Hacker News Reader

Comment by Pilfer | Hacker News Reader

Rodger Stone (who may have back-channel communications with Wikileaks staff [0]) shared two tweets suggesting that this might be US backed action. Note these tweets are still unconfirmed. At time of writing I have not yet seen this information corroborated elsewhere.

1) "John Kerry has threatened the Ecuadorian President with "grave consequences for Equador" if Assange is not silenced @StoneColdTruth" [1]

2) "Reports the Brits storm the Ecuadorian Embassy tonite while Kerry demands the UK revoke their diplomatic status so Assange can be seized" [2]

It really does make me wonder what documents Wikileaks might have that could make US diplomats so riled up.

[0] http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/roger-stone-back-chann...

[1] https://twitter.com/RogerJStoneJr/status/787858612844695552

[2] https://twitter.com/RogerJStoneJr/status/787863160149598208

View on HN

Roger Stone is a so called ratfucker (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ratfucking). He posts a lot of inane garbage in the hopes that it will help Trump and discredit his opposition. He started the completely false rumor that Ted Cruz had several affairs to help Trump win the Republican election. His words are not worth anything.

I doubt it's back channels (Wikileaks has repudiated that before: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/782963650579529730).

Rather I'm guessing it's just speculation based on fact the John Kerry is currently visiting the UK.

Or it could be that Stone is making stuff up/greatly exaggerating? Isn't Stone basically an Alex Jones type?

That would make little sense: If they wanted to storm, why cut the Internet ahead of time and give advance warning?

What could he really do with advance warning and no communications? Assange can't really run anywhere so the most he can really do it bunker down in a safe room or something, which he's probably ready to do anyways at a moment's notice any ways.

Given that cutting off internet before means he can't do any new live data releases ("Maybe he screwed up setting up his dead man's switch?" unlikely but possible at this point) and means that during a raid there'd be no heroic live stream from inside the safe room "resisting the oppressive dogs of the US government come to silence him."

I don't really see what there is to gain from a raid to seize him now though. Presumably wikileaks is capable of trickling out whatever 'damning' emails/cables/files they already have without him so it's probably not the goal.

It is not clear whether Assange is tweeting or a third-party is. For all we know, they could have stormed and the only information available to the person maintaining the Wikileaks twitter account is that Assange cannot be reached. The situation is not clear atm.

Seriously? Here's the Ecuadorian Embassy: https://goo.gl/maps/gtwjXtGrv9p Note that it's not in the middle of nowhere, it's right behind Harrods (ie 100 yards away from one of the busiest shopping streets in one of the world's largest and most diverse cities, with 1000s of people walking by every minute carrying cellphones).

Do you honestly think anyone could storm such an embassy and not have a massive media footprint? When the Iranian embassy was stormed there was wall-to-wall coverage on the news, and that was in the 1980s, before every second person on the street had a cellphone and twitter.

1. Calm down. No one is saying this is what happened. No need to get on your high horses.

2. At the time the Internet got cut-off it was 6:40am in the UK. Pretty early.

3. The British government has the power to issue DA-notice to media outlets.

4. "Storming" the Ecuadorian embassy would not take a lot of manpower. This isn't a raid of a Mexican cartel. There is no resistance to expect, the adversarial repercussions would be diplomatic.

5. "For all we know" - means that this is an hypothesis. We are speculating. If you have up-to-date information, feel free to share.

Many people have their internet service go down from time to time (I know I do) and most of the time it isn't caused by state-sponsored action/governments storming their place of residence.

I've already said why I think such a storming would provide evidence that even state-sponsored actors would not be able to suppress. The Brompton Road and Sloane street both have plenty of pedestrians and vehicular traffic at 6:40am (I'm speaking as someone who used to bicycle down them every day around that time).

Given no evidence to the contrary, a much better hypothesis that fits the known facts is that there was some sort of standard ISP snafu or similar tech problem.

Sounds very much more probable.

> 3. The British government has the power to issue DA-notice to media outlets.

Surely they can suppress all blogs and all of twitter and facebook at the same time. Oh, hold - why didn't they suppress the tweet we're discussing.

> 4. "Storming" the Ecuadorian embassy would not take a lot of manpower. This isn't a raid of a Mexican cartel. There is no resistance to expect, the adversarial repercussions would be diplomatic.

It require a little more than a bobby walking up to the door and asking politely. It's fairly likely that this would get noticed by someone passing by - mind you: That's not somewhere in the woods, it's central London.

> "For all we know" - means that this is an hypothesis. We are speculating.

No. You are speculating. The null hypothesis is that nothing of that sort happened. Apart from handwaving speculation you haven't offered anything that would even resemble proof or supporting evidence.

Firstly D-notices are only advisory, while the media tend to comply with them they are in no way legally enforceable.

Secondly central London has rather good wifi and 4G coverage. Presumably the "appropriate contingency plans" are to switch his phone's personal hotspot on and carry on as normal. Though there might be a nasty phone bill coming down the line.

I'd be surprised if the police or military couldn't dig out a jammer from somewhere if they wanted to - or just turn off the local cell towers for a while. Wouldn't be the first time.

And there'd be no report on the Internet that cell coverage around the Ecuadorian embassy mysteriously failed? They'd have to compel every person in the area to keep quiet or to not leave the area.

They did fail very near to the embassy.

British media didn't report anything today, so the D-Notice threat is very likely.

Strange security vans with a strange white side wall to be opened sidewards appeared today near the embassy.

They didn't even suppress the BBC from reporting breathlessly on the tweet!

Ok whatever.

The Ecuadorian embassy in London stormed without as much as a trace on the internet? Come on - I like a good conspiracy theory, but that's going a little far, isn't it? It would require the Ecuadorian government to hold tight and then storming the embassy wouldn't make sense - they could just have kicked Assange out and called the local police who'd happily pick him up.

For what it is worth (that is not a lot): https://i.imgur.com/abcVS6q.jpg

Though it might be something: a guy claiming to be a CIA intelligence analyst says that Assange is about to get extradited. We will know in the coming hours for sure. If this is true it is pretty damaging to the sexual assault accusations he was facing in Sweden. That would confirm that it was indeed the end-goal of getting him transferred to Sweden.

It was posted a few hours before everything unravelled and so far the anonymous poster was right. Of course, he could just be lucky and trolling for replies. At such an early stage it is interesting to share anyway.

What it would confirm is that Assange has made himself more trouble than he is worth the the Ecuadorian's and they have decided to simply kick him out of their embassy. They have no moral obligation to continue providing shelter for someone who thinks their protection is some untouchable perch from which to play political games and are simply asking them to leave. Assange is that guy you once knew from high school who you let crash on your couch for 'a few days' and find still there a year later trying to run a mail-order scam out of your kitchen. He is being shown the door.

The fact that once he leaves the long-delayed wheels of justice start turning is merely a side-effect. The end-goal is not getting him transferred to Sweden, it is for Assange to be able to show the world that he was right all along by defending himself against the charges against him and not hiding until he could run out the clock.

I think if this election cycle has taught us anything, it's that allegations of the worst kind can be created for political reasons. Surely Bill Clinton AND Donald Trump AND Julian Assange AND Anthony Weiner can't all be rapists, right? What kind of a world do we live in if they all are?!

> can't all be rapists, right?

Why not? Considering that not too long ago it was deemed legal to rape your wife? It's not too long ago that rape wasn't exactly treated as the crime it is now. Without wanting to apologize any of the behavior, it's less than my lifetime ago that the man who took a woman against her will wasn't considered a rapist but rather a role model in large chunks of the population. So yes, it's quite well possible that all of them are rapists. That's the kind of world we live in.

> wasn't considered a rapist but rather a role model in large chunks of the population

Pop history. Be specific (time, place, evidence) or stop with the demon-haunted characterisations of the past.

1. Howard Roarke (The Fountainhead) 1943 Novel

2. Stanley Kowalski (A Streetcar Named Desire) 1947 Play

Just two that spring to mind. I'm sure a diligent person could find plenty of other examples of rapist protagonists in 20th century literature.

Wow, just because a protagonist does something in a piece of literature or theater doesn't mean that the author, much less society, approves of the deed in question (rape, in this case), or considered the one responsible for the deed a "role model".

I mean, didn't you read and discuss "Native Son" in high school? Do you think that the fact that its protagonist committed murder means that Richard Wright or society at the time approved of murder?

And by the way, when "The Fountainhead" and "Streetcar Named Desire" came out, those rape scenes were just about as controversial as the publication of "Native Son".

Pop history in particular artistic works are reflective of society.

Look at early Bond movies for example. Quite a lot of behaviour in those movies would be considered sexual assault if happened today.

In many ways, for better or worse, the early Bond movies mixed the 'suave, debonaire spy' with the reality of the books:

That Bond was a lonely, bitter, alcoholic (beyond "vodka martini, shaken not stirred", but in many of the books Bond would often find himself alone at the bottom of a bottle of liquor), misogynist with a short temper.

So certainly they could, and in many cases, that would have been the underlying premise - not that he was (just) a ladies' man who would have women falling over themselves.

>Pop history in particular artistic works are reflective of society. Look at early Bond movies for example.

The Human Centipede

A patriarchy where powerful men are essentially unaccountable for abuse of women. Or, in other words, exactly the same world we've been living in for centuries. (Not saying all the allegations are true, just that even if they were, it wouldn't fundamentally alert the nature of the world, which is one of the reasons they spread so easily--they are quite consistent with the way the world is observed to work.)

Are you being obtuse ? Of course they can.

People in positions of power often feel like they can get away with sexually aggressive behaviour. Just like Trump unequivocally stated on tape. And you have selectively chosen a handful there but there a lot of politicians e.g. Obama, Bernie, Biden, Ryan, Romney etc who haven't had charges of rape labelled against them.

And remember there are many successful leaders, visionaries and pillars of society with fatal personality flaws. You only have to look at Trump using the argument that "she was ugly" to dispute a rape charge as an example of this.

> that this might be US backed action

I doubt the USG is involved in this. They have a pretty solid track record of both respecting human rights and due process. Keep in mind the US government is the most ethical government in the world. Assange, on the other hand, is a rapist and a Russian puppet trying to hijack the US election. He probably is a Trump supporter in disguise and a closeted systemd committer. If that wasn't enough, there are multiple reports claiming that Assange does not respect PEP8 in his code. This last thing was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

Not systemd, Postgres:

https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git&a=search...

Would this change your opinion?

I nearly bit. Well played.

Yeah me too. I had to look up PEP8 to finally get it.

Im on my first coffee of the day, and it did not click :) I wish people could add a /s or we could add a new voting button to mark something as sarcasm / a joke?

Bravo.

SystemD eh? No hope for him then.

Don't worry about the downvotes AvenueIngres, I'm guessing those people fell victim to Poe's law.

or they did, and are of the opinion that sarcasm is noise.

Or they don't read entire comments.

That's a fair point. It took me up until 'closeted systemd committer' to realise he wasn't being serious :-)

He had me until PEP8. That was a fair characterization of the Devuan crowd.

Edit: Fair characterization of their level of systemd hate; not any correlation to US politics or Wikileaks.

Yep, fully aware of the hate, it was the lack of correlation that did it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com