Unlimited Wikileaks Shenanigans

[Jasper]

But I thought we knew there was illegal torturing going on, criminal negligence on the Deepwater Horizon, and that the economic crisis was an affair of blatant thievery.  I mean, was that up for debate?

Apparently.  Torture is only a crime when smudgy brown people do it. Deepwater happened because of excessive government regulation and the economic crisis was caused by socialists, whom the banks are heroically defeating by making their profits as big as possible, through any means.

Also said documents may, if they are indeed part of the insurance file, be of sufficient quality to be presented to the ICC in order to start criminal proceedings and cause many US and European officials and CEOs to have problems holidaying in Belgium.

I think we have some kind of law

oh shit

we have a law against using evidence that was obtained illegally.  You just gave me a terrible notion that the reason this is happening to Assange is to make wikileaks evidence illegal to acquire, and make them inadmissible as evidence.

[Cain]

I'm not sure where the ICC stands on that, however many European countries do not have laws against illegally collected evidence being inadmissable, or if they do they are of a lower strength than US laws.

Then again, the ICC is still debating the legal definition of the "crime of aggression", which seems to have been set pretty thoroughly by the Nuremburg Trials, so, you know, even if evidence was dropped off with them, it would probably take 200+ years for them to get around to defining the charges.

[Jasper]

Ok, well I'm not sure whether that's good or bad news.

I swear, we need a Department of Vigilante Justice.  They could just set them loose with maybe a few hundred million dollars a year to cover damages.  It would be great.

[Triple Zero]

when it comes down to it, assange isn't even the target


Like you know a thousand /b/tards will all prank call the same phone number all day until the target goes completely berserk? And the reason they can get away with it is because of swarm logic... you can waste your resources going after the one /b/tard who you snagged with caller ID. You can even throw him in jail. But it does nothing to deter the swarm, which hides behind numbers and anonymity.

Assange represents a flaw in the system. In memetic terms, he's represents a feedback loop - some of the system's information has been purposely hidden in a way that it is not subject to external feedback. Assange just managed to dredge it up to the surface where it's subjected to the same mechanisms that are normally focused on public actions. They can kill Assange, but it won't stop the leak phenomenon. Just like how they can nuke the pirate bay, but it won't stop Internet piracy. He succeeded at creating an enduring structure which makes private information subject to public commentary. Now he's just the meat associated with it and is not in any way necessary for the process to continue. They can go ahead and kill him but another version of him will eventually rise to the top. The response to him must be a systemic response. Hopefully the response will be to operate in a more transparent way, to be aware that even private comments have a way of ending up on the internet, so maybe we should just play it clean.

psst write this up as a proper blog entry and get a zillion hits + lots of love + PR + etcetc /hint

[Jasper]

Wha 'e said.

[Triple Zero]

The Pirate Party in Switzerland has made some mirrors of the site supposedly at: wikileaks.ch

Yes, by now there are hundreds, if not thousands of mirrors all over the place.

I checked on how to set up such a mirror, not really because I wanted to actually do so [I might, but if I were I'd KMFMS about it], but rather because I figured getting a ZIP-file with Wikileaks on it would make for a nice bunch of easily searchable text-documents for all sorts of analysis. Unfortunately it doesn't quite work like that, they ask you to set up an SSH account with the Wikileaks public SSH-key**, then mail them the IP and the path stuff should be uploaded to, and they'll take care of the rest, uploading the data and documents, and updating the stuff when new info becomes available, as well as keeping a list of other mirrors on your mirror. Pretty solid system.

**this is a key pair, a private key generated together with a public key. result of this is that Wikileaks is the only one having the private key, and using the public key on your SSH server, the SSH thing can confirm it is Wikileaks ("entity in possession of the private key") without knowing the private key itself. [and FYI no this is most probably not the same key that would decrypt the AES256 insurance file--I really wonder how many people are trying to bruteforce that thing right now btw]

[Triple Zero]

Julian Assange to be questioned by British police
This article appeared on p1 of the Main section section of the Guardian on Tuesday 7 December 2010. It was published on guardian.co.uk at 00.26 GMT on Tuesday 7 December 2010. It was last modified at 02.21 GMT on Tuesday 7 December 2010. It was first published at 21.32 GMT on Monday 6 December 2010

(emphasis mine. click the link for the original article, which has references/links to related articles and documents in the text that I couldn't be bothered to copy)

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, is expected to appear in a UK court today after his lawyers said he would meet police to discuss a European arrest warrant from Sweden relating to alleged sexual assaults.

As the legal net continued to close around the whistleblowers' website and the US attorney general, Eric Holder, said he had authorised "a number of things to be done" to combat the organisation, Assange appeared to be reconciling himself to a lengthy personal court battle to avoid extradition to Sweden.

Jennifer Robinson, a solicitor with Finers Stephens Innocent, which represents the Australian freedom of information campaigner, told the Guardian: "We have a received an arrest warrant [related to claims in Sweden]. We are negotiating a meeting with police."

Another lawyer representing Assange, Mark Stephens, added: "He has not been charged with anything. We are in the process of making arrangements to meet the police by consent, in order to facilitate the taking of that question and answer that is needed. It's about time we got to the end of the day and we got some truth, justice and rule of law."

Stephens explained that the interview would happen in the "foreseeable future" but he could not give a precise time. According to other sources, it is thought that Assange would appear before a court to negotiate bail .

Assange is seeking supporters to put up surety and bail for him. He said he expected to have to post bail of between £100,000 and £200,000 and would require up to six people offering surety, or risked being held on remand.

In recent days, Assange, 39, has told friends he is increasingly convinced the US is behind Swedish prosecutors' attempts to extradite him for questioning on the assault allegations.

He has said the original allegations against him were motivated by "personal issues" but that Sweden had subsequently behaved as "a cipher" for the US.

Assange has also said that he declined to return to Sweden to face prosecutors because he feared he would not receive a fair trial, and prosecutors had requested that he be held in solitary confinement and incommunicado.

This weekend Assange said he was exhausted by the effort of running his defence against the allegations in Sweden and the release of the US embassy cables at the same time, as well as running WikiLeaks itself, which has split since some supporters became disaffected over Assange's handling of the Afghanistan war logs. Once he turns himself in to the police, he will have to appear before a magistrates' court within 24 hours, where he will seek release on bail. A full hearing of his extradition case would have to be heard within 28 days.

In the past, Assange has dismissed the allegations, stating on Twitter: "The charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing."

Last week Stephens added: "This appears to be a persecution and a prosecution. It is highly irregular and unusual for the Swedish authorities to issue [an Interpol] red notice in the teeth of the undisputed fact that Mr Assange has agreed to meet voluntarily to answer the prosecutor's questions."

Stephens has said that the claims stem from a "dispute over consensual but unprotected sex". While the latest US diplomatic cables released on WikiLeaks have been stirring international political alarm and recriminations, Assange is understood to have been staying out of public sight in south-east England.

Prosecutors in Sweden issued a warrant for his arrest last month but it could not be enforced because of a technical blunder. The Australian's details were also added to Interpol's most wanted website after a red notice was issued, alerting police worldwide to his status.

Detectives in Sweden want to question Assange after two women claimed they were sexually assaulted by him when he visited the country in August. The country's supreme court upheld an order to detain him for questioning after he appealed against two lower court rulings.

The sex assault claims may be Assange's most pressing legal issue, but it may not be the only legal complication he faces as several countries consider the impact of his diplomatic cable disclosures.

He has come under growing pressure after WikiLeaks started publishing excerpts from a cache of 250,000 secret messages.

In the US, the level of political vituperation has become more vengeful. The former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has described Assange as "an anti-American operative with blood on his hands". The senior Republican Mike Huckabee said that "anything less than execution is too kind a penalty".

Meanwhile WikiLeaks has been forced to move to a Swiss host after being dumped by US internet companies as it comes under siege from cyber attacks.

PostFinance, the financial arm of the Swiss post office, said it had closed Assange's account after he provided "false information".

"PostFinance has ended its business relationship with WikiLeaks founder Julian Paul Assange," the bank said in a statement. "The Australian citizen provided false information regarding his place of residence during the account opening process."

Last night hackers claimed they had targeted the firm's websites in support of WikiLeaks.

MasterCard also said it would block payments to WikiLeaks, according to the CNET News website, a move that will dry up another source of funds for the website.

"MasterCard is taking action to ensure that WikiLeaks can no longer accept MasterCard-branded products," a spokesman for MasterCard Worldwide said yesterday.

The credit card firm said it was cutting off payments because WikiLeaks was engaging in "illegal activity". "MasterCard rules prohibit customers from directly or indirectly engaging in or facilitating any action that is illegal," its spokesman, Chris Monteiro said. The online credit firm PayPal has already refused to allow payments through for WikiLeaks.

In Sweden, a WikiLeaks spokesman called for action against those who have attacked Assange. "There have been death threats to his life and incitement to murder," he added.

Canadian newspapers reported that police are investigating whether there is evidence to proceed against a former adviser to the prime minister after he called for Assange to be killed.

Tom Flanagan, now a professor at the University of Calgary, suggested on television last week that Assange "should be assassinated, actually", adding: "I think Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something."

Flanagan later retracted his statement saying it was not meant seriously.

In Assange's homeland, however, Australian police are investigating whether he has broken any laws.

[Jasper]

fingers crossed for him. 

Eric Holder, you dirty swine.  I cannot stand this.  He's been charged with nothing, yet the Attorney General is "combating" him.

Sounds pretty legit.

[bugmenоt]

WikiLeaks: British Police Arrest Assange

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been arrested by British police over sexual assault claims in Sweden.
The 39-year-old Australian was detained by Scotland Yard officers at around 9.30am after he voluntarily went to a police station in central London.
He is expected to appear before City of Westminster magistrates within the next few hours.
Police contacted Mr Assange's lawyer last night after receiving a fresh European arrest warrant from the Swedish authorities, as anger grows in the US over the latest leaked embassy cables by the whistleblowing website.
The first warrant, issued last month, was not valid as officials had failed to fill in the form properly.
Labelling the move as a "political stunt", Mr Assange's solicitor Mark Stephens said his client wants to find out what allegations he faces so he can clear his name.
Two women in Sweden have claimed they were sexually attacked when Mr Assange visited the country in August. He denies the claims.
Mr Assange will appear before City of Westminster magistrates so a decision can be made about whether the warrant is appropriate for extradition.
Mr Stephens has warned any attempt to extradite will be resisted, "mainly on the grounds that he may be handed over to the Americans".
Sky News' US correspondent Greg Milam said officials in Washington are watching developments "very closely".
He added: "There is a growing clamour in the US for something to be done even if they're not completely sure what that should be.
"The big fear for everyone here is what comes next. What will be contained in the next leak of documents and how damaging will that be?"
Yesterday, Prime Minister David Cameron's national security adviser ordered all government departments to provide "assurances" about the quality of IT security.

source:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Julian-Assange-WikiLeaks-Founder-Meets-Police-In-Britain-Over-Sexual-Assault-Claims-In-Sweden/Article/201012115849036?lpos=UK_News_Carousel_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15849036_Julian_Assange:_WikiLeaks_Founder_Meets_Police_In_Britain_Over_Sexual_Assault_Claims_In_Sweden

[geekdad]

when it comes down to it, assange isn't even the target

You mean, in order for those in authority to maintain the status quo he shouldn't be the target. The system he is setting up should be

Like you know a thousand /b/tards will all prank call the same phone number all day until the target goes completely berserk? And the reason they can get away with it is because of swarm logic... you can waste your resources going after the one /b/tard who you snagged with caller ID. You can even throw him in jail. But it does nothing to deter the swarm, which hides behind numbers and anonymity.

The thing is about that logic, is that it uses evolutionary logic. Only the dumbest ones get picked off, effectively making the swarm smarter and smarter. Authorities are training their own smart bomb, or from their point of view, malicious viral meme.

Assange represents a flaw in the system. In memetic terms, he's represents a feedback loop - some of the system's information has been purposely hidden in a way that it is not subject to external feedback. Assange just managed to dredge it up to the surface where it's subjected to the same mechanisms that are normally focused on public actions. They can kill Assange, but it won't stop the leak phenomenon. Just like how they can nuke the pirate bay, but it won't stop Internet piracy. He succeeded at creating an enduring structure which makes private information subject to public commentary. Now he's just the meat associated with it and is not in any way necessary for the process to continue. They can go ahead and kill him but another version of him will eventually rise to the top. The response to him must be a systemic response. Hopefully the response will be to operate in a more transparent way, to be aware that even private comments have a way of ending up on the internet, so maybe we should just play it clean.

I don't see Wikileaks or Julian as a flaws, and if you want to equate it to a memetic systems I see it as an autoimmune device for scrubbing corruption (undesirable parasitic memes) from an open and free society (the bigger more important and "good" memetic system).

To expand on your idea a bit and to provide further examples.

I'll call it a proto-system because it has some major flaws. We'll need to make it an analogy in line with something else very similar, which you do
mention, pirating. Wikileaks is the popular prototype, very much like Napster. It might have not been the first system to allow pirating, but it was popular for making it easy. Napster however had some major flaws, namely speed of transfer (since it was single source to single destination), centralization, closed source, single client, no and requirement to login. Then later came gnutella network, which corrected a few issues such as the download bottleneck, centralization, opening it's source, and allowing multiple host downloads. Then the next big thing was torrents, which solved more problems but brought back a few.

The "problem" though of easily sharing a large file with several thousand of your closest friends has been effectively solved.

"you can nuke the pirate bay" they already have. There used to be a site called "suprnova" (which incidentally was revived for a short time by piratebay guys). It was  threatened into closing. Then came mininova, isoHunt, and a few private ones (most that started during suprnova's heyday were then sued to either stop allowing it or stop in general). Then came pirate bay, and we all know their story.

I would like to restate as I sometimes ramble, Wikileaks is like early Napster. High profile, not extremely effective or efficient, but nonetheless a populizer of the idea. The meme of filesharing reached a critical mass.

You can follow the same path for Kopyleft ideas such as Open source, GPL, and creative commons.

His structure was obviously very flimsy, he didn't do due diligence when it came to his registrar, amazon, or his own personal offshore bank account (he chose one of the few banks that would cave to political pressure in Switzerland and didn't follow one of their main rules of having a Swiss address).

The next Wikileaks and it's people, and there will be a secession of both, won't be as stupid.

Basically, in memetic terms, the new autoimmune memetic system for cleaning undesirable memes reached critical mass and proven some effectiveness at accomplishing it's task. It's focus will now be evolving to be more effective.

Please note, by using the word meme I mean any idea that lodges itself into human heads, some being funny, desirable, undesirable, evil, pointless, or even ones that force it's user to do something.

[Cain]

My favorite leak by far has to be:

http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/01/09BEIJING22.html

Its all about the future of Chinese and US relations. Its a lot more optimistic than I expected.

China has been playing a long game, based on the US rise to power.  It isn't going to fuck it up now.

tl;dr version: China envisions rising to power much the way the USA did - building up economic power first, and translating that into military power later, when necessary.  China's military spending is huge, double digits of their budget each year and rising, but in real terms doesn't even start to match military spending by the old Soviet Union or the USA.

Anyway, part of America's rise to power was, when Britain was exhausted by a series of wars, finally recognized it and went about decolonization, it could hand over to the USA, knowing its core values and beliefs would be preserved, even if its power would not be, and a "special relationship" with the new, rising power it intended to hand over the reins to would ensure outsize political influence for decades to come.

Much in the same way, China emphasizes good relationships with the USA so it can leverage that relationship to position themselves as their obvious successors, their friend and ally, sharing many of their same qualities (ie wanting to make money)...a nice and orderly transition in the international system, which rarely ever sees systemic level changes without some kind of catastrophic war.  Which we do not want now nuclear weapons are an option on the table.

It probably wont work out that way.  However, it is one of the better scenarios, and the Anglo-American transition of power is of obvious interest to those within China who wish to see a "peaceful rise", of which there are many.

Incidentally, the historian Alfred W McCoy believes this transition could come as early as 2025, by which point China should have overtaken the USA in economic growth and technological expertise.  Nations hostile to the USA have control of much of the world's natural gas, and they are far more willing to do business with China and India, whose need for such energy resources is growing.  The US military is thinly dispersed and has shown itself to be not especially good at fighting guerrilla warfare against disparate cells and networks.  That will probably get worse if the US is in a decline, as the well studied phenomenon of "micro-militarism" takes over, the desire to lash out and punish an enemy, any enemy, to show you should still be feared, which often leads to a faster dissolution of the current ruling order.  The USA has a number of potential targets for such action, from the Swat Valley to Somalia.

[Lies]

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrested in sex case

This my friends is a sad day in history...

[East Coast Hustle]

We know. It has been since 1941.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

We know. It has been since 1941.

[LMNO]

Back to the leaks themselves:




Fast Company ran the newest leaks through wordcloud.  Kind of puts things in an interesting new perspective.