WikiLeaks

[Thorn]

Re: WikiLeaks

An interesting update on the Wikileaks drama, it looks like a lot of the insiders were not very happy with how things went down. Resignations, suspensions, ugly.

It is ironic that Assange is pissed off that someone is ‘leaking’ information he would rather not see in print, and that his first reaction is to suspend someone for giving an evasive answer.

[willasaywhat]

Re: WikiLeaks

I posted this to Twitter, but heck, I'll repost. How cool would the Wikileaks saga be as a motion picture? Hackers meets The Social Network, but with more explosions, action and tense politics. Cloak and dagger meetings in the darkness of the Internet. Classified information leakage, dark alley ways and parking garages, and then the best part: an ominous man with a crazy accent meets with a German guy to tell him off, only he's prepared and a battle of words sets off the climax of our story. In a scene not unlike the popularly meme'd "Downfall", one man sets in motion the making of a rebellion within a rebellion.

I'd watch it.

[streaker69]

Re: WikiLeaks

I posted this to Twitter, but heck, I'll repost. How cool would the Wikileaks saga be as a motion picture? Hackers meets The Social Network, but with more explosions, action and tense politics. Cloak and dagger meetings in the darkness of the Internet. Classified information leakage, dark alley ways and parking garages, and then the best part: an ominous man with a crazy accent meets with a German guy to tell him off, only he's prepared and a battle of words sets off the climax of our story. In a scene not unlike the popularly meme'd "Downfall", one man sets in motion the making of a rebellion within a rebellion.

I'd watch it.

Sounds like it would be almost as good as the movie Hackers except without the tits.

[willasaywhat]

Re: WikiLeaks

Sounds like it would be almost as good as the movie Hackers except without the tits.

I'm sure we could work those in there somewhere. I mean, the guy was accused of all kinds of things and who knows how they got the information. Artistic liberties, as it were.

[streaker69]

Re: WikiLeaks

I'm sure we could work those in there somewhere. I mean, the guy was accused of all kinds of things and who knows how they got the information. Artistic liberties, as it were.

Ok I'm on board with the idea as long as you can get that redhead russian spy we just deported to be in it.

[bascule]

Re: WikiLeaks

This thread seems relevant now...

[Thorn]

Re: WikiLeaks

Interpol has issued a Red Notice for Julian Assange on the rape charge in Sweden. A Red Notice is Interpol's "most wanted"-type flag, and indicates the issuing country has issued an international arrest warrant and will extradite from any other country where the subject has been detained.

http://www.interpol.int/public/data/...2010_52486.asp

While the Assange's supporters will undoubtedly claim this is a direct result of the lasted Wikileaks releases, it would seem that the warrant process has been working its way through the Swedish courts for several weeks.

According to Wired:

A Swedish judge on Nov. 18 ordered Assange “detained in absentia” to answer questions in a rape, coercion and molestation investigation in Stockholm. A court approved an international arrest warrant for the ex-hacker two days later, at which point Sweden reportedly applied to Interpol for the Red Notice. Assange’s lawyer appealed the detention order to the Svea Court of Appeal, but lost. Assange filed a new appeal Tuesday to the Swedish Supreme Court.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...at+Level%29%29

[bascule]

Re: WikiLeaks

It would appear some fuckt^H^H^H^H^Hscript ki^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H"hacktivist" has claimed responsibility for the DDoS against Wikileaks:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/...SSfeed_IWK_All

www.wikileaks.org--TANGO DOWN--for attempting to endanger the lives of our troops, 'other assets' & foreign relations

PS for me personally WL is a sideshow target. I am more interested in the big jihad recruiting and training sites

[theprez98]

Re: WikiLeaks

It would appear some fuckt^H^H^H^H^Hscript ki^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H"hacktivist" has claimed responsibility for the DDoS against Wikileaks:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/...SSfeed_IWK_All

Minor point, but if he actually wrote the tool (as he apparently claims), he wouldn't exactly be a script kiddie, no?

[bascule]

Re: WikiLeaks

I think we all saw this coming... Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman has reported that Amazon took Wikileaks offline after congressional staff questioned them about their relationship with the site. Wikileaks had been hosting mirrors and additional functionality on Amazon's EC2 "cloud" service:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/WikiLe....html?x=0&.v=1

[Thorn]

Re: WikiLeaks

I think we all saw this coming... Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman has reported that Amazon took Wikileaks offline after congressional staff questioned them about their relationship with the site. Wikileaks had been hosting mirrors and additional functionality on Amazon's EC2 "cloud" service:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/WikiLe....html?x=0&.v=1

No, it's no surprise. It wouldn't exactly be kosher for any American corporation to be hosting a site broadcasting U.S. Government secrets on servers physically located in the US. It would make the company itself liable to be an Accessories After The Fact to any criminal charges such as Espionage, Treason, etc., if they allowed the hosting to continue. Additionally, since charges like that are rarely attached to the corporation alone, it would most likely make the corporation's C-level people and the board of directors criminally liable as well. As soon as the corporate counsel heard about Wikileaks being hosted on Amazon, they were probably moving to cut off the account.

Aside from generating more "we're-martyrs-for-free-speech" headlines, I'm not even sure why Wikileaks would have considered moving to a US-based cloud service. If headlines were their sole motivation, it's probably a dud. This is the kind of thing that newspaper editors put on the back page. If they had other motivations, -such as it was expeditious and cheap- it was a stupid move, and they should have known it would be short-lived.

[theprez98]

Re: WikiLeaks

Possession of classified materials by unauthorized persons is a violation of the Espionage Act (18 U.S.C. § 793-794). By hosting Wikileaks' cables, Amazon would be complicit in violating the law. It's a simple decision, Wikileaks likely violated Amazon's terms of service and has nothing to do with "censorship" or "free speech."

[bascule]

Re: WikiLeaks

Possession of classified materials by unauthorized persons is a violation of the Espionage Act (18 U.S.C. § 793-794). By hosting Wikileaks' cables, Amazon would be complicit in violating the law. It's a simple decision, Wikileaks likely violated Amazon's terms of service and has nothing to do with "censorship" or "free speech."

It looks like Amazon is claiming it's a ToS violation for WikiLeaks hosting material they don't own. They're further claiming Lieberman is just grandstanding and had nothing to do with their decision.

It also appears some former WikiLeaks members who grew dissatisfied with Julian Assange and his cult of personality are forming their own independent whistleblowing site.

[theprez98]

Re: WikiLeaks

The thought that a single Senator could just call up a multi-billion dollar corporation and get a customer shut off like that just seems like such a ridiculous notion in the first place, yet it meets the "us against the Man" conspiracy theories that propel this religious-like fervor for Wikileaks. The claim is that the rape allegation against Assange is part of this U.S. conspiracy against him--somehow though I missed the diplomatic cable that discussed this conspiracy.

I've talked to a lot of people who share a view similar to this: "I generally support what Wikileaks is doing, but not how they're doing it." I read last night where someone said something to the notion of : "I'll fully support Wikileaks when Julian Assange is no longer in charge." I think a lot of people would agree with these things.

[bascule]

Re: WikiLeaks

A Swiss bank, PostFinance, recently froze one of Julian Assange's accounts. The result? Operation Payback launched a DDoS against their site, taking it down:

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/201...wt&twt=nytimes

Operation Payback, a group of Internet activists and hackers, took credit on Monday for crashing the Web Site of a Swiss Bank hours after it froze an account set up by the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange.

Writing on Twitter the group called on fellow hackers to attack the PostFinance.ch site and within minutes it was knocked offline.

Earlier on Monday, the same group of activists said they attacked PayPal, which froze a WikiLeaks account three days ago.