sure how you experienced your car crashes, but from your reaction I'm guessing they were the out-of-nowhere kind where you don't see it coming?
P.S. I am not a reckless rider. When you are a new rider, your instinct can flip out on you even when you are really ok, and even when you are a seasoned rider other cars and nature can conspire against you.
The second time, I fell asleep on the interstate. The sound of the tires on the dirt woke me up and when I pulled back onto the road, the car started doing 360ies until I crashed into a guard rail. I never fell asleep again and no one was hurt either time. I was really amazed both times that the car didn't flip. The second time, the people behind me saw me spinning out of control and like, 5 cars pulled in behind me. I feel really lucky, not only for myself, but for others I could have hurt.
I ride motorcycles too, not in a long time, but I remember times when I'd be going through a turn and hit a patch of sand or dirt and lose traction. It's quite scary. Almost went off the side of a mountain when I got my first bike and still didn't know to handle high speed tight turns. Sure knocked the invincibility out of me.
Isn't it a bit different?
And when you get back, even years later, people ask you about it. And you think up a couple of cheeky stories, but don't even try to tell most people what it's like because words can't accurately communicate the experience. You just continue on enjoying things in life everyone else discards as annoyances or commonplace.
Note: It's been a few years since I got out and I'm perfectly fine, well adjusted, no related problems, no PTSD, no nightmares, minor paranoia occassionally. However, the mental experience of each person is different, and many do not come out ok.
Philosophy, introspection... they're imagination. War is real.
For a good cause, that is. One that benefits us all.
In the end, weapons are the most important weapons. If a group of people no longer care about anything but their own power, and they're armed, the thing to do is to deprive them of those arms -- not to catalog their abuses and trust in the power of words.
The most serious breaches of security are the ones done by insiders, agents and whistle-blowers, not by hacking a network or crypto protocol.
And we're just killing people rather than bringing them in.
So, there's your Gitmo solution.
It was in Panama as the "U.S. Army Caribbean Training Center" and was forced to move as a result of the Panama Canal treaty. Then they changed the name to School of the America's and focused on fighting communists (with the same tactic of training what we now call insurgents).
After the killing of nuns in South America it started to get bad press (referred to as the "School of Assassins") and eventually was forced to "close" and reopen as "Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation".
Gitmo seems like it is about to undergo a similar process.
Edit: Just saw that today is the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero. The people responsible were trained at the School of Americas.
There are still yearly protests there despite the name change.
But this current stream of tweets is a bit dramatic. If it's just some random infrared kill shot like that old Apache hit ( http://www.globalresearch.ca/audiovideo/apachehit.mpg ), then it'll hurt Wikileaks' credibility to some degree.
They've been having funding issues lately; they might think this is a good way to get out from under that. Of course, it'll backfire if this turns out to be insignificant, a la the recent documents that they claimed were evidence of the U.S. trying to "shut them down".
Edit: Oops, it's apparently $600k to fully fund with salaries, and $200k to just fund operations. Still seems crazy high.
They were operating this out of their own pockets. Donations were scarce when they just asked (for years for it) but were still online. When they took away the information and asking for donations they went way up. I did not like this to but he explained it, and it made sense to me.
The one person I personally know from WikiLeaks has been online 20 minutes ago. So at least he seems to be fine.
If some major press picks up this news, then it will certainly help WikiLeaks. I pushed it through at http://techie-buzz.com/latest-news/wikileaks-pentagon-murder...
I just hope that the information they are sitting on is indeed significant.Though, to be honest it probably is, since WikiLeaks is already popular (too popular for their own good).
Not true. The article you link to only contains quotes from the document Wikileaks published. That is not an admission of anything. Nor does the document actually describe planning attacks on Wikileaks: only Wikileaks' description (and subsequent mis-reporting based on that) characterizes it that way. The actual content of the document does not support that conclusion. I encourage you to read it for yourself.
(unless of course your suggesting we should believe everything posted on Twitter as gospel without verification.........)
We dont know yet. My guess is somewhere between the real thing and publicity - but we should avoid jumping on bandwagons.
I might be slightly more cynical this week because of their last piece of paranoia the other week ;)
But what is paranoid about that piece the other week? The US Army describes Wikileaks as a potential danger to their operational and information security, due to moles being potentialy able to securely leak information to them. It then calls for, shall we say, further "awareness" of this potential "danger", and for submitting fabricated information, identification and prosecution of whisteblowers etc. What makes you think Wikileaks is being paranoid instead of realistic?
Which, if you read the document, was not actually the case.
Quote from the NYT: "Julian Assange, the editor of WikiLeaks, said the concerns the report raised were hypothetical.
“It did not point to anything that has actually happened as a result of the release,” Mr. Assange said. “It contains the analyst’s best guesses as to how the information could be used to harm the Army but no concrete examples of any real harm being done.” "
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/us/18wiki.html?scp=1&s...
If I may say, you do seem to be quick with your assumptions, in this case.
U.S. Intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks
I admit where I said attacked in the parent that was never explicitly stated; but the emphasis was heavily on the breathy kind of "OMG we were under attack" type.
Honestly I didnt see anything particularly revelatory in the document deserving of such breathless excitement :D