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Comment by maxheadroom | Hacker News Reader

>"He has been detained simply for investigation purposes"

And then

>"Ecuadorian diplomats told their counterparts in the UK that they were worried that Assange’s associates would try to seek revenge with cyberattacks and information leaks if he was handed over.

Britain agreed to assist Ecuador in shoring up its cybersecurity, the newspaper reported."

If I'm reading the subtext here, correctly, Bini was arrested but not charged with anything, presumably as a measure to keep him from orchestrating "retaliation".

>"Ecuadorian officials believe Bini may be part of a blackmail ring assembled to pressure President Lenin Moreno and his government to allow Assange to remain in the embassy, according to the Times of London."

I don't see how they can claim blackmail, if the INA Papers were released before they ousted Assange. Isn't this the antithesis of how blackmail works...?

Edit: Ecuador is now saying hacking is the charge, it sounds like (admittedly, my Spanish isn't that great).

https://www.fiscalia.gob.ec/ciudadano-sueco-fue-procesado-po...

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When a power grab (change of hands) is happening, little attention is paid to due process, laws and even proper reasoning.

Everything is written-of by some very dumb reason that looks OK on the surface. It is the epitome of "think of the children" reaction. it can be a completely unfounded claim that was never official in any way and just started as hearsay and then the press makes it official ("officials believe Bini may be part of a blackmail ring") or downright avoiding the discussion ("national security". "nothing to see here"). The point is, avoid the issue, do what you want. You are the state, there will be no consequences. For more information see https://www.amazon.com/Coup-dEtat-Practical-Handbook-Luttwak...

No need to go into conspiracy theories: a lot of places are simply deficient when it comes to respecting the rule of law every day. This is particularly true in South America, where de-facto dictatorships are still common.

This is simply the new Ecuadorian strongman doing a favour to his NorthAmerican friends. It changes nothing in how the Ecuadorean justice system works (or doesn't work).

Which places do you think are less deficient when it comes to respecting the rule of law?

A good rule of thumb is the Corruption Perception Index: https://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/overview

Ecuador is n. 114.

JFK wasn't killed in a south american or african nation. You should dismount that high horse.

1) I’m not from or in the US

2) political assassination can happen in any country, preventing it is very hard

3) all countries have problems but some have bigger problems than others: https://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/overview

I don't worry much about preventing because you're right, it's close to impossible. more about the lack of investigation. jfk was emblematic because his brother, also a top politician, later was also liked in the same fashion, also with full media coverage and impunity for the responsible parties.

It was reported that Assange had a “panic button”. The report said that he had directly threatened the government of Ecuador with with retaliation if anything happened to him. I don’t have a link handy, but it shouldn’t be hard to find.

There were also those strange tweets back in 2016 - codes or something, I don’t remember clearly - and speculation about some sort of dead man switch.

Who knows if it’s true, but this seems to be what they’re worried about.

I believe the implicit threat is releasing unredacted intel dumps, so very large torrent files with thousands of classified military intelligence documents they normally would not release, floating around encrypted with a few people close to Assange possessing the password(s) to leak them in case of being shut down though some Guardian journalist already leaked the password to one of the dumps years ago reporting on what Assange wrote on a napkin when they met which allowed Guardian readers to decrypt the whole archive.

I think Assange is kind of crazy for playing brinkmanship with the world's intel agencies but I will definitely miss a lot of their leaks, for example that leaked CIA guide to bypassing airport security while undercover, where used as an example in the guide (if I remember correctly) a field agent using a diplomatic passport who was detected by airport screening trying to transit through European airports while having explosives residue on him, and how he successfully lied and talked his way out of being arrested while undercover. This of course leads to the question, why are intel agents assembling/transporting explosives around European cities and one of the reasons I liked having Wikileaks around to embarass these agencies and their invisible shenanigans but I guess the party is over.

I’ll respond to the part about undercovers transporting weapons and/or explosives. It’s easier to stay undercover flying commercial so a team may assemble in a location by taking separate flights and take their equipment with them. That way none of them are spotted in a known military or agency location. Or it may be a place where they can’t easily take military transport or some highly covert mission where they’d all be disavowed if they were caught. The book Rogue Warrior talks about it a little bit. If I remember correctly, everyone in Seal Team 6 had to sneak a weapon onto a commercial flight as part of training.

https://wikileaks.org/cia-travel/secondary-screening/WikiLea...

People have claimed this dead man switch thing, but it just seems to counter to what Wikileaks has been doing for the last 10+ years.

If they had some crazy leak to make, it doesn’t seem like something they would just sit on to use as personal leverage for assange.

> If they had some crazy leak to make, it doesn’t seem like something they would just sit on to use as personal leverage for assange.

Really? They seem to have a narrow focus of interest with their leaks. I wouldn't put something like that beyond them at all.

Could you elaborate? Have they been leaking selectively?

They seem to only care about stories that are critical of Western intelligence while ignoring the (or withholding?) leaks that don't align with that agenda.

do we know what they have access to and what they are withholding? if we knew what they are withholding then we know what it is so... Sounds to me like we´re trying to read minds and apply a narrative that we cannot possibly verify. Not saying it isn´t the case but as far as I know, and I might be very wrong here, we have no evidence of them doing that. right?

There were private messages of Assange saying he wanted the GOP to win because they wouldn't be able to get anything done, which is a hint about how he feels for US government.

Maybe it's just a coincidence that they only leaked Russian-hacked emails from the GOP opponent who was critical of WikiLeaks while ignoring ongoing stories about Russia itself and remaining silent on the many GOP scandals.

They were also really critical of the Panama Papers leak which exposed several cases of corruption, but again it was probably just a coincidence those were more of a condemnation of Russian oligarchs than Western intelligence.

> he wanted the GOP to win because they wouldn't be able to get anything done, which is a hint about how he feels for US government.

Ha really? He said that?

I felt the same way but a Californian’s vote doesnt influence representation

Its been a great few years: we operate better with agencies paralyzed, disarray in legislative consensus, and an ongoing appetite for risk in the markets. I understood which taxes would likely be lowered.

I remember being at the voting booth thinking of this decision tree. But there is nothing a Californian could have done by that point in time. I would say the outcome has been very accurate and predictable on these fronts.

It has been entertaining listening to other Californians tell me what people think if a left vote isnt deemed the clearly favorable vote for those people. I would say it doesnt really factor in what people think at all.

Wikileaks has leaked plenty of Russian material. It hasn't stopped the McCarthyism, obviously. The red scare must go on.

He was critical of some news stories about the Panama papers pushed by USAID. He did not criticize the leaks directly.

> McCarthyism

You say that like there isn't overwhelming evidence of Russian influence operations in western democracies and widespread cyber warfare going on as we speak.

It's one thing to make the counter argument that the US conducts influence ops and engages in cyber warfare too and you don't care one way or another about either nation, but it's not "McCarthyism" to call out aggression when Russia is clearly acting aggressive in multiple theaters.

I can't speak for all of the people involved in WikiLeaks but Assange clearly has a bias against the west, particularly the Democrat party and western intelligence agencies. He also seems happy doing intel business with Russia and auctioning off classified data to the highest bidder in addition to the leaks.

It's McCarthyism (not to mention fantastical) to declare that Russia buying a couple of Facebook ads and operating some online trolls was the reason why the election was swung.

As for the leaks: the evidence for the attribution of pretty much every hack in the last 5 years is farcically weak (e.g. IP addresses in logs).

As for the supposed hack of US power plants - that was classic McCarthyism. The evidence was made up and the target was Russia.

> It's McCarthyism (not to mention fantastical) to declare that Russia buying a couple of Facebook ads and operating some online trolls was the reason why the election was swung.

That's just people looking for an easy answer to a complex question. It happens everywhere. Trump may or may not have won without the assistance of Russia. But that doesn't mean Russia didn't assist.

It's not McCarthyism to say that the IRA was attempting to fuel public divisions given the types of ads they were placing and events they were scheduling.

And it's not McCarthyism to say that a Russian APT hacked the DNC server and leaked those emails selectively in an attempt to sway the election towards one candidate. The evidence of this is much greater than "IP addresses in logs".

> As for the supposed hack of US power plants - that was classic McCarthyism. The evidence was made up and the target was Russia.

Frankly I don't know enough about that, you could be right there. Bad attribution happens everywhere though, it happens with China and Iran too, so "McCarthyism" doesn't seem like a useful label here.

How about Stuxnet? As far as I've seen there wasn't a ton of evidence to confirm the US was involved in that but Russia and Iran seemed happy with that explanation. The world of cyber warfare is new and we're all paranoid right now but that also doesn't mean it's all the same and it's all wrong.

For the DNC hack, the US was monitoring that activity the whole time. They warned the DNC before it even happened that those servers were being probed (the fact that the DNC failed to act is unfortunate but beside the point here) and there are multiple points of evidence linking it back to Russian-based hackers. They were pretty sloppy about registering for VPN accounts and renting servers for exfiltration.

One thing that amazes me about all of this is that people condemn US intelligence for intercepting data and mass collection but then they seem unable to believe that the agencies possessing those tools and access to internet companies would have evidence of events like this.

>That's just people looking for an easy answer to a complex question.

It was the DNC looking for a reason why losing to Trump wasn't their fault allying with neocons (e.g. Kristol) looking for reasons to kick off cold war part 2 after what happened in ukraine.

>And it's not McCarthyism to say that a Russian APT hacked the DNC server

Evidence was and still is sparse. The fact that it's "generally accepted" among the media and intelligentsia is no reason to assume it's actually true. They're the same suckers who bought the WMD lie.

>Frankly I don't know enough about that, you could be right there. Bad attribution happens everywhere

The interesting thing about that story is that it demonstrated what they wanted to be true. They obviously wanted the Russians to be behind it and quickly discovered that this time it awkwardly was easy to disprove their hypothesis.

>They were pretty sloppy about registering for VPN accounts and renting servers for exfiltration.

Bear in mind that being sloppy and deliberately leaving a misleading trail look the same and deliberately leading a misleading trail is standard opsec.

>but then they seem unable to believe that the agencies possessing those tools and access to internet companies would have evidence of events like this.

That's not the slightest bit amazing. The intelligence agencies are geared towards dragnet surveillance, not hack attribution. Just because they have access to all Snapchat nudes doesn't mean that they can attribute hack attacks.

What's amazing is that the agencies that lied consistently in the past and who always release secret evidence when it's supports their agenda can just say "yeah, so this happened trust us we have logs of a couple IPs" and technical people who know full well how easy it is to spoof an IP believe them.

Suckers.

> The fact that it's "generally accepted" among the media and intelligentsia is no reason to assume it's actually true. They're the same suckers who bought the WMD lie.

For what it's worth, the intel community wasn't behind the false claims of WMD in Iraq and the news basically was just being given false information from the Bush admin. The CIA was investigating it and writing reports showing that they didn't believe there was evidence of WMD. It was a small circle of Bush admin conservatives who were lying to the media about those reports. That's actually the core of the whole Valerie Plame affair [1].

That's not what's happening here. Multiple independently-managed intelligence agencies are agreeing that there's evidence Russian-based hackers infiltrated the DNC servers. A few foreign intelligence agencies have added evidence to these claims as well (Dutch intelligence, for instance [2]).

> Bear in mind that being sloppy and deliberately leaving a misleading trail look the same and deliberately leading a misleading trail is standard opsec.

Couldn't this same logic be applied to everything attributed to US intelligence? Maybe someone else fabricated the CIA Vault7 leaks, because surely the CIA is too smart to get caught. Must be opsec. And maybe Iran's nuclear program failed on its own and they blamed Stuxnet on the US and Israel? At some point this takes a turn towards conspiracy-based thinking though...

You're willing to go out of your way to believe in mass delusion or conspiracy within the media and intel communities to avoid believing that maybe Russia did hack the DNC. If the evidence is a lie then multiple independent groups are conspiring to perpetuate that lie. How big is this network of conspirators?

Or maybe Russia did hack the DNC and Assange is the only one lying about their source?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame_affair

[2] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/dutch...

>Couldn't this same logic be applied to everything attributed to US intelligence? Maybe someone else fabricated the CIA Vault7 leaks, because surely the CIA is too smart to get caught.

No, because documentation is easier to corroborate and harder to deny (and indeed the CIA doesn't deny vault7 is theirs).

A string of IP addresses and a narrative, on the other hand... yeah that's rather more circumstantial.

If tomorrow there is a leak of Russian documents corroborating the American story that arent obviously fabricated then I'll take that as clear evidence that it was true.

>You're willing to go out of your way to believe in mass delusion or conspiracy within the media and intel communities to avoid believing that maybe Russia did hack the DNC.

I don't think that clear attribution of hacks is ever really possible and whichever narrative takes hold will generally be believed in perpetuity.

I think the intelligence agencies aren't above a little self delusion, no, and I also think the fact that it's unlikely evidence will emerge to corroborate or disprove the hypothesis (hack evidence disappears very quickly) makes self delusion, where it does exist, a little easier.

The "Russians hacked the power plant" story demonstrates what kind of blow back happens when they do drink their own kool aid (zero) and serves as a clear examppe that they are perfectly capable of self delusion when it comes to the topic of Russian hacking.

>Or maybe Russia did hack the DNC and Assange is the only one lying about their source?

Anything is possible. However, it's worth noting that the "assange is a Russian spy" story is similarly convenient to the "Russians hacked our power plants" and it similarly rests on extraordinarily weak evidence.

The spirit of McCarthy lives and it's way more pissed about the collateral murder video getting out than it is about the murdered journalist in the video. Obviously.

> If tomorrow there is a leak of Russian documents corroborating the American story that arent obviously fabricated then I'll take that as clear evidence that it was true.

You mean like what Dutch intelligence is corroborating?

That accusation does not make any sense considering the scope of leaks Wikileaks have published during their lifetime.

Which shadowy non-Western organization wanted the whole Icelandic parliament ousted? They would probably have opted for the opposite.

The impact of the organization the past few years have mainly regarded money laundering. And agencies you want to implicate in this have overwhelmingly had their connections to the subjects of those scandals.

The Iceland leaks were well before Assange became fixated on revenge on Hillary Clinton, and (probably related to that fixation) closely allied with Russia.

That narrative turns a blind eye to the whole history of the project and focuses on a single issue.

Why push this narrative so hard? Completely without sources? It is not very helpful.

WikiLeaks turned down leaks on Russian Government during U.S. Presidential Campaign - https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-l...

Where can we read some interesting news stories on the material that WL refused to publish?

Yah. And Trump is still a Manchurian candidate that Russia controls.

From your article:

"“As far as we recall these are already public,” WikiLeaks wrote at the time.

"WikiLeaks rejects all submissions that it cannot verify. WikiLeaks rejects submissions that have already been published elsewhere or which are likely to be considered insignificant. WikiLeaks has never rejected a submission due to its country of origin,” the organization wrote in a Twitter direct message when contacted by FP about the Russian cache."

"A WikiLeaks spokesperson told the Daily Dot that no emails were removed from what the organization published. The spokesperson also suggested the Daily Dot was “pushing the Hillary Clinton campaign’s neo-McCarthyist conspiracy theories about critical media.”"

> WikiLeaks rejects all submissions that it cannot verify. WikiLeaks rejects submissions that have already been published elsewhere or which are likely to be considered insignificant.

They published the PizzaGate conspiracy theory.

They didn’t produce that story. It came from emails in the Podesta dump. Several of them were about “pizza” and other food items and they were very, very strange. They did not seem to be talking about food. In one of those there was a reference to different color handkerchiefs and one with a map on it. It appeared to be some sort of code speak because no one normal uses the English language the way those emails do. From there, some internet detective produced an alleged list of pedophile code words that included colors and foods and there was some overlap with some of the strangest emails in the dump. Then, someone alleged a link with a famous DC pizza joint.

They put the conspiracy theory on their site [1], not just the emails. It says "speculative" now, but it's there.

Why don't they put all speculative stories related to candidates on their site?

[1] https://our.wikileaks.org/Pizzagate

Huh. Didn’t know that. I stand corrected.

> If they had some crazy leak to make, it doesn’t seem like something they would just sit on to use as personal leverage for assange.

Really? A major part of Wikileaks has done the past 5 years has been in relation to the personal wants and desires of Julian Assange. I'm referring here to the intense focus of Wikileaks on Hillary Clinton and the DNC while simultaneously turning a blind eye to the corruption of Russia (who were helping Wikileaks attack Hillary).

I understand why Assange disliked Hillary Clinton, but let's not pretend that his personal desires and vendettas didn't play a large role in Wikileaks' interference in US elections (a deed that placed him on the same moral ground as the Western intelligence agencies he so loved to criticize for similar work).

I don’t get it. Transparency is good, but if you do increase it a bit you are responsible for the whole worlds transparency or else shut up and sit down?

>If they had some crazy leak to make, it doesn’t seem like something they would just sit on to use as personal leverage for assange.

They admitted they had documents on Trump, the RNC, Russia, and Putin that they never released. The first time wikileaks (IIRC almost a decade ago) mentioned releasing Russia documents; they mysteriously never released them. Then Assange got a show on Russian television.

Url please.

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/assange-turned-down-docum...

> It was reported that Assange had a “panic button”. The report said that he had directly threatened the government of Ecuador with with retaliation if anything happened to him. I don’t have a link handy, but it shouldn’t be hard to find.

If Assange has a panic button rather than a dead man switch, he is much dumber than he is portrayed at which point most of the claims that are dismissed as ridiculous (i.e. a smart man would not do X) become not only plausible but likely.

I doubt Assange would rely on anyone other than himself. So if there is a "panic button" it would more than likely be a dead mans switch.

Assange has relied on many people in the past, so there is not much evidence for your claim other than personal sentiment.

What seems more credible is that only he has the keys to some data kept by other persons and he could release these keys via others like e.g. his lawyers. Arresting others who might help him with releasing the data once they have the key makes "sense" from that perspective, although it could be illegal (but IANAL in Ecuador).

A panic button is pretty much the opposite of a dead mans switch.

Which could explain why they waited just over one year after cutting his internet access to arrest him: if after one year still nothing happened, it's pretty much safe assuming he doesn't have a working dead mans switch (anymore).

If true, this could also mean they were in agreements with the Ecuador govt. to arrest him a long time ago.

A dead man's switch is not necessarily based on a timeout when your internet connection is not guaranteed.

If the leak is nuclear level - e.g irrefutable proof that the ruling class ARE reptilians - you want to keep that unreleased for as long as you can.

I can imagine a bot somewhere scanning top 10 international newspapers daily and looking for the words 'Assange' and 'dead' before the countdown begins.

The authorities have nothing to fear.

There is a deeper problem with the notion of Assange having a 'dead man's switch'. Imagine that in the crown jewels of Wikileaks secret secrets there is some hypothetical document proving that a senior government figure was directly responsible for a high profile murder. The family of the victim may have been suffering without knowing what happened for years.

Now, this being a juicy scandal, Assange, in his great wisdom decides to hold this one back for the purpose of blackmail.

He also has another somewhat less juicy scandal about how some politician has not returned a library book on time. Then there are stories in-between, a whole smorgasbord of things for the 'dead man's switch'.

Now, if he reveals the scandal about the library book then everyone is going to say 'so what?'. But then, at the other end of the scale, if he reveals the one about the high profile murder then it puts him in the class of people that 'harbour terrorists'. In effect he would have been covering up the crime by being silent about it and not putting it in the public domain. He would have caused undue suffering to the victim's family and allowed the police to waste resources searching in the wrong direction.

If one of his minions in his little cult decide to 'go nuclear' and reveal all the secret secrets held back by Wikileaks then it is the same problem. They won't be viewed favourably for being complicit in the cover up to date.

Imagine there is the fictional incident of a senior government figure guilty of murder, if that got brought to trial and justice prevailed then, even though Wikileaks might have provided the breakthrough needed for the investigation, holding back evidence would still be a crime. Wives of murderers who harbour their other halves can get prosecuted for being silent even if they are the ones that eventually snitch.

So Assange has got nothing? Well, there is a however. Some scandals are far too taboo for the era and you need a new generation to be able to discuss them. So Assange may have content that is too hot for any sane journalist to want to touch and ultimately it is always the mainstream media that disseminates wikileaks. If Wikileaks have something that damns all of them then that ain't gonna get an audience, no matter how punchy it is.

What if they have something that is so nuclear that a high profile murder looks like a walk in the park... for example, perhaps clear proof that Putin controls both the Democrats and the Republicans... or that reptilian elites are real...

or perhaps even they don't have the keys to the insurance files because they're just the mouthpiece, so the insurance is not theirs :o

The title says it's hacking.

The article body says they apprehended a lot of electronic equipment on his house, and many credit cards. It also says he travels a lot. I'm not getting into any specifics because the article doesn't get into them either...

Also, it says nothing about what he actually hacked.

He was not (necessarily) charged with actual unauthorized access.

Ecuador has quite strict computer crime laws. E.g. distribution of hacking tools is illegal.

The law he is being charged with violating reads: "Diseñe, desarrolle, programe, adquiera, envíe, introduzca, ejecute, venda o distribuya de cualquier manera, dispositivos o programas informáticos maliciosos o programas destinados a causar los efectos señalados en el primer inciso de este artículo."

which google translates as: Design, develop, program, acquire, send, introduce, execute, sell or distribute any malicious means, devices or programs or programs intended to cause effects indicated in the first paragraph of this article.

Laws that criminalize creation/distribution of "hacking tools" are dangerous and scary because there's really no bright line as to what constitutes a hacking tool; e.g., it's even possible that Ola's work on JOpenSSL or OTRv4 could be construed as a "hacking tool" under this law :(

A good if unfortunate reminder to anyone who works in computer security to check local laws before traveling and especially before emigrating.

> If I'm reading the subtext here, correctly, Bini was arrested but not charged with anything, presumably as a measure to keep him from orchestrating "retaliation".

Hope they’re keeping him away from telephones: wouldn’t want to see him whistle any nucular launch codes...

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