Wikileaks Embassy Cables

Originally posted by Ushgarak
And you will find that their legal experts say the activities are illegal. 'Lol' all you like; that was a contemptible response from you.

And 753, there you are just shit-stirring; one unbacked accusation and then one random attack just wanting to interpret things the way that suits your agenda.

Muddle-headed thinking is very common in situations such as these.

Originally posted by inimalist
so, no legal experts then?

Racking up the poor quality posts again there, I see. You really need to apply yourself better in these things. If you genuinely think there are no such legal experts, or that you have found many who think the opposite as opposed to there not being any who think it is so, you are just in fairy land., Again, this is a complete logical breakdown due to the emotive nature of the issue.

And like I say, take it up with the credit card companies. You are still being irrelevant if you bring in a moral argument.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Racking up the poor quality posts again there, I see. You really need to apply yourself better in these things. If you genuinely think there are no such legal experts, or that you have found many who think the opposite as opposed to there not being any who think it is so, you are just in fairy land., Again, this is a complete logical breakdown due to the emotive nature of the issue.

And like I say, take it up with the credit card companies. You are still being irrelevant if you bring in a moral argument.

yea, the onus is on me to prove your points

Oh good lord, there is so much wrong with that statement that I'm not even going to bother- you are clearly not interested in a rational discourse. You go on thinking what you think; my points above remain true.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Oh good lord, there is so much wrong with that statement that I'm not even going to bother- you are clearly not interested in a rational discourse. You go on thinking what you think; my points above remain true.

But you haven't given any citations to prove your obviously controversial claim. Why should he believe that it's true? After all it's simple and positive so supporting it should be trivial if it has any merit.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/latest-updates-on-leak-of-u-s-cables-day-10/

London Court Refuses to Grant Assange Bail

Neal Mann, a television producer for Britain’s Sky News, reports on Twitter from London that Julian Assange’s application for release on bail pending a hearing on extradition to Sweden has been rejected. He writes, “Julian Assange is remanded in custody, to appear in court on the 14th December.”

Earleir, Mr. Mann had written, “Julian Assange at his extradition hearing refused to consent to being returned to Sweden.” He also noted that three well-known people have offered “surety,” or personal guarantees to pay the court if the WikiLeaks founder is released on bail and absconds. They are: Ken Loach, an English filmmaker, John Pilger, an Australian investigative reporter, and Jemima Khan, an English socialite and journalist.

Assange’s Legal Team Offered to Pay $280,000 in Bail

Jonathan Rugman of Britain’s Channel 4 News, who was at Julian Assange’s bail hearing, reports on Twitter that his legal team offered to pay about $280,000 in bail: “Assange legal team told me they had been confident of bail as 180,000 quid on table. It wasn’t enough clearly.”

Mr. Rugman also wrote that two well-known media figures who appeared in court to offer personal guarantees on behalf of Mr. Assange told him they were disappointed at the decision to not grant him bail.

John Pilger, an Australian investigative journalist, called the case against Mr. Assange a “politically motivated travesty.” Ken Loach, an English filmmaker, told Mr. Rugman that the work of Wikileaks is in the public good.

this, to me, reeks of suspiscion. considering asange was only wanted for questioning, the idea that he couldn't be out on bail during his extradition procedure, especially with people willing to speak on his behalf, sort of pushes this into very questionable territory.

Sure, it is only another oddity on top of an already strange prosecution, but at what point do we say, "ok, everything isn't as it seems"

Originally posted by Ushgarak
you are clearly not interested in a rational discourse.

whatever you want to call what it is I'm interested in, the fact remains, I've provided many links throughout this thread that pertain to possible legal action against Wikileaks, including a video where an American lawyer talks about why not only the espionage charge, but also the stolen property charge, would be extremely difficult to pursue for the american gov.

your point about Visa's action being legally motivated is answered simply by this, Wikileaks has broken no law, nor have they been charged with anything. The moral point is simply that, they are willing to stand up for the rights of pornographers, who aren't breaking laws, to recieve payments, yet they do not support the rights of an organization supporting freedom of infomation, who have not been found guilty or even charged under any laws, to recieve the same payments.

but, please feel free to continue what you think is a rational discourse.

Originally posted by inimalist
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/latest-updates-on-leak-of-u-s-cables-day-10/

[b]London Court Refuses to Grant Assange Bail

Assange’s Legal Team Offered to Pay $280,000 in Bail

this, to me, reeks of suspiscion. considering asange was only wanted for questioning, the idea that he couldn't be out on bail during his extradition procedure, especially with people willing to speak on his behalf, sort of pushes this into very questionable territory.

Sure, it is only another oddity on top of an already strange prosecution, but at what point do we say, "ok, everything isn't as it seems" [/B]

Absolutely, as I said he'll be in the US soon

Originally posted by Free_Speech
Absolutely, as I said he'll be in the US soon

that remains to be seen. I still have no idea how they would justify getting him into American custody.

LOL, the radical dynamite thrower in me thinks it would be a good idea to throw a copy of Tor on my laptop, you know, just-in-case... 😎

Parsing the Impact of Anonymous

Evgeny Morozov

http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/12/09/parsing_the_impact_of_anonymous

I'm certain these attacks won't make any of these firms to reconside, strike peace with WikiLeaks, and offer them some vouchers in compensation. But could the attacks serve as a deterrent to other firms that have been considering dropping WikiLeaks?

Perhaps – but I don't know how many such companies there are. Right now, WikiLeaks is heavily dependent on Twitter and Facebook as their primary channels for external communications; it's these two firms that need to be watched most closely. (I don't expect many people call on Google to remove WikiLeaks from its search results - but let's wait & see...) So far, both Twitter and Facebook have been taking rather bold steps: they declined to stop doing business with WikiLeaks and actually removed the accounts of Anonymous (alas with little success, as new accounts were created within minutes). It's clear that should these two companies succumb to pressure and part with WikiLeaks this would result in a major online backlash.

...

I seriously doubt that the US authorities would be able to effectively go after Anonymous, in part because there are too many people involved, they are scattered all over the globe, and attributing cyber-attacks to them would be impossible (and would surely require reading a lot of chat transcripts from IRC). The only other possible policy response at their disposal is to make it easier to trace such attacks in the future – most likely by empowering the likes of NSA/Cyber Command. I would imagine that after the current cyber-attacks on credit card companies – even if they didn't cause much damage –this would enjoy bipartisan support in the US.

...

That said, I don't think that their attacks are necessarily illegal or immoral. As long as they don't break into other people's computers, launching DDoS should not be treated as a crime by default; we have to think about the particular circumstances in which such attacks are launched and their targets. I like to think of DDoS as equivalents of sit-ins: both aim at briefly disrupting a service or an institution in order to make a point. As long as we don't criminalize all sit-ins, I don't think we should aim at criminalizing all DDoS.

...

All in all, if the public continues to associate WikiLeaks with hacking and cyber-attacks – rather than, say, providing a safe platform for whistleblowers – this will greatly erode the goodwill that WikiLeaks has built over the course of the last few months by increasing their cooperation with media organizations and NGOs. That “normalization by third parties” allayed the concerns of many – but cyber-attacks may once again seed doubt in many people's minds.

the entire article is well written, and does provide a balanced look at what the consequences of anonymous might be, and how it relates to what Wikileaks is trying to do

EDIT: just to add, wikileaks has formally distanced itself from Anonymous and the attacks

Nobel Prize could protect WikiLeaks founder - Kremlin source

Non-governmental organizations should consider nominating Julian Assange for a Nobel Prize, a source in the Russian presidential administration has said.

Public and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) “should think of how to help” the founder of the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, the source said on Tuesday, as reported by Interfax news agency.

http://rt.com/politics/russia-assange-nobel-prize/

ha, sorry to just post like crazy, but lots of awesome stuff today:

Pakistani Media Reports Based on Apparently Fake Cables

Declan Walsh, a Guardian correspondent in Pakistan, reports that Pakistani newspapers have published articles that appear to be based on fake cables, which happen to confirm the hawkish fears of India held by Pakistan's military.

Mr. Walsh explains that a front-page story in The News, an English-language paper, and a sister publication in Urdu, Jang, "read like the most extraordinary revelations." He adds:

[quote]Citing the WikiLeaks cables, major Pakistani newspapers this morning carried stories that purported to detail eye-popping American assessments of India's military and civilian leaders. According to the reports, US diplomats described senior Indian generals as vain, egotistical and genocidal; they said India's government is secretly allied with Hindu fundamentalists; and they claimed Indian spies are covertly supporting Islamist militants in Pakistan's tribal belt and Balochistan.

The Guardian, however, has copies of the entire trove of more than 250,000 leaked American cables, and none of them contain these revelations.

Mr. Walsh explains:

If accurate, the disclosures would confirm the worst fears of Pakistani nationalist hawks and threaten relations between Washington and New Delhi. But they are not accurate.

An extensive search of the WikiLeaks database by the Guardian by date, name and keyword failed to locate any of the incendiary allegations. It suggests this is the first case of WikiLeaks being exploited for propaganda purposes. The controversial claims, published in four Pakistani national papers, were credited to the Online Agency, an Islamabad-based news service that has frequently run pro-army stories in the past. No journalist is bylined.

I guess it is no surprise that an oppressive state is using this as a propoganda opportunity, but still, certainly not an expected outcome.

EDIT: from the Lede blog at the NYT:

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/latest-updates-on-attacks-by-wikileaks-defenders/

Originally posted by inimalist
that remains to be seen. I still have no idea how they would justify getting him into American custody.

LOL, the radical dynamite thrower in me thinks it would be a good idea to throw a copy of Tor on my laptop, you know, just-in-case... 😎

http://abcnews.go.com/US/assange-lawyers-prepare-us-espionage-indictment/story?id=12362315

According to the Espionage Act, he may actually be in some trouble with the yanks for spying.

Now I've got to go back to terrorising Prince Charles.

Originally posted by 753
you don't use tor already? what's wrong with you?

I learned about it less than a week ago?

Originally posted by Liberator
http://abcnews.go.com/US/assange-lawyers-prepare-us-espionage-indictment/story?id=12362315

According to the Espionage Act, he may actually be in some trouble with the yanks for spying.

Now I've got to go back to terrorising Prince Charles.

interesting. It still doesn't answer why the espionage act might apply to Asange, especially considering he didn't retrieve the documents himself, but acted as an receptical for such documents

also, that one of the women went to the hospital after allegedly being attacked by Asange, or that they are both employed by wikileaks makes that whole thing more convoluted. Either there is some truth to their claim (or at least, the 2 women actually do think he assaulted them) or there is a plot far deeper against Asange.

More on this latter part later, I have an exam shortly, though, this article does sort of imply that such a plot isn't an unreasonable accusation against the American government. Placing 2 women inside of the Wikileaks organization is not a very difficult tactic for an intelligence agency

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/18/wikileaks/index.html

Originally posted by inimalist
I learned about it less than a week ago?

Originally posted by 753
shame on you

I am not the haxor

Originally posted by inimalist
I am not the haxor

Originally posted by 753
You don't need to be a hacker, you only need be healthily paranoid.

no, i do see the advantages, at this point its more of understanding how it is going to interact with my browsers and all that. tbh, i just havent had time to give it even a once over

besides, as far as computers go, Im already paranoid enough to not really use them for anything important. I have no money, so identity theft isn't a real concern, and as far as the illegal activity I do engage in, it would be easier to have someone tail me for a day than to check my interwebs

oooooo, someone is going to find out I'm a disgusting pervert, lol

Originally posted by inimalist
More on this latter part later, I have an exam shortly, though, this article does sort of imply that such a plot isn't an unreasonable accusation against the American government. Placing 2 women inside of the Wikileaks organization is not a very difficult tactic for an intelligence agency

****

ADDITION:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11968605

They're referring to some of the activists as 'hi-tech criminals' and/or 'cyber-criminals'.

Lol, I mean they are using botnets and hacking computers I just thought the term was funny.

On a side note, this seems to show that Anonymous has turned into a more political movement.

Also found it interesting that a 16 year old Dutch boy was arrested by authorities for possibly being involved in the "attacks".

A message posted on the 4chan image board, out of which Anonymous has grown, suggests dropping LOIC in favour of publicising information in the diplomatic cables that Wikileaks is releasing

Instead of "attacking" websites, they'd be releasing and publishing the leaks to a larger audience.