Anonymous and others start leaking

Does Sealand still exist? He should go there.

essay on one of the key ideas behind WikiLeaks:

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The leak, in other words, is only the catalyst for the desired counter-overreaction; Wikileaks wants to provoke the conspiracy into turning off its own brain in response to the threat. As it tries to plug its own holes and find the leakers, he reasons, its component elements will de-synchronize from and turn against each other, de-link from the central processing network, and come undone. Even if all the elements of the conspiracy still exist, in this sense, depriving themselves of a vigorous flow of information to connect them all together as a conspiracy prevents them from acting as a conspiracy.

http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-and-the-computer-conspiracy-%E2%80%9Cto-destroy-this-invisible-government%E2%80%9D/#

http://cryptome.org/0002/ja-conspiracies.pdf

I have no idea what that means.

and he's a "philosopher"

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I got a lot of funny looks four years ago when I started talking to people about Wikileaks.

 

Let’s just say some people were skeptical of the notion that volunteers from all across the world could come together to dump just insane amounts of confidential or even classified information onto an unsuspecting public.

 

No ads. So much agenda. No strings attached except the part where I’m on the run for the rest of my life.

 

Now here we are, millions upon millions of documents released into the Internet-connected world.

 

It is the 5th most terrifying website in the world - but Wikileaks isn’t anything like a commercial website. It is a community creation, written by unsuspecting volunteers failing to secure one confidential document at a time. If you’re in government or business there’s a good chance that you will soon become part of our community one way or another. And I’m writing today to ask you to protect and sustain Wikileaks.

 

Together, we can keep it free of charge and full of secrets. We can keep it open – you can use the information in Wikileaks any way you want. We can keep it growing – hustling knowledge everywhere, and imposing transparency on everyone.

 

Each year at this time, we reach out to ask you and others all across the diplomatic, business, intelligence and military community to help sustain our joint enterprise with a modest donation of 20, 35, 50,000 or more documents.

 

If you value Wikileaks as a source of information – and a source of inspiration – I hope you’ll choose to act right now.

 

All the best,

 

Julian Assange

 

Founder, Wikileaks

 

P.S. Wikileaks is about the power of people like us to do extraordinary things. People like you write Wikileaks, one word at a time. People like us populate it, thousands of documents at a time. It’s proof of our collective potential to change the world.

The one worry I have is that because there's so much information being released on a daily basis, unless they're saving the best 'til last, it's going to be impossible to keep a decent track of who's done what and who should be shamed/punished.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/30/wikileaks-cables-bradley-manning

I don't know if this article has been posted in here yet. A brief history and conversations with the alleged mole.

Apparently just a nerdy, disenfranchised, gay kid who wanted a bit of attention and a better world.

He reiterates my point up there:

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I'm sorry, there's so many its impossible for any one human to read all quarter-million and not feel overwhelmed and possibly desensitized.

If there aren't t-shirts with this guys face in the Che Guevera pose then you need to get on it and make a little bit of money.

That is the look of a man who knows that he is man with whom one should not fuck.

  On 12/1/2010 at 8:24 PM, chenGOD said:

 

That is the look of a man who knows that he is man with whom one should not fuck.

  On 12/1/2010 at 7:10 PM, the anonymous forumite said:

Putin on fire

I am sure he would have preferred to be likened with some Batman villains, like the Joker and Harley Quinn or Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

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In the pre-recorded interview with King – to be shown on CNN this evening – Putin echoed the dominant perception in Russia that the embassy cables were deliberately leaked by a faction in the US government or military.

 

"Some experts believe that somebody is deceiving WikiLeaks, that its reputation is being undermined in order for it to be used for political purposes," said Putin, apparently speaking from an office in Moscow. "Such an opinion is being expressed here."

This is something I don't think many supporters want to consider, that WL is susceptible to the same kind of manipulation as any other form of journalism that relies and relays information provided by anonymous third parties. In some senses WL is even more susceptible having no way to authenticate the source of the information because of the nature of their submission process. They do have the advantage of access to enough content to compare and analyze, but that in no way protects them from unknowingly being fed disinformation from the same sources as accurate information, nor does it protect them from an actor like the US crafting indistinguishable fakes and feeding it into the pipeline or using WL to their own ends.

  On 12/1/2010 at 8:35 PM, Drahken said:

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In the pre-recorded interview with King – to be shown on CNN this evening – Putin echoed the dominant perception in Russia that the embassy cables were deliberately leaked by a faction in the US government or military.

 

"Some experts believe that somebody is deceiving WikiLeaks, that its reputation is being undermined in order for it to be used for political purposes," said Putin, apparently speaking from an office in Moscow. "Such an opinion is being expressed here."

 

This is something I don't think many supporters want to consider, that WL is susceptible to the same kind of manipulation as any other form of journalism that relies and relays information provided by anonymous third parties. In some senses WL is even more susceptible having no way to authenticate the source of the information because of the nature of their submission process. They do have the advantage of access to enough content to compare and analyze, but that in no way protects them from unknowingly being fed disinformation from the same sources as accurate information, nor does it protect them from an actor like the US crafting indistinguishable fakes and feeding it into the pipeline or using WL to their own ends.

this has been Alex Jone's take on wikileaks from the very beginning. Although i do believe individually some of the leaks could be manipulated and delivered on purpose, i think the collateral murder video they leaked does nothing to help the USA's image.

IF they hadn't leaked that i'd be more likely to be skeptical of their other leaks

it could be a bit of both

ummm to create 250,000 faked documents? the collateral murder video? Responses such as smearing Assange with rape charges and the State Department's insistence that they are criminals?

I think there's enough right there to exempt WikiLeaks from the "being manipulated" accusations.

  On 12/1/2010 at 9:02 PM, Awepittance said:

  On 12/1/2010 at 8:35 PM, Drahken said:

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In the pre-recorded interview with King – to be shown on CNN this evening – Putin echoed the dominant perception in Russia that the embassy cables were deliberately leaked by a faction in the US government or military.

 

"Some experts believe that somebody is deceiving WikiLeaks, that its reputation is being undermined in order for it to be used for political purposes," said Putin, apparently speaking from an office in Moscow. "Such an opinion is being expressed here."

 

This is something I don't think many supporters want to consider, that WL is susceptible to the same kind of manipulation as any other form of journalism that relies and relays information provided by anonymous third parties. In some senses WL is even more susceptible having no way to authenticate the source of the information because of the nature of their submission process. They do have the advantage of access to enough content to compare and analyze, but that in no way protects them from unknowingly being fed disinformation from the same sources as accurate information, nor does it protect them from an actor like the US crafting indistinguishable fakes and feeding it into the pipeline or using WL to their own ends.

 

this has been Alex Jone's take on wikileaks from the very beginning. Although i do believe individually some of the leaks could be manipulated and delivered on purpose, i think the collateral murder video they leaked does nothing to help the USA's image.

IF they hadn't leaked that i'd be more likely to be skeptical of their other leaks

Ah but it doesn't have to be the US, any nation with access to compromising information could utilize WL provided they can get WL to release. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to dog the achievements WL has made or pass them off as some kind of puppet. I just don't agree with the position some supporters have of WL changing the game and tearing apart intelligence apparatus or being immune to the same kind of manipulation traditional forms of journalism are. WL is the kind of tool spooks have wet dreams about.

  On 12/1/2010 at 9:28 PM, chenGOD said:

ummm to create 250,000 faked documents? the collateral murder video? Responses such as smearing Assange with rape charges and the State Department's insistence that they are criminals?

I think there's enough right there to exempt WikiLeaks from the "being manipulated" accusations.

It doesn't have to be fake to be manipulative. Take the Valerie Plame incident in 2003. Imagine how Lewis Libby might have been able to utilize WL without there being any shred of evidence linking him or the Bush administration to their actions. Its not like WL can verify its Scooter on the other end. I'm not implying that WL would be complicit for their involvement, they wouldn't be, just that there is nothing protecting them from being utilized for the same evil ends they exist to try and expose.

Wow, some nasty stuff about a swedish political party turned up. basically members of the social democratic party offered to support US in the swedish public eye and their afghanistan effort if the US helped them with PR that would win them the election.

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nor does it protect them from an actor like the US crafting indistinguishable fakes and feeding it into the pipeline or using WL to their own ends.

If it's not fake, how is it manipulative? The US isn't going to release a bunch of fake documents that make it look like dogshit to the rest of the world, and what nation is going to spend time and effort to release 250,000 fakes?

I have my doubts that WikiLeaks would have released the Plame information, because look at the purpose it served Libby releasing it.

  On 12/1/2010 at 10:09 PM, chenGOD said:

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nor does it protect them from an actor like the US crafting indistinguishable fakes and feeding it into the pipeline or using WL to their own ends.

 

If it's not fake, how is it manipulative? The US isn't going to release a bunch of fake documents that make it look like dogshit to the rest of the world, and what nation is going to spend time and effort to release 250,000 fakes?

I have my doubts that WikiLeaks would have released the Plame information, because look at the purpose it served Libby releasing it.

The reporter was manipulated even though the information was true. And how exactly would WL have determined that publishing Valeries status was an act of retribution for the actions of her husband? Those allegations materialized after the release and were not even apparent to the reporter that broke the initial story at the time that information was disclosed to him.

not a DDOS after all, it would appear

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-website-cables-servers-amazon

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The United States struck its first blow against WikiLeaks after Amazon.com pulled the plug on hosting the whistleblowing website in an apparent reaction to heavy political pressure.

 

The main website and a sub-site devoted to the diplomatic documents were unavailable from the US and Europe on Wednesday, as Amazon servers refused to acknowledge requests for data.

 

The plug was pulled as the influential senator and chairman of the homeland security committee, Joe Lieberman, called for a boycott of the site by US companies.

 

"[Amazon's] decision to cut off WikiLeaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material," he said.

 

"I call on any other company or organisation that is hosting WikiLeaks to immediately terminate its relationship with them."

amazon has commercial servers? had no idea, seems like a bad idea to host such a website on the server of a huge corporation.

lol from that article

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He may be hiding in a cave with Osama bin Laden. We don't know where he is but I am confident we will find him in the near future. He will be arrested and brought to justice,"

it's cartoonish just how times Julain Assange has been linked to terrorism

  On 12/1/2010 at 11:28 PM, Awepittance said:

amazon has commercial servers? had no idea, seems like a bad idea to host such a website on the server of a huge corporation.

amazon is one of the biggest if not the biggest supplier of cloud computing/virtualised server services in the world.

http://aws.amazon.com/

edit: as distinct from content delivery networks like akamai.

All right, now that they've taken the gloves off (which it seems is what Assange wanted), I'm all about that MJ gif eating popcorn. Gonna sit back and watch the fireworks. I may not be a huge fan of Assange or what he's done, but I like the New World Order even less.