Assange refused bail because of nomadic life, refusal to give address and no record of his entry to the UKposted by memebake at 8:06 AM on December 7, 2010 [2 favorites]
In the end, someone must be responsible to the public and only a leadership that is willing to be publicly courageous can genuinely suggest that sources take risks for the greater good.posted by memebake at 8:11 AM on December 7, 2010 [8 favorites]
When we look at an authoritarian conspiracy as a whole, we see a system of interacting organs, a beast with arteries and veins whose blood may be thickened and slowed until it falls, stupefied; unable to sufficiently comprehend and control the forces in its environment.Since Vietnam, our government has gotten much better at public relations. They realized that using non-mercenaries for genocide simply doesn't work, so they did away with the draft. They turned war into business, which bizarrely whitewashed what was once a duty into a job. They decided to bust down the doors to the third world by using complicated financial instruments and bribery and power politics instead of war, because it's far cheaper to convince one dictator to control his population than it is to invade. That's why we're still friends with Mubarak, Musharraf, the Saudi Royalty, and don't forget the premiers in China. As long as they at least work with us covertly on allowing our business interests access, we will stick to non-violent methods.
Later we will see how new technology and insights into the psychological motivations of conspirators can give us practical methods for preventing or reducing important communication between authoritarian conspirators, foment strong resistance to authoritarian planning and create powerful incentives for more humane forms of governance.
-Julian Assange, 2006
One final observation: it is remarkable that the WikiLeaks release of diplomatic cables has provoked a far more virulent and draconian reaction from government officials -- and from their craven sycophants in the mainstream media -- than we ever saw after the earlier releases about Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet many of those Terror War releases provided detailed, eyewitness accounts of horrific acts of murder, brutality, and depraved indifference toward the slaughter of innocent people. It seems the American elite are more outraged at being caught in various diplomatic faux pas than being shown to be perpetrators and facilitators of murder, repression and state terror. That's because they know that their cowed and passive subjects -- continually stoked with the hatred and fear of foreign demons -- don't care how many darkies get killed on the other side of the world. And so the Terror War leaks occasioned no more than a few days of Beltway bluster.posted by Joe Beese at 9:28 AM on December 7, 2010 [48 favorites]
But the new releases put a bit of a crimp in business as usual for our backroom operators, exposing some of the rank hypocrisy and all-pervasive corruption of our great and good -- and of their clients and partners around the world. All this might -- just might -- give the rabble unseemly notions ... such as the idea that their interests are perhaps not being served all that well by a system run by and for a handful of liars, tyrants, killers and thieves. We can't have that.
And so Julian Assange is now being hounded -- perhaps to his eventual death -- not for revealing war crimes and atrocities, but for showing us a glimpse of our leaders as they really are: stupid, vain, petty and savage.
She's a 31-year-old blond academic and member of the Social Democratic Party who's known for her radical feminist views, once wrote a treatise on how to take revenge against men and was once thrown out of Cuba for subversive activities.From this very thread. Again, I should have been more precise: although the SDP is the largest party in Sweden, they would be considered radical leftists by American standards.
"...if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed. We must think beyond those who have gone before us and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forebears could not."Not the words of a status-quo moderate or even a within-the-system liberal.
It’s not correct to put me in any one philosophical or economic camp, because I’ve learned from many. But one is American libertarianism, market libertarianism. So as far as markets are concerned I’m a libertarian, but I have enough expertise in politics and history to understand that a free market ends up as monopoly unless you force them to be free.posted by enn at 9:40 AM on December 7, 2010 [7 favorites]
WikiLeaks is designed to make capitalism more free and ethical.
5.15pm: Ramping up his rhetoric on Fox News just now, Senator Joe Lieberman, the head of the Senate's Homeland Security committee, suggests that the New York Times and other news organisations using the WikiLeaks cables may also be investigated for breaking the US's espionage laws.the living document just died.
Lieberman told Fox News:
To me the New York Times has committed at least an act of bad citizenship, but whether they have committed a crime is a matter of discussion for the justice department.
But others say Assange, who denies any wrongdoing and says the sex was consensual, may have just run afoul of Sweden's unusual rape laws, which are considered pro-feminist because of the consideration given issues of consent when it comes to sexual activity -- including even the issue of whether a condom was used. [...]The New York Times today quoted accounts given by the women to police and friends as saying Assange "did not comply with her appeals to stop when (the condom) was no longer in use."(Sorry for the deep nesting, but I wanted to preserve context.)Oh, issues of consent! Those crazy Swedes! Why should anyone care about that! What bizarre laws that consider sex without consent to be rape! The poor guy!You know, ordinarily I'd agree with you, but considering the man's enemies, I think skepticism is reasonable. There isn't a government on earth who wouldn't want to see him dead.
The supporting evidence is pretty thin so far, though. Why would someone who feels she was raped (or at least taken advantage of) after a condom broke proceed to throw a party for the "scumbag rapist" the next evening, and tweet about having a blast hanging out with the world's coolest people there?Not to turn this into an Assange pile-on or anything, but in the face of a situation that you're uncertain about, suddenly calling off a planned event and going silent on social media can be a bit jarring. Sometimes, "stay calm and carry on" is what people fall back on while trying to process things.
The accusation is certainly doing the job of keeping on the narrative of "why Assange is a very mean man", rather than why, say, the UK and Spanish government is promising to cripple its justice system to appease its US allies.I tend to see it the other way around: every time this case comes up, it turns into a heated discussion about Assange's evil/virtuous participation in wikileaks. And at least here on MeFi, the discussions of WikiLeaks focus pretty solidly on WikiLeaks itself, and Assange's actions as their spokesman.
The Class-Domination Theory of PowerSo yeah, the people the Republicans want to give all the tax breaks to, the fucking greed-head, debutante ball motherfuckers, those are the people who make the big bucks off of American being the arms dealer to the world, having our fucking military stationed all around the world to enforce our commercial empire, caused the fucking econopocalypse, and still have time to go shopping in Union Square.
Who has predominant power in the United States? The short answer, from 1776 to the present, is: Those who have the money have the power. George Washington was one of the biggest landowners of his day; presidents in the late 19th century were close to the railroad interests; for the Bush family, it was oil and other natural resources, agribusiness, and finance. But to be more exact, those who own income-producing property -- corporations, real estate, and agribusinesses -- set the rules within which policy battles are waged.
While this may seem simple and/or obvious, the reasons behind it are complex. They involve an understanding of social classes, the role of experts, the two-party system, and the history of the country, especially Southern slavery. In terms of the big world-historical picture, and the Four Networks theory of power advocated on this site, money rules in America because there are no rival networks that grew up over a long and complex history:
* No big church, as in many countries in Europe
* No big government, as it took to survive as a nation-state in Europe
* No big military until after 1940 (which is not very long ago) to threaten to take over the government
So, the only power network of any consequence in the history of the United States has been the economic one, which under capitalism generates a business-owning class that hires workers and a working class, along with small businesses and skilled artisans who are self-employed, and a relatively small number of independent professionals like physicians. In this context, the key reason why gold can rule, i.e., why the business owners who hire workers can rule, is that the people who work in the factories and fields were divided from the outset into free and slave, white and black, and later into numerous immigrant ethnic groups as well, making it difficult for workers as a whole to unite politically to battle for higher wages and better social benefits...
I will try to demonstrate how rule by the wealthy few is possible despite free speech, regular elections, and organized opposition:
* "The rich" coalesce into a social upper class that has developed institutions by which the children of its members are socialized into an upper-class worldview, and newly wealthy people are assimilated.
* Members of this upper class control corporations, which have been the primary mechanisms for generating and holding wealth in the United States for upwards of 150 years now.
* There exists a network of nonprofit organizations through which members of the upper class and hired corporate leaders not yet in the upper class shape policy debates in the United States.
* Members of the upper class, with the help of their high-level employees in profit and nonprofit institutions, are able to dominate the federal government in Washington.
* The rich, and corporate leaders, nonetheless claim to be relatively powerless.
* Working people have less power than in many other democratic countries.
crapmatic: ...if the files are CSV's of ASCII text (which seems to be what they use a lot) then there's a chance common English words will be found in the first few hundred bytes. This makes the contents more predictable at a byte by byte level than an audio or video stream.It's common to pass plain-text through some sort of data compression before encryption partly to interfere with that sort of analysis. I don't know what Wikileaks actually did, of course. The insurance file is reportedly encrypted with this open-source utility which does not appear to include integrated data compression.
As I said, nobody’s in charge – not the IMF, the Pope, the communist party, the Jews, no, no, no, nobody has their finger on what’s going on. So then, why hope? Isn’t it just a runaway train, out of control? I don’t think so. I think the out-of-controlness is the most hopeful thing about it! After all, whose control is it out of?! You and I never controlled it in the first place! Why are we anxious about the fact that it’s out of control? I think if it’s out of control, then our side is winning!posted by symbioid at 11:23 AM on December 7, 2010 [16 favorites]
-- Youtube Link
Naomi Wolf comments.The contrast between Naomi Wolf's essay about her own experiences with sexual assault and her writings on the Assange case seem a bit off-putting, perhaps even hypocritical. There are ways to express skepticism about the circumstances without dismissing issues of consent as "the dating police."
The decision to deny Assange bail is less surprising than many might think. Rape is a notoriously difficult offence for which to get bail in criminal proceedings. In many cases this is because of the risk of reoffending or danger to the victim.posted by memebake at 12:04 PM on December 7, 2010
But in Assange's case – as is often an issue with extradition proceedings – the problem is the lack of a permanent address in the UK, the difficulty of setting clear bail conditions that would persuade prosecutors that his whereabouts could be guaranteed, and the risk of his absconding.
In many cases those risks are regarded as sufficiently high that large amounts of security - a deposit paid into court and forfeited in the event of the suspect absconding – do not persuade magistrates that a person should be released on bail.
I think you're being pedantic and a little bit obtuse. WikiLeaks is more than a mere "source of information". They are an organization which is led by someone with an agenda. They have tools at their disposal. They have an objective. My question is: does anyone think they will succeed at making governments more just and ethical?If you take the time to read what Assange has explicitly written about his motivations, and WikiLeaks' reason for existing, this wouldn't be the question.
The two Swedish women who accuse WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of sexual misconduct were at first not seeking to bring charges against him. They just wanted to track him down and persuade him to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases, according to several people in contact with his entourage at the time.posted by PenDevil at 2:02 PM on December 7, 2010 [2 favorites]
The women went to the police together after they failed to persuade Assange to go to a doctor after separate sexual encounters with him in August, according to these people, who include former close associates of Assange who have since fallen out with him.
Assange is accused of using his body weight to hold her down in a sexual manner.posted by Zozo at 2:06 PM on December 7, 2010 [1 favorite]
The second charge alleged Assange "sexually molested" Miss A by having sex with her without a condom when it was her "express wish" one should be used.
The third charge claimed Assange "deliberately molested" Miss A on August 18 "in a way designed to violate her sexual integrity". The fourth charge accused Assange of having sex with a second woman, Miss W, on August 17 without a condom while she was asleep at her Stockholm home.
US declares Wikileaks off-limits to government researchersIt's moments like this that I think the WikiLeaks team understands the long-term strategic advantage of terrorism far better than many. They are triggering a disproportionate response that affects a larger population than would have directly experienced the hidden actions.
Let's dispense with the nonsensical idea that Assange is a crusading journalist. He's an activist with an anti-American agendaHow are being a journalist and being an activist are incompatable?
What about poor Bradley Manning? Won't someone think of him?Rule #1 about not getting caught: Whatever it is you've done, don't brag about it on IRC.
It's interesting to see liberals' innate tendencies towards feminism and anti-authoritarianism clash in this case (and I'm a liberal).Since when does 'feminism' = always taking the woman's side? Especially one who posted a 'guide to legal revenge' (essentially a guide for stalking and harassment) on her blog?
That's not the point. The point is that the biggest bombshell of Cablegate isn't in the same league of evilness as Abu Ghraib, and that trying to paint the UN spying as something horrific that justifies the cable dump is deeply problematic.Yeah, but compare the absolute freakout about this to the rather un-preturbed response to the other releases. Clearly, this is a far bigger deal to those in power. Why is that?
But governments shouldn't treat journalists and revolutionaries the same way.When the US Constitution was written, there were no non-activist journalists. Freedom of speech and the press was not intended to cover only 'professional non-partisan journalists' it was intended to cover people with specific viewpoints.
Apparently having consensual sex in Sweden without a condom is punishable by a term of imprisonment of a minimum of two years for rape.This seems like a rather forced misinterpretation of the charges. "Having sex without a condom" and "Having consensual sex predicated conditional on the presence of a condom, then continuing after the condom breaks despite protests" are pretty different issues. The latter is, as best as I can tell, what he's being accused of.
Official Secrets Act 1989 (as amended)Julian Assange has never been a member of the security and intelligence services and I seriously doubt he's been notified in writing that he's subject to the provisions of the Act (which is what "signing the official secrets act" means: it's an acknowledgement that you've been so notified that will stand up in court).
1. Security and intelligence.
(1) A person who is or has been
(a) a member of the security and intelligence services; or
(b) a person notified that he is subject to the provisions of this subsection,
is guilty of an offence if without lawful authority he discloses any information, document or other article relating to security or intelligence which is or has been in his possession by virtue of his position as a member of any of those services or in the course of his work while the notification is or was in force.
...
(6) Notification that a person is subject to subsection (1) above shall be effected by a notice in writing served on him by a Minister of the Crown; and such a notice may be served if, in the Minister’s opinion, the work undertaken by the person in question is or includes work connected with the security and intelligence services and its nature is such that the interests of national security require that he should be subject to the provisions of that subsection.
I think taking the woman's side when the condom breaks and she says stop and he doesn't makes a lot of sense.Sure. But it's not clear that that's what happened either. Oh well, why worry about getting things right when you can just spout bullshit, right?
You do realize that 51% of people in the US think he should be tried for treason?Who cares what these idiots think?
now fool is calling for Obama to resign, because, obviously Palin would really be a much better President in his mind.What is it with you and this "Do everything the centrists say or Sarah Palin will become president!!!" It isn't like whether Palin or Obama is president will have any impact on him personally, since he's not American and doesn't live in America. That he should worry about Palin is as... confused... as thinking he should be tried for treason.
Because it does serious harm to the diplomacy of the U.S. That's why.It makes it more difficult for US government elites to conspire with elites in other countries to work against the people in their own countries. For examle, the Arab leaders who want to bomb Iran despite the fact that their citizens absolutly do not. But also the US leaning on the UK change the result of it's Iraq war inqury, leaning on Spain not to prosecute CIA operatives who kidnapped a spanish citizen, and leaning on the germans to do something (I forget)
Dude drove everyone else out of the organization. It is a full on flameout.Only one person has quit, as far as I know.
Please provide facts to support unsupported assertion that Visa and Mastercard were helping out the banks and not just making sure that the vast majority of their customers, who dislike Assange, don't punish them.Lol what? The absurdity of that statement is rather obvious. As mentioned upthread, MasterCard and Visa take credit payments for the KKK. The idea that they would deny any particular payee because they are politically unpopular with 'their customers' (many of which are overseas and may be Assange fans) is obviously false.
In this case, the United States of America. And the terms of service probably don't allow any illegal activity anywhere, worldwide. But if you have questions, ask Visa.Yes, and Bradly Manning is in Jail. Reporters who receive documents are not criminals, and they're not the ones 'leaking'
The NYT wrote stories about the documents, they did not release them all to the entire world.Neither did wikileaks. Since it's been said over and over again, you must know it. Why are you trying to mislead people on this issue? The NYT, Guardian and other papers did release the actual text of some cables, which were then published by wikileaks.
I am skeptical that whatever Wikileaks might have on some large bank is really so damning, since their goods on the State Department weren't.It didn't seem that way either, but as I said the freak-out indicates there was something pretty damaging. I think the problem isn't the reaction of the average American voter, who thinks their government is rotten to the core in the first place, but rather other governments who have been embarrassed or angered by the contents of the cables. There have already been some international repercussions.
I'm a big believer in openness when it comes to the flow of information. I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable. They can begin to think for themselves. That generates new ideas. It encourages creativity.(via A Tiny Revolution)
And so I've always been a strong supporter of open Internet use. I'm a big supporter of non-censorship. This is part of the tradition of the United States that I discussed before, and I recognize that different countries have different traditions. I can tell you that in the United States, the fact that we have free Internet -- or unrestricted Internet access is a source of strength, and I think should be encouraged.
...all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed...So I can grok where you're coming from, and I certainly understand your fears and hesitation of a collapse of the system... I know a LOT of people who depend on it for survival (thanks a lot Simpson-Bowles for your wretched "deficit reduction" plans).
Well good for you, that's very nice. Personally, I'd eat cat food if it meant that I could have my Constitutional rights back, if I could have a free press again - and I'd consider that the deal of the goddamned century. I mean, some people have fought and died for their rights, but they probably should have known better really.Or, you know.
... the world’s journalists – and those persons of conscience working in the world’s governments – have been given a hard, harsh, unmistakable lesson in the new realities of our degraded time. Tell a truth that discomforts power, that challenges its domination over our lives, our discourse, our very thoughts, and you will be destroyed. No institution, public or private, will stand with you; the most powerful entities, public and private, will be arrayed against you, backed up by overwhelming violent force. This is where we are now. This is what we are now.Yeah. What Assange did was to reveal the hidden repression that actually existed, but was never expressed. The media has become corrupted both by the need for "access" and by the fact that those running the media come from the same elite class that runs the diplomatic services and government, as well as the banks. Now that someone outside of their circle is actually generating media that is actually effecting them, they flip out.
I have to admit that I prefer the Daily Mail story above all others (e.g., Reuters).The daily mail is a murdoch-owned tabloid known for it's regressive "Anti-PC" attitude, though. Reuters has a good reputation for even handedness.
confronted with the threat of bi-sexual misogyny characterized by female seduction as prelude to conflicted male homophilic aggression -- residue of witnessed father-and-mother coupling parental incest desire.Now, the other thing, and I was pondering this when people talk about his ego, etc... There seems to be quite a common trait amongst hackers and the like for a bit of narcissistic personality (whether it's pure NPD or something else, I can't say).
But he doesn't have a fixed address, he uses a free DNS service, and the organisation's funds are about $40,000?
This sounds implausible.
Cryptome has stated Wikileaks is an exemplary success at getting banned information to the public and deserves wide emulation, with hundreds of sites needed to do what it does and to help guard against its smear and shutdown as a singular target.Wikileaks/Assange hasn't seemed very interested in encouraging that, and has instead just tried to grow as a monolithic organization. That's inherently fragile.
verb, Ironmouth has been solidly concern trolling almost every Wikileaks related conversation on MeFi. He veers between a professed concern for the many people who might be killed (can't cite any), and admitting his only concern is that this may be bad for American power and that it must be shut down.I vigorously disagree with many of Ironmouth's statements, but I do not believe that he is concern trolling. I believe that he just really, really, really dislikes Julian Assange and is willing to tangle himself up in a lot of profoundly weak and badly-stretched arguments to work "Assange Is Evil" into every statement.
The US lobbied Russia this year on behalf of Visa and MasterCard in an attempt to ensure the payment companies were not "adversely affected" by new legislation, according to American diplomats in Moscow.posted by Len at 8:25 AM on December 8, 2010 [5 favorites]
A state department cable released this afternoon by WikiLeaks reveals that US diplomats intervened to try to amend a draft law going through Russia's Duma. Their explicit aim was to ensure the new law did not "disadvantage" the two US firms, the cable states.
The revelation comes a day after Visa – apparently acting under intense pressure from Washington – announced it was suspending all payments to WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing website. Visa was following MasterCard, PayPal and Amazon, all of which have severed ties with the site and its founder Julian Assange in the last few days.
How far down the U.S. has slid can be seen, ironically enough, in a recent commentary in Pravda (that’s right, Russia’s Pravda): “What WikiLeaks has done is make people understand why so many Americans are politically apathetic … After all, the evils committed by those in power can be suffocating, and the sense of powerlessness that erupts can be paralyzing, especially when … government evildoers almost always get away with their crimes. …”posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 8:47 AM on December 8, 2010 [16 favorites]
So shame on Barack Obama, Eric Holder, and all those who spew platitudes about integrity, justice and accountability while allowing war criminals and torturers to walk freely upon the earth. … the American people should be outraged that their government has transformed a nation with a reputation for freedom, justice, tolerance and respect for human rights into a backwater that revels in its criminality, cover-ups, injustices and hypocrisies.
Odd, isn’t it, that it takes a Pravda commentator to drive home the point that the Obama administration is on the wrong side of history. Most of our own media are demanding that WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange be hunted down — with some of the more bloodthirsty politicians calling for his murder. The corporate-and-government dominated media are apprehensive over the challenge that WikiLeaks presents. Perhaps deep down they know, as Dickens put it, “There is nothing so strong … as the simple truth.”
As part of their attempt to blacken WikiLeaks and Assange, pundit commentary over the weekend has tried to portray Assange’s exposure of classified materials as very different from — and far less laudable than — what Daniel Ellsberg did in releasing the Pentagon Papers in 1971. Ellsberg strongly rejects the mantra “Pentagon Papers good; WikiLeaks material bad.” He continues: “That’s just a cover for people who don’t want to admit that they oppose any and all exposure of even the most misguided, secretive foreign policy. The truth is that EVERY attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time.”
Motivation? WikiLeaks’ reported source, Army Pvt. Bradley Manning, having watched Iraqi police abuses, and having read of similar and worse incidents in official messages, reportedly concluded, “I was actively involved in something that I was completely against.” Rather than simply go with the flow, Manning wrote: “I want people to see the truth … because without information you cannot make informed decisions as a public,” adding that he hoped to provoke worldwide discussion, debates, and reform.
There is nothing to suggest that WikiLeaks/Assange’s motives were any different.
Please be advised that MasterCard SecureCode Support has detected a service disruption to the MasterCard Directory Server. The Directory Server service has been failed over to a secondary site however customers may still be experiencing intermittent connectivity issues. More information on the estimated time of recovery will be shared in due course.Anonymous at work?
I have a (very tentative) theory for why he didn't want an STD test: he didn't want to hand over his DNA to anyone. But if the tests really take 6-12 weeks in Sweden, I suppose it's more likely that he just didn't want to be stuck there that long.Come on, though, if people really want your DNA they'll get it. It would not be difficult to find some hair, or skin cells. In fact I believe he "gave his DNA" to those two girls.
The cartoon that's included with that article is sort of unfortunate.Cartoons in the New Yorker are actually random.
wait -- so the dump is justified on the basis of its being a totalitarian regime?No, the dump is justified (by Assange and WikiLeaks and those who agree with his reasoning) on the basis of: 1) actual proof of horrible wrongdoing that is now in the public's hands (see ongoing taxpayer funded child prostitution) and 2) making secrecy expensive NOW makes totalitarian conspiracies in the FUTURE much harder to coordinate.
For what it's worth, a respected current affairs show this evening had an intelligence analyst claiming that the Taliban supposedly now has a list of something like 1,200 people targeted for assassination, for helping the occuping forces in Afghanistan - all thanks to Wikileaks.Okay so the army and state department have said that no one has been harmed but, hey, a random "Intelligence analyst" on Australian TV says the Taliban "has a list" (i.e. the theoretical number of names in the docs) so really they are in danger.
How far does the US have to go before it becomes totalitarian in your opinion?This question is particularly relevant in view of Assange's theory that by the time citizens wake up and say, 'Hey! I'm in a totalitarian regime!' their ability to affect the regime's actions is effectively nil. He advocates a strategy of attrition: slow down the process of a conspiracy's growth by making it very, very hard for it to scale secretly.
I'm not sure what an example of a totalitarian conspiracy might be, aside from say the collaboration of the Axis powers during WWII. Is that the kind of thing you're talking about?Over the past several decades our nation has done lots of things that, in years past, we all agreed were the mark of totalitarian states. In almost every case, these actions were ignored, denied, or blamed on rogue individuals rather than the coordinated actions of the state.
The central corporate website is, I am sure, nothing but a bunch of PR fluff. They could carry on business for months without it, and barely anybody would notice or care. For that reason, they wouldn't bother with a sophisticated & expensive redundant fallback or disaster recovery setup.The central corporate web site is also the first line of contact that most customers have with it. Having built out the intranets for a number of large organizations, you'd be kind of shocked how much can be done. At some point, if the public has to get at something, it can be DDoS'd or attacked.
Authoritarian regimes give rise to forces which oppose them by pushing against the individual and collective will to freedom, truth and self realization. Plans which assist authoritarian rule, once discovered, induce resistance. Hence these plans are concealed by successful authoritarian powers. This is enough to define their behavior as conspiratorial."Authoritarian conspiracy" is the target of WikiLeaks. Collateral damage is a real concern, but it's impossible to say that they aren't following their own playbook.
Operation Payback is announcing targets via its website, Twitter stream and Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channels. To muster the necessary volume of traffic to take sites offline, they are inviting people to take part in a 'voluntary' botnet by installing a tool called LOIC (Low Orbit Ion Cannon – a fictional weapon of mass destruction popularised by computer games such as Command & Conquer).Is "We are living in a William Gibson novel" the most over-used phrase of 2010?
The LOIC tool connects to an IRC server and joins an invite-only 'hive' channel, where it can be updated with the current attack target. This allows Operation Payback to automatically reconfigure the entire botnet to switch to a different target at any time.
In the relatively small number of US diplomatic cables released to date by WikiLeaks, from its cache of 251,287 documents, the most disturbing revelations concerning the “War on Terror” deal with the pressure that the Bush administration exerted on Germany in 2007, regarding the planned prosecution of thirteen CIA agents involved in the rendition and torture of Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen seized as a result of mistaken identity, and the pressure that the Obama administration exerted on the Spanish government in 2009, to derail a criminal investigation into the role played by six senior Bush administration lawyers in establishing the policies that governed the interrogation — and torture — of prisoners seized in the “War on Terror.”So, to paraphrase my nation's diplomatic stance re: our Nato Allies and their intentions to investigate torture by American agents and their direct proxies:
Neither of these developments had been reported prior to the release of the cables by WikiLeaks, and they are therefore extremely significant in establishing how long Bush administration officials were involved in fending off torture investigations overseas, and how eagerly Obama administration officials took up this role...
In the first cable, sent to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from Berlin on February 6, 2007, by John M. Koenig, the senior career diplomat at the US Embassy in Berlin, following discussions with Rolf Nikel, the deputy national security advisor for Germany, Koenig explained how he emphasized to Nikel that “issuance of international arrest warrants would have a negative impact on our bilateral relationship.” In addition, he “reminded Nikel of the repercussions to US-Italian bilateral relations in the wake of a similar move by Italian authorities last year” (in the case of Abu Omar, discussed below), and “pointed out that our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German Government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the US.”
What makes this thinly-veiled threat seem particularly harsh is the fact that El-Masri is the clearest case of mistaken identity in the whole of the “War on Terror”...
The second cable, dated April 17, 2009, and sent from Madrid, explained how US officials had manipulated Spanish officials to suppress an investigation into six former Bush administration lawyers — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, former chief of staff and legal adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, William Haynes, the Pentagon’s former general counsel, Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense for policy, Jay Bybee, the former head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, and John Yoo, a former official in the Office of Legal Counsel — for “creating a legal framework that allegedly permitted torture.” A Spanish human rights group had filed the complaint the month before, contending that Spain had a duty to open an investigation under its “universal jurisdiction” law.
The cable reveals how US officials immediately began sounding out Spanish officials, and how, on April 15, an apparently unlikely figure for the Obama administration to embrace — Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), who had recently been chairman of the Republican Party — attended a meeting between the US embassy’s charge d’affaires and the acting Spanish foreign minister, Angel Lossada, at which the Americans, repeating the same threatening language used in Germany in 2007, “underscored that the prosecutions would not be understood or accepted in the US and would have an enormous impact on the bilateral relationship” between Spain and the United States.
I don't think there's any way for the government to stop Anon. I mean they can shut down 4chan, but they'll just go elsewhere. There's no leadership, no command structure, no money. There's nothing to shut down. It's just an idea and a tactic.Indeed. If you want to organize something really effective, though, you have to develop some kind of a command structure and you have to be careful about not letting in people who could be moles. You have to worry about people disrupting your lines of communication, so you keep those lines of communication secret, and then you're vulnerable to leaks fro--
The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings. - John F Kennedy...a people inherently and historically opposed to ... secret proceedings. Not any more, America, not any more.
The company's top executive in Nigeria told US diplomats that Shell had seconded employees to every relevant department and so knew "everything that was being done in those ministries". She boasted that the Nigerian government had "forgotten" about the extent of Shell's infiltration and were unaware of how much the company knew about its deliberations.Now we're talking. So, will this send Shells share price up, or down? That will also be revealing.
Federal minister and right-wing Labor powerbroker Mark Arbib has been revealed as a confidential contact of the United States embassy in Canberra, providing inside information and commentary for Washington on the workings of the Australian government and the Labor Party.posted by memebake at 2:41 PM on December 8, 2010 [7 favorites]
Secret US embassy cables obtained by WikiLeaks and made available exclusively to The Age reveal that Senator Arbib, one of the architects of Kevin Rudd's removal as prime minister, has been in regular contact with US embassy officers.
His candid comments have been incorporated into reports to Washington with repeated requests that his identity as a ''protected'' source be guarded.
You'd think that the head of Visa's datacentre operations would've been on the phone right away buying a bunch of virtualised server capacity from a 3rd party provider - this kind of thing is a commodity item now.Virtualized server capacity is easy to buy these days, but the architecture necessary to scale up and down arbitrarily is not. Only a small handful of large companies have really built out their own applications to support that kind of stuff, and coincidentally they are the now turning into hosting companies themselves, because they realize it's full of hard problems and their solutions can be monetized. VISA and Mastercard are probably designed to handle Black Friday kinds of spikes, not The Internet Decides To Quintuple Our Traffic kinds of spikes.
As is well known, Mr Assange is an Australian citizen.posted by memebake at 3:01 PM on December 8, 2010 [7 favorites]
We therefore call upon you to condemn, on behalf of the Australian Government, calls for physical harm to be inflicted upon Mr Assange, and to state publicly that you will ensure Mr Assange receives the rights and protections to which he is entitled, irrespective of whether the unlawful threats against him come from individuals or states.
A statement by you to this effect should not be controversial – it is a simple commitment to democratic principles and the rule of law.
Alternately known as Jöran Jermas and Adam Ermash, Shamir is a fringe writer who has devoted his professional life to exposing the supposed criminality of “Jewish power," a paranoid anti-Semite who curates a website full of links to Holocaust denial and neo-Nazi sites, defenses of blood libel myths, and references to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.See the Reason.com article for links confirming its allegations about Israel Shamir, and the Counterpunch article for Shamir's allegations about Ms ardin.
Yeah, here we get into the sticky world of what the press/public considers 'evidence' these days. Stats and scientific papers can usually be argued with, and rightly so. I think what makes the cables powerful is that they contain private statements by or about public figures. Showing that someone or some organisation contradicted themselves seems to get a lot of mileage.More than that, it demonstrates that a circle of people in positions of power and influence collaboratively shared one version of reality while communicating a different one to the public for political purposes.
The account was again reviewed last week after the US Department of State publicised a letter to WikiLeaks on November 27, stating that WikiLeaks may be in possession of documents that were provided in violation of US law. PayPal was not contacted by any government organization in the US or abroad. We restricted the account based on our Acceptable Use Policy review. Ultimately, our difficult decision was based on a belief that the WikiLeaks website was encouraging sources to release classified material, which is likely a violation of law by the source.Full quote on the Guardian liveblog at the 11:27pm mark. As they say: "The question remains, for PayPal and the US government: what law exactly has WikiLeaks broken?"
Anyway, just to start off, the United States is pleased to announce that we’ll host UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day in 2011 from May 1 to May 3 here in Washington, D.C. UNESCO is the only UN agency with a mandate to promote freedom of expression, and its corollary, freedom of the press. The theme for this commemoration will be 21stCentury Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers. Obviously, we decided upon this before the latest round of news.Btw, the person giving that speech has been totally anti-wikileaks on twitter (*sigh*)
The United States places technology and innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts. There certainly is an irony here. New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to the exercise of freedom of – for the right of freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor or silence individuals and to restrict the free flow of information. We mark events such as World Press Freedom Day in the context of our enduring commitment to support and expand press freedom and the free flow of information in this digital age.
How many of us can raise our hands and say we have read what has been published on WikiLeaks? The majority of us have only read commentary on WikiLeaks. Often it is merely commentary on commentary. The facts here are not the point. It is not that now we know that terrible things were done, and how what a shock it all is. We already knew what was going on, or suspected it.The cables themselves are very well written. Some are in beurocratic speech (I read one about russia and the US cooperating on drug interdiction, for example, that was dull) but some are quite vivid. Like the escape from Iran, or the one that described an alchohol, weed, coke and hookers party held by elite saudi youth (and sponsored by an energy drink company)
Absolutely. And I'd argue that an unjust verdict is worse than no verdict at all. If we buy into universal jurisdiction, who gets to practice it? Do we have to honor extradition requests from totalitarian regimes? North Korea? Zimbabwe?It's disinginuous to compare Span and germany to countries like Iran and Zimbabwe. And you know it.
Reason.com tracks down the source of Keith Olbermann's claim that "Anna Ardin, the Swedish feminist who accused Assange of rape, is an anti-Castro activist with connections to CIA front groups." It turns out that it comes from an activist called Israel Shamir who writes for Counterpunch. The Reason.com expose points out thatI think it's an established fact that Ardin was in Cuba and kicked out, whether or not some nutbag also said the same thing doesn't make it false. In fact, I don't think MSNBC would let him run with unchecked facts.
she [Palin] has to be trolling, no?Lol, she's consistently criticized her critics for violating her "First Amendment Rights" to speak without criticism. She... is not very bright.
"But because it was the very world it was, the very world they had allowed it to become, for months his activities did not come to the alarmed attention of The Ones Who Kept The Machine Functioning Smoothly, the ones who poured the very best butter over the cams and mainsprings of the culture. Not until it had become obvious that somehow, someway, he had become a notoriety, a celebrity, perhaps even a hero for (what Officialdom inescapably tagged) “an emotionally disturbed segment of the populace,” did they turn it over to the Ticktockman and his legal machinery. But by then, because it was the very world it was, and they had no way to predict he would happen—possibly a strain of disease long-defunct, now, suddenly reborn in a system where immunity had been forgotten, had lapsed—he had been allowed to become too real. Now he had form and substance.-- from "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman, by Harlan Ellison.
He had become a personality, something they had filtered out of the system many decades ago. But there it was, and there he was, a very definitely imposing personality. In certain circles—middle-class circles—it was thought disgusting. Vulgar ostentation. Anarchistic. Shameful. In others, there was only sniggering: those strata where thought is subjugated to form and ritual, niceties, proprieties. But down below, ah, down below, where the people always needed their saints and sinners, their bread and circuses, their heroes and villains, he was considered a Bolivar; a Napoleon; a Robin Hood; a Dick Bong (Ace of Aces); a Jesus; a Jomo Kenyatta.
And at the top—where, like socially-attuned Shipwreck Kellys, every tremor and vibration threatening to dislodge the wealthy, powerful and titled from their flagpoles—he was considered a menace; a heretic; a rebel; a disgrace; a peril. He was known down the line, to the very heart-meat core, but the important reactions were high above and far below. At the very top, at the very bottom."
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:42 PM on December 8, 2010 [24 favorites]>cortex: hey jess, lotta flags in the assange thread >jessamyn: taking a look into it >jessamyn: [redacted] is playing up again, shall we notify #1? >cortex: fuck, am i sick of that guy. do it! >jessamyn: banhammerphone! you there, matt? >mathowie: working on my bike. this better be important *sent from my iphone* >jessamyn: its about >mathowie: fucking derailleurs! shit. i haven't got time for this *sent from my iphone* >mathowie: escalate it to the cabal *sent from my iphone*
¶8. (C) xxxxx asserted that once the DPRK identifies politically reliable family members to participate in the upcoming reunions, they will be transported to Pyongyang and then "fattened up" with regular meals and vitamins to mask the extent of food shortages and chronic malnutrition in the north. The "lucky" DPRK reunion participants will also be provided with new clothing -- suits for men and traditional Korean "hanbok" for women -- for the televised event. In our earlier meeting, xxxxx had commented that MOU gives "pocket and travel money" to ROK participants which they then pass on to their North Korean relatives. xxxxx sighed that the majority of the MOU cash is usually pocketed by North Korean officials, who also force the North Korean participants to return their new clothes.posted by Jimbob at 1:39 AM on December 9, 2010
the Maldives' ambassador-designate to the US, Abdul Ghafoor Mohamed, told the US deputy climate change envoy, Jonathan Pershing, his country wanted "tangible assistance", saying other nations would then realise "the advantages to be gained by compliance" with the accord.The Maldives are an archipelago of coral islands that reach to a maximum of 2.3 metres, a little over seven and a half feet, above sea level. They will be wiped out by any significant rise in sea levels or increase in tropical storms. They are the poster-child for global warming. And yet what do we see? Their ambassador ties his country's support for environmental change to "tangible assistance [of] approximately $50 million".
This might have worked before but J. Edgar Hoover has never met the internet. It kinda makes all those tactics you describe much more difficult and in some cases futile.I wouldn't go that far. Insurgency is easy to end if you're willing to commit genocide, too. The Internet as we're used to thinking of it is pretty easy to take down if you have the resources of a nation-state. The problem is taking it down discreetly without angering all the bystanders.
For Seumas Milne of The Guardian in London, which has shared the latest WikiLeaks trove with The New York Times, the official American reaction “is tipping over towards derangement.” ...posted by Joe Beese at 11:01 AM on December 9, 2010 [1 favorite]
John Naughton, writing in the same British paper, decried the attack on the openness of the Internet and the pressure on companies like Amazon and eBay to evict the WikiLeaks site. “The response has been vicious, coordinated and potentially comprehensive,” he said, and presents a “delicious irony” that “it is now the so-called liberal democracies that are clamoring to shut WikiLeaks down.”
A year ago, he noted, Mrs. Clinton made a major speech about Internet freedom, interpreted as a rebuke to China’s cyber-attack on Google. “Even in authoritarian countries, information networks are helping people to discover new facts and making governments more accountable.” To Mr. Naughton now, “that Clinton speech reads like a satirical masterpiece.” ...
German newspapers were similarly harsh. Even the Financial Times Deutschland (independent of the English-language Financial Times), said that “the already damaged reputation of the United States will only be further tattered with Assange’s new martyr status."
Inmates at Wandsworth Prison are pushing notes of support under the cell door of WikiLeaks founder, according to Sky News sources.posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:04 AM on December 9, 2010 [3 favorites]
Last night a few /b/tards from 711chan nabbed dox on the guy who fingered manning. I had to go to bed right after that, but I assume he's throat deep in hookers, limos and pizzas now.Adrian Lammo. What a smarmy cocksucker.
Pakistan's Prime Minister told a senior US official in Islamabad, "I don't care if [the US bombs Pakistan] as long as they get the right people. We'll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it."posted by adamvasco at 1:35 PM on December 9, 2010
Ms Lindfield told the court that Mr Assange was wanted in connection with four allegations of sexual offences.She said the first complainant, Miss A, said she was victim of "unlawful coercion" on the night of 14 August in Stockholm. The court heard Mr Assange is accused of using his body weight to hold her down in a sexual manner.What I don't understand here and can't find any information about is the third charge. Every account that I've read states that Assange was out of contact with both Miss A and Miss W after he parted with Miss W on August 17th, yet he is somehow accused of deliberately molesting Miss A during that time. Does anyone know what this charge is based on? Does it have something to do with not removing his belongings from her apartment or his non-response w/r/t/ their request for STD tests?
The second charge alleged Mr Assange "sexually molested" Miss A by having sex with her without a condom when it was her "express wish" one should be used. The third charge claimed Mr Assange "deliberately molested" Miss A on August 18 "in a way designed to violate her sexual integrity".
The fourth charge accused Mr Assange of having sex with a second woman, Miss W, on 17 August without a condom while she was asleep at her Stockholm home.
But the https post ddos vulnerability first reared it's head in 2009, discovered and reported by Wong Onn Chee. It's hardly script kiddie territory. The thing that is so amazing about Layer 7 modality is that it perfectly mimics a user with a slow connection, and servers will inherently "wait" for post data to complete.Indeed. Really, it's the fundamentally forgiving nature of the protocols that makes them relatively hard to secure, relatively robust in the face of centralized crackdowns, and relatively vulnerable in the face of distributed attack.
Having sex without the other person's consent is rape.Well no one has fucking accused of him of that. BTW Anna Ardin has fled sweeden (for Palistine, of all places) and seemingly endorsed the DDOS on twitter.
Ok folks, I know it's not the main thrust of this comment chain, as it were, but can we try not to be rape minimizers and apologists here please?
because killswitches and monitors have the potential to be hacked and controlled by blackhat hackers, making the internet much less secure.Which is why the chinese were going after google's wiretapping systems that it uses for US government requests.
Posting their addresses and phone numbers isn’t intended to encourage vigilantism, but to send a bigger message to women like Ardin and Wilen – if you lie about being raped, this is what will happen to you. Your anonymity will be compromised, your life will be laid bare for all to see, and your name will be destroyed. No rape shield law or journalistic ethic can protect you.Read that a few times. Regardless of one's beliefs about Assange's guilt or innocence, regardless of one's feelings about how it's being prosecuted or what The Powers That Be are trying to do, that kind of naked intimidation should enrage anyone who gives a shit.
Can we get back to talking about cryptography soon? Please?Well, now that a number of WikiLeaks members have cone and founded OpenLeaks, the splintering is already in effect. Which is interesting -- leaking doesn't have to be done by a large organization, and if lots of "wikileaks alternatives" start springing up, it's the Assange Doctrine all over again.
I was thinking of "The Assange Doctrine" as something more like the Godwin Principle.That's the best part of the Assange Doctrine! It contains two cleartexts.
For example: "You just Assanged the thread" means "You might be right, but you're still an obnoxious & egotistical twat".
Saturday, 3 March 2005, 14:09
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 LONDON 000368
NOFORN
SIPDIS
STATE FOR EUR/OHI (JKENNEDY;JBECKER)
STATE FOR EEB/IPE (JURBAN)
STATE FOR EUR/WE, OES, L/OES
STATE PASS USTR (DWEINER)
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ETRD KIPR PBTS PHSA SCUL SP
REF: A. LONDON 322 B. LONDON 123
SUBJECT: CHOCOLATES
Guys,
Is it just me or was that like the worst party ever
last night? Christ alone knows where that stuck-up
idiot gets his ideas from.
As if the dinner wasn't bad enough, he had to go and
finish it off with those crappy third-rate chocolates.
And why stacked in a dirty great pyramid FFS?
Pillock.
And he takes it so bloody seriously too. Try telling
him about it! Christ if he ever saw this then the
faecal matter would really match co-ordinates with
the extraction unit.
Ah well. Such is life. At least it's another year
until we have to endure that crap again.
Next Thursday at the Latvian do? Food's crap but at
least he gets decent skirt in!
All the best,
CIf hacktivists use this tool directly from their own machines, instead of via anonymization networks such as Tor, the Internet address of the attacker is included in every Internet message being transmitted. In the tools no sophisticated techniques are used, such as IP-spoofing, in which the source address of others is used, or reflected attacks, in which attacks go via third party systems.posted by symbioid at 12:54 PM on December 11, 2010
posted by carter at 7:59 AM on December 7, 2010 [16 favorites]