Anonymous and others start leaking

  On 11/28/2010 at 9:21 PM, the anonymous forumite said:

  On 11/28/2010 at 9:16 PM, kakapo said:

Is anybody actually surprised by the content so far?

 

I thought diplomacy was much more codified and protocolary.

Yes, that's interesting, I suspect most of the 250,000 cables will be just that, but the gossipy ones will make the headlines. Just disappointed that there's no 'killer' revelation, difficult to see what can come out of this other than feeding anti-americanism. I thought this was interesting analysis.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cables-wikileaks

  On 11/28/2010 at 9:27 PM, dese manz hatin said:

lol @ "dagestani weddings are serious business"

it's true

  On 11/28/2010 at 9:16 PM, kakapo said:

Is anybody actually surprised by the content so far?

Yes, like forumite, I'm quite surprised by the inner middle eastern struggles and the role they ask the us to play in it. The image coming from the documents is that of the American consultant helping the UAE for instance with dealing the Iranian threat. Or the South Koreans with their northern neighbors. To me this is a surprise in the sense that the common image used to be of Americans primarily acting out of self-interest. At least these documents show a more nuanced version, although still from the American point-of-view. What was also bugging me were the ease with which the Iranians were blamed for developing nuclear weapons without any real/factual proof. From the documents it's clear how deep and widespread the concerns actually are. I was still under the impression there were too many hawkish elements surrounding the interpretation of Irans threat.

In short, it's nice to have a deeper look into the worlds best soap.

  On 11/28/2010 at 9:32 PM, kakapo said:

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/28/us-embassy-cables-wikileaks

  Quote

What this saga must do is alter the basis of diplomatic reporting. If WikiLeaks can gain access to secret material, by whatever means, so presumably can a foreign power. Words on paper can be made secure, electronic archives not.

Not really. For having worked at the luggage tracing service of my airport, I can tell that important classified documents can be lost or stolen. We had a few embassy reps coming to the office to let us know about the importance of their missing bags, which contained classified documents.

We're just realizing the flipside of the electronic globalization paradigm, and this paradigm is gonna have to be severely altered in order to secure information.

Reading this is like reading about magic tricks. It kinda ruins the illusion.

Also, some of these "leaks" are ridiculous. I just read one about some politician who apparantly has said, 'Berlusconi likes to party'. Holy shit, that's some dangerous shit to leak right there.

What's also interesting is the possibility the Americans are more naive in their diplomatic efforts than they'll probably realize. I wonder if they realize to what extent they're told the exact things their diplomatic partners think would like the Americans to hear. The Azerbaijan leader especially seems full of shit. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/250649): trying to have the americans train as much of their troops as possible just to not give the impression to the people how willing the americans are to help (nice try!), completely nuking turkeys foreign policies mostly because of their business with the russians. It seems as if governments are willing to do or say just about anything to gain more economic growth and keep their sheople content.

  On 11/28/2010 at 9:58 PM, Squee said:

Reading this is like reading about magic tricks. It kinda ruins the illusion.

 

Also, some of these "leaks" are ridiculous. I just read one about some politician who apparantly has said, 'Berlusconi likes to party'. Holy shit, that's some dangerous shit to leak right there.

this is cause it's not highly classified stuff. And anyone that does have that and sends it to wikileaks will most likely quietly disappear. I would suggest instead surreptitiously regging your own website on which to publish docs, and then torrenting it and then revealing what it is on slashdot and other places without prior pre-empting.

It's all a double game being played here imO.

so like i said in the other thread, all the stuff mentioned will be things our security services would already know about anyway, it's just not generally available in the media and so plebisphere.

it's online:

http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/reldate/2010-11_0.html

good live blog here, frequently updated: http://www.thenation.com/blog/156701/blogging-wikileaks-release-return-here-all-day-updates

http://documents.nytimes.com/letters-between-wikileaks-and-gov

Correspondence between Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks.org, and United States government officials about the sensitivity of information contained in the Web site's latest document release.

has mr assange done any press junkets for this leak? his last press conference with daniel ellseberg was quite entertaining.

i just heard about this so i havent had a chance to look at any of it yet, thanks o00o for making a REAl thread

What the hell are cables (well obviously I know what the normal meaning of the word is !), I've never heard this term until today. Is it just 'files' ?

  On 11/28/2010 at 11:55 PM, mcbpete said:

What the hell are cables (well obviously I know what the normal meaning of the word is !), I've never heard this term until today. Is it just 'files' ?

letters/messages sent by electronic means over a cable. It's an old word. So you send it by cable, and it arrives as a cable if you now get the context.

http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/australian-government-adds-wikileaks-to-banned-website-list-585894

australia adds wikileaks to list of banned websites. disgusting.

edit: oops, article is from 2009. is wikileaks still banned?

  On 11/28/2010 at 11:55 PM, mcbpete said:

What the hell are cables (well obviously I know what the normal meaning of the word is !), I've never heard this term until today. Is it just 'files' ?

i am unfamiliar with such term as well.

would love to know

  On 11/29/2010 at 12:04 AM, kaini said:

http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/australian-government-adds-wikileaks-to-banned-website-list-585894

 

australia adds wikileaks to list of banned websites. disgusting.

edit: oops, article is from 2009. is wikileaks still banned?

my brother an i will move back to europe when australia fully assimilates with the borg, until then we want to leach as much as we can from this economy so we can have a pot of gold to take over with us.

you never know though, right minded aussies from all sectors of society may eventually stand up, especially as they keep putting the screws down on our finances whilst never giving anyone a pay increase. So a good sized write down in the value of residential housing ought to trigger a nice re-engagement with the political process here.

  On 11/29/2010 at 12:05 AM, ruiagnelo said:

  On 11/28/2010 at 11:55 PM, mcbpete said:

What the hell are cables (well obviously I know what the normal meaning of the word is !), I've never heard this term until today. Is it just 'files' ?

 

i am unfamiliar with such term as well.

would love to know

Comes from cablegram, a telegram sent by cable. The British used them extensively during the days of Empire. 'Cable' became synonymous with diplomatic messages.

funny how my first reaction on reading page 1 of this thread was to feel bad that this happened. Assange seems like a show-off, and in order for diplomacy to work it needs to happen behind closed doors. I don't have a problem with stuff being released years after the fact, but it sounds like some of this info could impact current affairs. Whatever, hopefully some good will come of it, somehow?

  On 11/29/2010 at 12:05 AM, ruiagnelo said:

  On 11/28/2010 at 11:55 PM, mcbpete said:

What the hell are cables (well obviously I know what the normal meaning of the word is !), I've never heard this term until today. Is it just 'files' ?

 

i am unfamiliar with such term as well.

would love to know

i believe cables in this context refers to a special internal form of communication that is not mean to be viewed by people on the outside

  On 11/29/2010 at 12:04 AM, delet... said:

  On 11/28/2010 at 11:55 PM, mcbpete said:

What the hell are cables (well obviously I know what the normal meaning of the word is !), I've never heard this term until today. Is it just 'files' ?

 

letters/messages sent by electronic means over a cable. It's an old word. So you send it by cable, and it arrives as a cable if you now get the context.

ah ok, that makes more sense

the word "cables" has all of a sudden started to get really annoying.

  On 11/29/2010 at 12:34 AM, lumpenprol said:

funny how my first reaction on reading page 1 of this thread was to feel bad that this happened. Assange seems like a show-off, and in order for diplomacy to work it needs to happen behind closed doors. I don't have a problem with stuff being released years after the fact, but it sounds like some of this info could impact current affairs. Whatever, hopefully some good will come of it, somehow?

I'm sort of the same opinion. I'm all for human rights violations, dirty deals and illegal shit being exposed but I have my doubts as to whether the diplomacy stuff going out is a good thing.

Agreed. I was nothing but disappointed when I found a picture of Muammar al-Qadhafi's voluptuous blonde Ukrainian nurse.

look at qadaffi... he's not doing too bad, all things considered

  On 11/29/2010 at 4:43 AM, futuregirlfriend said:

Agreed. I was nothing but disappointed when I found a picture of Muammar al-Qadhafi's voluptuous blonde Ukrainian nurse.

 

she doesn't look ukrainian. maybe it's a relative, her face is a little north africa.

in what kind of a twisted world would someone use a decimal place to seperate numbers in the hundreds of thousands. unless we are talking about 243 and a quarter messages.