WikiLeaks founder on Interpol's most wanted list... for rape?

Shoal07 wrote:

Some of the information released disclosed high value targets in the US that are poorly protected (Damns, power plants, etc). What sort of value does this have to the average American? What sort of value does this have to our enemies, to include foreign and domestic terrorists?

Potential enemies could work out the details of what's valuable by themselves if they have two braincells. I'll grant you a list makes it damn easy if your objective is to cause mischief, and also can provide targets you would overlook.

Shoal07 wrote:

Some of the information released disclosed high value targets in the US that are poorly protected (Damns, power plants, etc). What sort of value does this have to the average American? What sort of value does this have to our enemies, to include foreign and domestic terrorists?

My gut reaction is that as an average American, I expect DHS and other national security forces to protect those sites and assure me that I have nothing to fear during my everyday life. In doing so, such an act can also show terrorists that the cost of attacking such sites has little or no payoff, as those sites would be protected against such attacks. This may very well be a naive/idealistic viewpoint, though.

The more I think about it, though, the more I come to the idea that the leaks are documents that gov't officials have already read. So if they were already aware of low security around such points of interest, they should already be working to better protect those points. If anything, should an attack occur at one of said points, I would be hard-pressed to blame Wikileaks for revealing them as I would blame our own government for having already realized themselves that those are weakpoints and not doing anything about them in the first place.

Scratched wrote:
Shoal07 wrote:

Some of the information released disclosed high value targets in the US that are poorly protected (Damns, power plants, etc). What sort of value does this have to the average American? What sort of value does this have to our enemies, to include foreign and domestic terrorists?

Potential enemies could work out the details of what's valuable by themselves if they have two braincells. I'll grant you a list makes it damn easy if your objective is to cause mischief, and also can provide targets you would overlook.

Yes, they can potentially find these things on their own, but it takes time, resources, and risk. Instead, they get a nice little package with no expended time, resources, or risk.

WipEout wrote:
Shoal07 wrote:

Some of the information released disclosed high value targets in the US that are poorly protected (Damns, power plants, etc). What sort of value does this have to the average American? What sort of value does this have to our enemies, to include foreign and domestic terrorists?

My gut reaction is that as an average American, I expect DHS and other national security forces to protect those sites and assure me that I have nothing to fear during my everyday life. In doing so, such an act can also show terrorists that the cost of attacking such sites has little or no payoff, as those sites would be protected against such attacks. This may very well be a naive/idealistic viewpoint, though.

The more I think about it, though, the more I come to the idea that the leaks are documents that gov't officials have already read. So if they were already aware of low security around such points of interest, they should already be working to better protect those points. If anything, should an attack occur at one of said points, I would be hard-pressed to blame Wikileaks for revealing them as I would blame our own government for having already realized themselves that those are weakpoints and not doing anything about them in the first place.

How much money are you willing to spend? America is HUGE, and has a lot of critical points (imagine if someone purposefully blew the levies in New Orleans, no warning, no chance for evacuation). You cannot build a fortress, so we have to make trade offs on what gets a high level of protection and what does not. Even stuff we want to protect may not be possible or feasible (a levy might be hundreds of miles long). Risk management is all about spending money on the areas where it's feasible. If you want to protect everything, the size of the force and the resources expended would be enormous.

A whole lot of those "sites" aren't even in US. To me it seems as a misguided application of American "Imperialism", if you will. Essentially, every part of the world where our corporations do business can be considered within a "sphere of the vital interests".

The way I view the disclosure of these "sites" -- it's a warning short from Assange. He means to illustrate that if They lean on him or Wikileaks too heavily, he has information at his disposal which, while not "placing lives at risk" (a pipeline junction in Siberia?? seriously??), will make US uncomfortable enough to think twice.

An interesting thought from the other day:

This leak is chickensh*t. I mean, this stuff is classified secret. That's nothing. It's embarrassing, it's awkward, but its content is not particularly surprising. It's the gristle from which the sausage of diplomacy has been made for centuries.

So why was it leaked? And why was it leaked as a giant dump of stuff, rather than, you know, having the source pick specific pieces that were actually really important for the public to know about? Would the leaker have leaked this stuff if a convenient outlet like wikileaks wasn't available? If so, to whom? And would they have actually wanted it?

In short: The guy who leaked this stuff clearly didn't have time to read everything he leaked. Would he have thought it was important enough to leak if he'd not had an organization to send it to which could clean it up—if he'd had to find the important pieces himself? And if he wouldn't have leaked it in that case, should he have leaked it at all?

And, of course, that leads to: If wikileaks encourages people to leak stuff irresponsibly (i.e. without finding something specific they think the public needs to know) "because something important *might* be in there", is it doing the world a disservice?

I don't know.

Oh wow, so MasterCard payments have been disrupted as well by the DDOS attacks.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/tec...

How many people here are employed with companies that use MasterCard?

edit:
I also noticed that gamerswithjobs.com sells things through paypal where one of the payment options is MasterCard.

Wikileaks didn't leak a single thing. They published leaks. Last time I checked it was the leaking bit that was illegal, not the publishing. It certainly is in the States where they're calling for Assange's head. I guess this means they're not going to make a movie about him starring Robert Redford or Dustin Hoffman.

In fairness, by taking the leaks and redacting anything dangerous before publishing, Wikileaks have been far more responsible than those who leaked the cables in the first place.

Curious how Visa and Mastercard blocked payments to Assange. Almost like they're buddy-buddy with the government or something.

Shoal07 wrote:
I wrote:

I didn't say WikiLeaks withholds sensitive and justifiable information, only that it claims to do so. If that means there is stuff they didn't release, then it's worth something. Not much, but something.

Not really. The word of a man who's actions and words are pure anti-American government get's little trust from me that he's looking out for any American interests.

99% is less than 100%. If he's only released 99% of what he's got, that's 1% that's been kept secret. Unless you're going to question the validity of the information - which our government has never disputed - it doesn't matter if he loves America or not. 99% remains less than 100%.

No matter how bad WikiLeaks appears, it could be worse. By eliminating WikiLeaks, we roll the dice and risk getting something worse. That's my only point. Are you really going to dispute that? Are you going to say that WikiLeaks is not just a bad thing, but that it could not possibly be worse? That no matter what might replace it, that thing will be better?

Shoal, this seems very basic to me and it's not worth arguing over. If this is really the hill you want to stand on then sure, we can say WikiLeaks is the worst thing ever. I'm a little confused as to why this is such a sticking point with you. Perhaps you could explain it to me, or we could move on. There are more interesting things to discuss here.

Hypatian:

And why was it leaked as a giant dump of stuff, rather than, you know, having the source pick specific pieces that were actually really important for the public to know about? Would the leaker have leaked this stuff if a convenient outlet like wikileaks wasn't available? If so, to whom? And would they have actually wanted it?

Grossly incorrect. Wikileaks claimed to be in possession of 250,000 cables, of which less than 1,000 was actually published to cablegate.wikilieaks.org.

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

Hypatian:

And why was it leaked as a giant dump of stuff, rather than, you know, having the source pick specific pieces that were actually really important for the public to know about? Would the leaker have leaked this stuff if a convenient outlet like wikileaks wasn't available? If so, to whom? And would they have actually wanted it?

Grossly incorrect. Wikileaks claimed to be in possession of 250,000 cables, of which less than 1,000 was actually published to cablegate.wikilieaks.org.

That's exactly his point, though. By "the leaker" he doesn't mean WikiLeaks, but the informant in the US Government/Military who gave them the information. Someone gave WikiLeaks two hundred and fifty thousand cables worth of information. Why forward them everything instead of just what they thought was important?

WikiLeaks was clearly willing to sort through all that information to figure out what was worth releasing and what wasn't. But who else would want that large amount of raw, unsorted government data that may or may not have a good amount of useful information in it? If you forwarded them to, say, a newspaper, would someone have gone through and read all 250k cables trying to figure out what was useful and what wasn't? Or would someone have gone through a thousand or so, found little of worth, and basically ignored the rest of it, seeing it as a massive pile of largely irrelevant classified information?

LobsterMobster wrote:

Curious how Visa and Mastercard blocked payments to Assange. Almost like they're buddy-buddy with the government or something.

Shoal07 wrote:
I wrote:

I didn't say WikiLeaks withholds sensitive and justifiable information, only that it claims to do so. If that means there is stuff they didn't release, then it's worth something. Not much, but something.

Not really. The word of a man who's actions and words are pure anti-American government get's little trust from me that he's looking out for any American interests.

99% is less than 100%. If he's only released 99% of what he's got, that's 1% that's been kept secret. Unless you're going to question the validity of the information - which our government has never disputed - it doesn't matter if he loves America or not. 99% remains less than 100%.

No matter how bad WikiLeaks appears, it could be worse. By eliminating WikiLeaks, we roll the dice and risk getting something worse. That's my only point. Are you really going to dispute that? Are you going to say that WikiLeaks is not just a bad thing, but that it could not possibly be worse? That no matter what might replace it, that thing will be better?

Shoal, this seems very basic to me and it's not worth arguing over. If this is really the hill you want to stand on then sure, we can say WikiLeaks is the worst thing ever. I'm a little confused as to why this is such a sticking point with you. Perhaps you could explain it to me, or we could move on. There are more interesting things to discuss here.

It's amazing how you place little faith in your Government but a whole lot in a megalomaniac. I don't trust what Assange says he does, we have no idea if he vetted anything (actually leaked documents are showing he probably didn't) nor do we have any evidence that he held back any information or has additional information, it could all be a lie. That thought doesn't seem to cross people's mind unless we substitute "Assange" with "Government". The only evidence I have that Assange tried to protect sources is that he (or a program) went through and removed names. Hardly an effective technique to safeguard people's identities.

My point isn't all the other words you're trying to put in my mouth, the point is why do you believe anything Assange says he's doing to "protect" anything, especially when he openly appears to harbor a grudge specifically against the US.

Shoal07 wrote:

My point isn't all the other words you're trying to put in my mouth, the point is why do you believe anything Assange says he's doing to "protect" anything, especially when he openly appears to harbor a grudge specifically against the US.

I think that's a little liberal use of the word "grudge" to say that he has a grudge against the US. He's been very public about his feelings on America's wars. I don't think he hates America writ large. Even if he did that doesn't automatically mean he's incapable of keeping secret things that need to be secret.

Shoal07 wrote:

It's amazing how you place little faith in your Government but a whole lot in a megalomaniac. I don't trust what Assange says he does, we have no idea if he vetted anything (actually leaked documents are showing he probably didn't) nor do we have any evidence that he held back any information or has additional information, it could all be a lie. That thought doesn't seem to cross people's mind unless we substitute "Assange" with "Government". The only evidence I have that Assange tried to protect sources is that he (or a program) went through and removed names. Hardly an effective technique to safeguard people's identities.

My point isn't all the other words you're trying to put in my mouth, the point is why do you believe anything Assange says he's doing to "protect" anything, especially when he openly appears to harbor a grudge specifically against the US.

I don't particularly like Assange or think that what he is doing is responsible, but I do think that a number of important lines have been crossed in the measures taken to stop his activity. Even if we can agree that Assange's activity constituted a gross endangerment of American interests and welfare (and I'm at least partially willing to grant that), making international criminal proceedings on rape into a transparent farce, destroying the meaning of property and due process, and making a mockery of the rule of law seems, at least to me, a disproportionate reaction.

Paleocon wrote:
Shoal07 wrote:

It's amazing how you place little faith in your Government but a whole lot in a megalomaniac. I don't trust what Assange says he does, we have no idea if he vetted anything (actually leaked documents are showing he probably didn't) nor do we have any evidence that he held back any information or has additional information, it could all be a lie. That thought doesn't seem to cross people's mind unless we substitute "Assange" with "Government". The only evidence I have that Assange tried to protect sources is that he (or a program) went through and removed names. Hardly an effective technique to safeguard people's identities.

My point isn't all the other words you're trying to put in my mouth, the point is why do you believe anything Assange says he's doing to "protect" anything, especially when he openly appears to harbor a grudge specifically against the US.

I don't particularly like Assange or think that what he is doing is responsible, but I do think that a number of important lines have been crossed in the measures taken to stop his activity. Even if we can agree that Assange's activity constituted a gross endangerment of American interests and welfare (and I'm at least partially willing to grant that), making international criminal proceedings on rape into a transparent farce, destroying the meaning of property and due process, and making a mockery of the rule of law seems, at least to me, a disproportionate reaction.

It seems to more so confirm the need for wikileaks.

boogle wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
Shoal07 wrote:

It's amazing how you place little faith in your Government but a whole lot in a megalomaniac. I don't trust what Assange says he does, we have no idea if he vetted anything (actually leaked documents are showing he probably didn't) nor do we have any evidence that he held back any information or has additional information, it could all be a lie. That thought doesn't seem to cross people's mind unless we substitute "Assange" with "Government". The only evidence I have that Assange tried to protect sources is that he (or a program) went through and removed names. Hardly an effective technique to safeguard people's identities.

My point isn't all the other words you're trying to put in my mouth, the point is why do you believe anything Assange says he's doing to "protect" anything, especially when he openly appears to harbor a grudge specifically against the US.

I don't particularly like Assange or think that what he is doing is responsible, but I do think that a number of important lines have been crossed in the measures taken to stop his activity. Even if we can agree that Assange's activity constituted a gross endangerment of American interests and welfare (and I'm at least partially willing to grant that), making international criminal proceedings on rape into a transparent farce, destroying the meaning of property and due process, and making a mockery of the rule of law seems, at least to me, a disproportionate reaction.

It seems to more so confirm the need for wikileaks.

The disproportionality does seem to add credence to the argument that we have reason to fear our government. I'm not sure it justifies the actions of Assange or Wikileaks, but it doesn't help.

So Assange is getting the terrorist treatment... They found him real fast too.

Shoal07 wrote:
Scratched wrote:
Shoal07 wrote:

Some of the information released disclosed high value targets in the US that are poorly protected (Damns, power plants, etc). What sort of value does this have to the average American? What sort of value does this have to our enemies, to include foreign and domestic terrorists?

Potential enemies could work out the details of what's valuable by themselves if they have two braincells. I'll grant you a list makes it damn easy if your objective is to cause mischief, and also can provide targets you would overlook.

Yes, they can potentially find these things on their own, but it takes time, resources, and risk. Instead, they get a nice little package with no expended time, resources, or risk.

These are the people who turned jetliners into cruise missiles. They're smart enough to figure out things out. Besides, it doesn't take much smarts to strap on an explosive vest, jump on a bus or subway car or take a stroll through the Mall of America, which is something that would actually be happening if we were facing a real threat.

That's the thing. All the big targets are obvious. It doesn't take much to figure out the "soft" targets.

OG, the cynic in me says that it's not about you or me getting caught up in the blast at Mall of America. It's about Someone Else Who's Real Important being killed as a jet airliner hits his office tower, or being forced to watch his company's valuation plummet as the whole market knee-jerks because a pipeline relay station in Syberia was bombed.

OG_slinger wrote:
Shoal07 wrote:
Scratched wrote:
Shoal07 wrote:

Some of the information released disclosed high value targets in the US that are poorly protected (Damns, power plants, etc). What sort of value does this have to the average American? What sort of value does this have to our enemies, to include foreign and domestic terrorists?

Potential enemies could work out the details of what's valuable by themselves if they have two braincells. I'll grant you a list makes it damn easy if your objective is to cause mischief, and also can provide targets you would overlook.

Yes, they can potentially find these things on their own, but it takes time, resources, and risk. Instead, they get a nice little package with no expended time, resources, or risk.

These are the people who turned jetliners into cruise missiles. They're smart enough to figure out things out. Besides, it doesn't take much smarts to strap on an explosive vest, jump on a bus or subway car or take a stroll through the Mall of America, which is something that would actually be happening if we were facing a real threat.

Thank goodness we have the right people on the job.

IMAGE(http://blog.80millionmoviesfree.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/observe-and-report.jpg)

IMAGE(http://www.blogcdn.com/blog.moviefone.com/media/2009/01/blart.jpg)

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

OG, the cynic in me says that it's not about you or me getting caught up in the blast at Mall of America. It's about Someone Else Who's Real Important being killed as a jet airliner hits his office tower, or being forced to watch his company's valuation plummet as the whole market knee-jerks because a pipeline relay station in Syberia was bombed.

You're not thinking creatively enough. We're in the midst of the biggest spending cycle in America, the Christmas holidays. Now imagine that there were another 20 or so terrorists in country now (similar to the size of the 9/11 attacks). Instead of them taking over planes, imagine that they spread out to different cities and randomly blew themselves up in crowded shopping malls a few at a time.

How long do you think it would take before those attacks had a significant effect on our economy? How long before people started thinking twice before running to the local mall to finish up their shopping list?

Someone just got themselves placed on a watch list.

All joking aside, that's why the upheaval over the leaks is so silly. It wouldn't take much to drive 10 trucks of explosives up to a bunch of Black Friday-sized sales, kill or maim thousands of people and create a panic.

DSGamer wrote:

All joking aside, that's why the upheaval over the leaks is so silly. It wouldn't take much to drive 10 trucks of explosives up to a bunch of Black Friday-sized sales, kill or maim thousands of people and create a panic.

Thousands? Have you forgotten the DC sniper? Those guys only killed ten people and freaked out an entire metro region for weeks. It doesn't take much.

Shoal07 wrote:

It's amazing how you place little faith in your Government but a whole lot in a megalomaniac...My point isn't all the other words you're trying to put in my mouth, the point is why do you believe anything Assange says he's doing to "protect" anything, especially when he openly appears to harbor a grudge specifically against the US.

I edited out most of the post to the main point I wanted to respond to.

I can't speak for everyone, but for myself in this case, there's two key differences between the US Gov and Assange. One of them (the gov) has repeatedly broken its promises, violated the principles of the Constitution, and has morphed itself drastically in the last decade into a more openly authoritarian entity. The other (Assange) hasn't broken my trust yet, and seems angry at the US Gov for many of the same reasons I am.

Seems pretty easy to see why, for now, I'm more willing to trust Assange than the government. I fully acknowledge that I don't know everything going on, nor what will happen in the future. All I can go off of is what I do know.

DSGamer wrote:

All joking aside, that's why the upheaval over the leaks is so silly.

It's not about what Wikileaks has revealed, it's about what they might reveal next. They've demonstrated that they can get to sensitive material or more accurately have sensitive material passed along to them. What's been leaked has been fairly mundane, but the government's clearly attempting to shut Wikileaks down before they can really drop a bombshell. I liken it to when the head of a high-end call girl service gets busted and every A-list celebrity and politician starts to panic that the madame's going to name names.

Rat Boy wrote:

It's not about what Wikileaks has revealed, it's about what they might reveal next. They've demonstrated that they can get to sensitive material or more accurately have sensitive material passed along to them.

That's it though, it's not 'wikileaks getting to sensitive material', but material getting to them, which I think is a subtle but important difference. It's not as though Assagne is Ethan Hunt breaking into high security to steal files and then leaking people's names to put them in danger (although your government does that anyway).

http://www.datacell.com/news.php

DataCell ehf who facilitates those payments towards Wikileaks has decided to take up immediate legal actions to make donations possible again.

The poison pill has a 256-key encryption. Real question is what's in it (it's 1.4 gigs) and when the threshold is for unlocking it.

I like how that article talks about 'stopping' an encrypted archive that's spread to everyone, as though there was a self-destruct on it or the key, rather than just a key that once it's found can't be unfound (see also: AACS and HDCP keys).

There are proof of concept projects to break encryption. For 56 bit it took 250 days, 64 bit (256 times more key candidates) it took 1757 days (7 times longer). Processing power available is only going up, so eventually a 256 bit key will be broken, although the breaking time frame might make it little more than a historical document by the time it's opened.

I wonder if there is enough global interest in a little SETI@Home style project. It's safe to assume that all of the governments in the world are working on cracking that archive. That new fastest Chinese supercomputer... Hmm.