Missing the point of WikiLeaks | Hacker News Reader

Missing the point of WikiLeaks

economist.com

63 pointssetori8811 comments

See also the author's earlier articulate, intelligent, and naturally controversial defense of Wikileaks, which depends on the crucial distinction between the (more or less) permanent state apparatus (whose agents are unelected and whose actions are often secret) and the temporary government power, vested in the US in elected representatives, which imperfectly harnesses it. It ends with this:

"Of course, those jealously protective of the privileges of unaccountable state power will tell us that people will die if we can read their email, but so what? Different people, maybe more people, will die if we can't."

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/11/ov...

Excellent use of 'so what?'

"If we take the inevitability of future large leaks for granted, then I think the debate must eventually centre on the things that will determine the supply of leakers and leaks. Some of us wish to encourage in individuals the sense of justice which would embolden them to challenge the institutions that control our fate by bringing their secrets to light. Some of us wish to encourage in individuals ever greater fealty and submission to corporations and the state in order to protect the privileges and prerogatives of the powerful."

I think the best point this piece makes is that things have changed. This is not something you can wish or threaten away. Nothing ever goes back to the way it was after something as profound as all of this.

Well I'm not so sure. I have lots of respect for digital watermarking methods.

Good point. Before concluding that things have permanently changed, maybe we should wait for some large leaks for which the leaker does not get caught.

I hope the mainstream media in general wake up to this soon. Charlie Rose and others seem to think this is a matter of stopping Assange. Wikileaks is no more about Assange than DNA is about Francis Crick.

The second paragraph suggests that Julian Assange is just a lightning-rod, to deflect attention from the real work. Or at least is entirely replaceable. This may be true, any thought?

Well, now that Assange has demonstrated the effectiveness of using internet technologies in this way, yes, Assange is probably replaceable.

If (as I suspect) the technology to do what Assange did was available 10 years ago, that is evidence that if Assange had not acted then it might have take a lot longer for someone else to do what he did.

He's a lightning rod that potential leakers are likely to trust not to leak who they are. Anybody trying to build a wikileaks clone would have to build trust, especially to prove that they're not a state actor.

But even if you're leaking to a potentially untrustworthy wikileaks clone, there's technologies that can make it possible. (anonymous remailers, tor (combined with other web anonymizing tech), etc) As more people get used to how the internet works it'll become easier for potential leakers to trust those types of sources.

In other words: it's a bit of hassle to replace him outright. His replacement might be a decentralized system of some sort.

personally I think this is what it is all about : http://cryptome.org/0002/ja-conspiracies.pdf

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