It might sound strange but maintaining malware should be considered a forensic measure. It helps track messages and attribute possible hacks by malware senders. Removing malware would block forensic analysis from knowing what data was potentially stolen or accessed.
Considering the potential espionage value of political operatives in the AKP [1], mightn't the inverse set be a good place to search for previously unidentified malware?
It's is known that Wikileaks release files with malware in it from the source they're leaking; only thing the would be news, which is unlikely in my opinion, is that someone is using Wikileaks for malware distribution.
Anyone viewing files like this should always treat them as extremely dangerous.
That's how it typically works with e-mail. I see this as an indication that perhaps someone who received the e-mail opened it (since it was part of the leak and not removed by a spam filter). This is why you probably you shouldn't run your own e-mail server if you clearly have no clue. Hiring the correct people does help keep your reputation intact.
[edit: down voting for actually answering a question factually - I would love for the open the attachment not to spread viruses - even anti-virus makers don't catch them all]
No. The zip file contains a JavaScript file that the user has to click on to get infected. Typically, the target is Windows, which hides the file extension of known file types by default. So the user ends up seeing a file called 'transactions 31234' (actual example), which has an icon depicting a document. Double-clicking on it causes the script to execute in Windows Script Host (WSH), which gives the script access to internal Windows APIs.
Can anyone explain if the title and vague explanation is really true? Malicious ZIPs implies to most that simply opening the ZIP, perhaps with a particular ZIP archive tool, is sufficient to cause infection. If this is the case then it's a 0-day and this fact needs reporting and analysing separately from all the noise regarding WikiLeaks.
That would be a nice ML application for fun and profit! Predict infected files. Cross with known infectations. Submit all others. Collect bounty?
In more seriousness. It still would be a hard problem. You never know for certain which files are safe and which harbour 0-day exploits. I guess you do know what textual contents in these emails are 'normal' and which are not (although it's in Turkish), so you could say obvious attempts at fishing-with-attachments are probably infected. Plus that not all virusscanners would recognize all infectations.
A more accurate summary would be "Wikileaks releases many AKP emails, including lots of received spam. Some of the spam has ZIP files containing malware."
So good question, and it looks like the answer is this isn't a novel attack, just normal malware-spam and an imprecise summary.
I read through about 1/2 of the AKP "leaks", it was a tremendous waste of time for anything but improving comprehension of Türkçe.
At a point in time, I truly believed Assange's goals were justice and transparency, now I am beginning to feel like he has his own political agenda, and is making sophomoric attempts to affect political change.
The AKP leak falls into that last line. The coup happened, it was frightening (I watched two F-16s fly over the city at mach1+ for six-hours, and the helicopter which landed at BJK was so close to us at a cafe we could see the faces of the guys inside when it banked), and they capitalized on that fear to increase their own credibility and to demonize the ruling party here.
Unlike previous leaks Assange and his gang didn't put ANY effort into vetting the "leak". He didn't have to, because within certain crowds Wikileaks is an indisputably trusted source. His perceived persecution makes him beyond reproach, and now any criticism can be blamed on a conspiracy theory.
Rapist? CIA/Sweden persecuting him. Bail jumper? CIA/Mi5 persecution. Committed the crime of jumping bail? CIA/Mi5. Hiding in Ecuador for years? Illegal CIA detention. His best buddy Jake Appelbaum is a rapist? CIA.
This amount of trust and credibility would certainly make it easier for him, or a foreign agent, to spread malware. It's probably just a slip-up on not scanning the emails before publishing. But if it isn't, what are the odds that they are traced back to Russian hackers?
There might be a much simpler reason for all of this. Being stuck in the embassy for years has severely taxed his emotional stability, encouraging narcissism, paranoia, and victimhood. At the very least, his journalism is sloppy, irresponsible, and ever-decreasing in integrity.
Both his sexual assaults and his antisemitism predate him running away to the embassy.
He ran away to the embassy in 2012 because he refused to take responsibility for his sexual assaults. In 2010 he hired Israel Shamir, an extremely outspoken antisemitic blogger, to help run Wikileaks, and a number of photographs show that they had been close friends for some time before Assange hired him. When he was confronted about this by Private Eye in 2011, he began spouting conspiracy theories about how the Jews were out to get him.
Assange is absolutely a criminal for breaking the terms of his bail. The sexual assault charges, however, are unproven, and he really deserves his day in court, whether he is guilty or innocent. I hadn't heard the anti-semite bit before, however.
Let's separate Julian Assange and content of the leaks please. Ad hominem attacks are only meant to divert people from the content of the emails. Take them for what they are, not who rendered them to the public.
The content of his leaks is irrelevant. What matters is the intent behind releasing them.
Assange being alt-right and the fact that he is going out of his way to leak material that improves the chances of the standard-bearer of the alt-right, Donald Trump, becoming head of state of the most powerful country on Earth are absolutely 100% linked together, and those links should be investigated.
Some information should not be public for a reason.
OK then. The AKP leak exposed nothing, but rather added to an incredibly stressful and precarious situation in Türkiye. It carelessly aided in doxing most women in Türkiye. It helped spread malware. It was a good opportunity to co-opt the press around the coup.
You're assuming that the goal is to expose something - that is, you're starting your argument with the idea that he's got some political agenda to achieve.
But he's stated that his goal is to weaken the powerful by making it so that they can't trust anyone to keep their secrets. In that context, any uncovering of a leader's secrets is work toward his goal.
You can argue that the costs of what he's doing exceed the benefits, but I think your claim doesn't support the argument you're trying to apply it to.
Is there any evidence that he lacks respect for women? I have not yet seen any. He was accused of something which in Sweden is called "rape" but in the US would be called "consensual sex". Is that what you are referring to?
True, however it is not typically labeled "rape" when the sexual contact aspect is consensual. It seems to constitute some sort of wrongdoing, but potentially also a misunderstanding. In any case, headlines and comments omitting this information and highlighting rape accusations are certainly intended to create a specific impression.
> Saying you are wearing a condom when you aren't is wrongdoing.
Of course it is. Assange disputed the accusation and claimed that there was mutual understanding of the status of the condom. In any case, barring an unwanted VD or pregnancy, it seems peculiar to decide to pursue legal action about this a month after the fact.
While it's possible that Assange acted boorishly and inappropriately, I think rape is not the right word to describe it. Would a woman who lied about having been on birth control reasonably be said to have raped a male partner?
One of the charges as I understand it is Mr. Assange had sex with one of the accusers while she was asleep. That definitely seems to qualify as rape in Sweden penal code (https://lagen.nu/1962:700#K6P1S1 -- note I'm relying on Google Translate so corrections welcome).
Sweden is not the only country that considers sex with someone sleeping or otherwise unconscious as rape; a quick look at UK law for instance seems to bring this up in section 75 (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42). Even in Mr. Assange's native Australia, failure to withdraw from sexual intercourse after consent is withdrawn appears in itself to be considered "rape" in all districts but Queensland. (https://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/25.%20Sexual%20Offences...)
There are varying degrees of rape in Sweden, as I understand it Mr. Assange is being accused of the most minor degree of rape due to the circumstances. Still, it seems like what he is accused of is typically labeled "rape" in many places.
From what I see of the current status, the investigation regarding a rape charge is still pending; the other charges hit their statute of limitations last year. Since this is a recent article, I assume someone is still someone is still interested in pursuing the case currently.
Claiming someone is alt-right is starting to have the feel of McCarthy era claims of communism. We are supposed to associate that label (and thus the person) with the deeply unsavory, without looking at their actual, specific positions and actions.
Claiming someone is alt-right is starting to have the feel of McCarthy era claims of communism.
I don't know what they stand for. But I visit generally progressive-leaning places on the internet and know I'm supposed to hate them.
I still haven't even figured out who the "reactionaries" are or what they believe in. I think what happened is some people used the wrong word when talking about "contrarians" and through a game of telephone turned created a new political boogieman.
Is the conservative side of the (American) political spectrum really going through this much ideological turmoil and restructuring? I haven't heard about it in any of the mainstream news when I glace at it, nor from the conservatives I talk politics with at work. It looks like a way for the left to shill hate.
The alt-right is what happened when 4chan trolls, MRAs/PUAs, and Stormfront had a baby called 8chan.net/pol/
It's a small group of maybe 10,000, of which 5,000 don't even take the positions seriously, just love to troll millennial college "activist" consumer-types. The Clinton speech about the alt-right will have the same effect as Geraldo Rivera's goofy coverage of Neo-nazi skinheads in the 80s - multiplying their numbers a hundred-fold.
> It's a small group [some of whom] don't even take the positions seriously, just love to troll millennial college "activist" consumer-types.
I completely agree that this group exists, that this phenomenon exists. However, it's also apparent from the way many people use the label "alt right", that they are not limiting themselves to describing this group.
It's a small group of maybe 10,000, of which 5,000 don't even take the positions seriously
Then why the fuck is anyone talking about them? Is the left really so terrified of taking positions or believing in anything at all that they have to scrape the bottom of the barrel like this for something to talk about?
You make a good point. Usually when somebody attempts to slander someone by saying they are alt right, they are exploiting our lack of awareness of equivocation fallacy.
There's a tiny group of terrible people who happen to also be alt right. We are supposed to associate any person who is labelled "alt right" with that tiny group even if they have nothing significant in common with them.
Probably because questioning whether they're really the big boogeyman is enough to mark you as one of them in the core, outspoken, well-connected parts of the left.
> about "contrarians" and through a game of telephone turned created a new political boogieman.
That's an interesting suggestion. It does look like many so called alt righters seem to be contrarians, non-conformists, critics of mainstream ideology or 'normal' right wing ideology. We need more of those people, and we often benefit from listening to them.
Some of them have beliefs I find abhorrent, but they also clearly do not all share the same beliefs.
Narrow minded bloggers and such on the left have cultivated this widespread belief (among some liberals) that we should automatically despise and ignore anyone that gets labelled "alt right"
Alt-right is basically a fancy label for 'outside of the mainstream, doesn't like political correctness and isn't in favour of Clinton' by this point.
It's basically used like the 'Bernie Bros' thing was when he was still running for president. A near meaningless buzzword to insult people the user disagreed with.
Seriously. What has "innocent until proven guilty" devolved into? You're bordering on libel.
Until a court has convicted Appelbaum of the crime of rape, he is not a rapist.
I personally think that the accusations may have a kernel of truth, but are greatly exaggerated by the participants. Only a criminal court is properly equipped with means (both legal and time) to resolve this matter.
Al Capone was a gangster. Does that unfounded accusation also inflame your sense of justice? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
'Innocent until proven guilty' concerns the court system, but not the rest of civil society. If someone throws up all the red flags of a rapist, nobody is obligated to balk at them.
Al Capone was a tax evader! How dare you slander such an otherwise upstanding, legitimate businessman with accusations of crimes of far greater severity than those which were actually proven beyond reasonable doubt by prosecutors!~
> Until a court has convicted Appelbaum of the crime of rape, he is not a rapist.
Let's be clear that there's a vast difference between "a court has not convicted him of that crime" vs "he did not commit that crime". A statement can be factually true, even if you can't prove it in court and thereby you lack a legal defense against defamation.
Legally, I'm defaming Al Capone right now, because was into racketeering. It might be unwise to say that, as it would open me to prosecution, but it's certainly not untrue for that reason. (I've thoughtfully considered the risk, and will accept any libel charges from his estate.)
In any case, were Al Capone still alive, you would have to be a complete idiot to treat him as anything but a gangster. Feel free to extend the analogy on your own, and conclude what you will about the public figures in tech who face several rape accusations.
Could the anti-Hillary agenda simply be that he has leaks on her? The DNC stuff was damning, as was the reaction. (Bad actor resigns, gets immediately hired without reprimand?) He's said negative Trump stuff - how has he been positive there? If someone brought internal Trump emails, do you think WL wouldn't publish them?
If this had been flipped, and he had only published anti-Trump stuff, would you be making the same comment? (Honest question.)
I think people's opinions are polarized this year because of the election. If Wikileaks had only released information on the Malaysian Prime Minister, for instance, I doubt that we'd be seeing the same kind of strong opinions about them.
True. It's odd, though, because even if I did plan to vote for one of the major party candidates, I'd still want to know anything that shed light on corruption they were involved in, character flaws, etc.
It's odd to see people fighting to suppress information about the so-called "good guy" when in fact they ought to be considering why they would vote for someone who was involved in such things. Maybe most people just want to feel loved and protected by a powerful warlord.
To answer this honestly, I don't know. It would depend on the quality of the data he leaked, and which hostile foreign enemy he sided with against him.
On one hand, I have daughters, and don't want misogynistic defenders of rape-culture having any power over them.
On the other hand, I care about fairness and justice.
On my third hand (yay radiation!), Clinton is an evil sociopath who is bound to be largely ineffective as your president thanks to a republican legislature. Trump, however, is an incompetent demagogue who I think will cause a massive amount of un-needed suffering in this world.
So my honest answer is, I don't know. It probably depends on if I'd taken my meds that day and how emotional I was feeling.
I have daughters. Both main candidates have daughter(s). Which one is a "misogynistic defenders of rape-culture"? The angry seeming person, or the one that's been somewhat involved in denying rape accusations?
I actually laughed when I read this. I actually laughed when Sean Hannity had him on and was talking about he thinks he should be a free man and what great work he's doing.
Backtrack a few years ago, and it was the Republicans and all their supporters who wanted to tar and feather Assange for the Snowden leaks. Hannity talked about how Assange should be in jail and all the crimes he committed against the US intelligence community, got CIA people killed and on and on and on.
It's clear it depends on who's OX is being gored with Assange, which makes him a unique personality to deal with. I don't think he picks sides, he just always picks the publicity angle and doesn't really care who gets in the line of fire. The funny part is how each side treats him like a savior or some kind of patriot but then when he gets leaked documents on their side, suddenly he's the bad guy?
I just don't like him period, but he does have a flair the dramatic doesn't he?
He actually has a pretty consistent agenda - reveal shocking stuff that people don't want revealed, and do it with a dramatic flair. Yes, a couple years back his releases on Iraq / Afghanistan had some things that enraged Republicans and were praised by Democrats. Now he's exposing their house.
He's an agent of chaos with a self promotion streak. Saying his agenda is anything beyond that ignores history.
I'm not a big fan, but I think endangering the non-decision makers is bad.
His agenda can be best described as anti-American (yes I realize it's a very loaded term). He would release whatever hurts American interests most, regardless of who represents the USA at the moment.
Although I'm not sure if that is because the majority of the documents he gets are from the US, or if the US has been, and always will be, a place where secrets are so tightly guarded anybody that has an avenue to expose some of them are going to do so.
Does Wikileaks get documents from other countries? Has he gotten the amount of publicity in other countries from those leaks that he has on his US documents?
I believe it's self-selection by and large. E.g. Wikileaks was decidedly negative on Panama Papers, as much of it implicates the enemies of America. And being an enemy of the USA by default makes you a friend of Assange. Consider this nugget:
> I am beginning to feel like he has his own political agenda
This is the position of some of the people/groups he's embarrassed. As if to say "Yes, I've been caught, but the person who helped catch me has it out for me, let's just ignore this".
Also, as the US Army intelligence service underscored a few years ago, Wikileaks is ripe for propaganda use, since information can be provided to WL to suit political goals, and with some information removed to create a specific impression.
The US Army Intelligence analysis also suggested that an effective strategy to harm WL would be to leak materials that would reflect poorly on it and and cause people to question Assange's motives. No doubt all powerful entities (governments, people) realize this. WL has many enemies and so likely many are using both of these strategies as situations permit.
Have you read the details of the rape accusations? Sweden has a particular definition of rape that is far more encompassing of conduct that in most jurisdictions constitutes fully consensual activity. Since the claims against Assange would be considered claims of consensual sex in the US, it's hard for me to take them entirely seriously, yet the label of "Rapist" persists. This phenomenon is truly bizarre.
The question to ask is, what qualities do we most hope something like Wikileaks has, so that it can aid the process of truth, transparency, and careful investigative journalism. I'd suggest the following:
- Strong willingness to work with mainstream news outlets to create high production quality investigative journalism (Assange has done all he possibly could).
- Resilience to meddling by the many enemies one makes (Assange has done well with this).
- Reinforcing the strength and bias-free nature of the institution (Assange has made clear that he finds Trump and Hillary both despicable, yet this comment is ignored by many such as yourself).
The first 1/2 of your argument: CIA. Let me be clear, I don't support Clinton, Trump, or anybody else, I feel you have to be an evil sociopath to even want to be a world leader.
I think he is just playing sides. Trump doesn't give a crap, but Hillary knows he's after her. Putin has shown an eager willingness to give asylum to Snowden, him, and anybody else.
I just think he's a sociopathic narcissist who watched too many thrillers and wants to wield power against governments.
- Strong willingness to work with mainstream news outlets to create high production quality investigative journalism (Assange has done all he possibly could).
In the beginning, sure, I'll admit you were right on this. The past year or two, however, wikileaks has failed to produce anything of substance. It's "leaks" (of Turkish dessert recipes) have been sloppy at best, irresponsible and dangerous at worst. Not even Fox would be as careless as he was with the personal data of millions of women in an islamist country. Sean Hannity isn't exactly Woodward and Bernstein.
- Resilience to meddling by the many enemies one makes (Assange has done well with this).
Has he? He seems to be attempting to wield his power against his enemies. Is that resilience, or vendetta?
- Reinforcing the strength and bias-free nature of the institution (Assange has made clear that he finds Trump and Hillary both despicable, yet this comment is ignored by many such as yourself).
His actions state otherwise. I'm not sure who posts more anti-clinton rhetoric, Trump or Assange. Lately Wikileaks' feed has have been emotional responses to criticisms and perceived sleights, and heavily biased character attacks on his perceived enemies. There hasn't actually been any journalism that I can see.
Assange has a problem with women. His character assaults against Clinton and journalist Zeynep Tukfeci are pretty good indicators of this.
> The past year or two, however, wikileaks has failed to produce anything of substance.
Is this due to Assange? Or due to the war on whistleblowers? Given the resource constraints of WL, Assange must choose between publishing unredacted information and not publishing at all.
If Assange had not reached out to the worldwide mainstream press, I'd fault him for releasing unredacted material. But the press (and shamefully, the NY Times in particular) has rebuffed Assange and been unwilling to produce investigative stories handed to them on a platter by Assange (via leaked info).
To understand this we must turn to the basic power relationship and realize that major news outlets are largely state propaganda outlets, or at least prefer to act in this role most of the time. Assange did not likely expect this. I certainly didn't, as it seems too cynical a view... of course the NY Times would want to publish details revealing corruption or lies committed by our most trusted officials...
It's easy to vilify Assange and to assume an emotional motive for everything he publishes. Assange's goal is the legitimization of Wikileaks and its maturation into a respected news institution. He cannot get there (especially given his resource constraints) by playing politics. While he does occasionally make a divisive comment, he generally lets the leaked documents speak (unredacted) for themselves.
> His character assaults against Clinton
Are you arguing that the information revealed by the DNC emails is not a reflection of very significant character flaws in Clinton?
> Is this due to Assange? Or due to the war on whistleblowers? Given the resource constraints of WL, Assange must choose between publishing unredacted information and not publishing at all.
Again, your argument is yet another conspiracy theory. You can't argue against this, because no matter what, it's the Cigarette Smoking Man in the background. And the resource-constraint argument is an excuse for sloppy, irresponsible journalism.
The argument that wikileaks is not at all affected by Assange's emotional and mental state seems to be an attempt to make him out to be an altruistic, infallible god, not a human .
Major news caters more towards the people that give them money, and they base their content choices on their sponsors.
It seems that every time Assange has a bowel movement, all of the major news sources write about it as front-page news, and immediately every comment is about how no major news outlet is reporting on wikileaks.
> Are you arguing that the information revealed by the DNC emails is not a reflection of very significant character flaws in Clinton?
I haven't read them all, so can you clue me into what they exposed about her directly in contrast to what they exposed about the DNC organization?
And were you aware of my other point, his attacks on Zeynep from the New York times? She pointed out the danger the leaks put women in. Instead of saying, "hey, that leak wasn't our fault, but mea culpa anyways, we're sorry". Then when she pointed out that if he'd had some Turks read the emails they'd have laughed and said "don't bother", he again went into a campaign of character assaults against her?
Not at all, neither of us knows what information was submitted to WL, so perhaps the issue is that nothing as significant as the war logs was submitted. We know for a fact that the US has significantly tightened up its infosec policies since Chelsea Manning's revelations. These are facts and no conspiracy theorizing is involved whatsoever. My friends who work for the Federal government would never even read this HN thread while at work, so there has been a legitimately chilling effect on the culture as well.
> sloppy, irresponsible journalism
Holding WL to some imaginary journalistic standard is absurd. It would be one thing if the NY Times got the story and overshadowed WL by publishing a carefully redacted, professional piece. But the major news outlets do not for the most part have systems in place for anonymous drop off of data, and simply do not report on much of what WL gets access to. If you ask me, that is the major journalistic failure. Can Assange, with a tiny team, copy edit and responsibly redact everything? Of course not, but we know from his previous releases that he strongly prefers to and that he is operating WL in survival mode at the moment due to harassment from some of the parties he's leaked information about.
> It seems that every time Assange has a bowel movement, all of the major news sources write about it as front-page news, and immediately every comment is about how no major news outlet is reporting on wikileaks.
This statement does not make sense. Assange is not Wikileaks, and Assange's personal failings are not Wikileaks. The stories which don't see much reporting are the actual factual content about corruption and misdeeds by government officials! The problem is that we get stories about Assange's personal details but not any real substance.
I'd rather not sidetrack this discussion into the content of the DNC emails, but would be happy to do so in a different thread.
> Sweden has a particular definition of rape that is far more encompassing of conduct that in most jurisdictions constitutes fully consensual activity. Since the claims against Assange would be considered claims of consensual sex in the US, it's hard for me to take them entirely seriously, yet the label of "Rapist" persists. This phenomenon is truly bizarre.
What's truly bizarre is the crowd who's first to invoke "innocent until proven guilty" is so opposed to the proving part.
You don't really believe that Swedish inquiry is a part of due process, do you? I really doubt if the charges were incriminating whatever constitutes U.S. edition of rape, your position would be any different.
What it come downs to, you guys really really are attached to this fella, simply because he was saying all the right things and going by all the points you read in Cypherpunk Manifesto. You are willing to excuse him things that you'd find inexcusable to anyone from the "establishment".
> You are willing to excuse him things that you'd find inexcusable to anyone from the "establishment".
Not at all. Please recall that Assange has a legitimate concern about extradition and has had to seek political asylum. In spite of this he has offered to face the charges if some assurance could be made that he would not be taken into custody and extradited.
Since Assange is a political refugee, I take his concerns seriously. He has shown no sign of being unwilling to face the charges, and the new prosecutor has requested them to be dropped.
What I find most upsetting is that there appears to be some sort of strategy going on where the governments are trying to ensnare Assange and get him extradited (and imprisoned for espionage).
While it is possible that Assange did commit espionage, the bigger problem is that the US Government has not faced any accountability for the revelations in the Iraq or Afganistan war logs. We're talking about pretty serious illegal behavior if not war crimes that were revealed, and there have been zero consequences. Bush got re-elected and Obama continued and escalated Bush's policies!
Wikileaks is a tiny "institution" that has focused scrutiny on some very large and powerful institutions. As an American citizen who values transparency and the proper functioning of the checks and balances (and democratic process) as well as the appropriate and desirable adversarial relationship between the press and government, I am profoundly disappointed at the lack of consequences or accountability both for the war logs and for the Snowden revelations.
In terms of the total harm caused by these situations, allowing the US Government to survive these sorts of revelations unscathed and unaccountable is terrifying, and goes strongly against the core principles on which our nation was founded.
In general, Assange is a very minor player who happens to have (boldly, foolishly, selfishly, or whatever) helped to reveal some information that we simply must act on. The messenger is simply not important, nor are his personal failings.
So to correct your misapprehension, the story never should have been about Assange at all, at any point. The story should always have been about the misdeeds and corruption revealed by Wikileaks.
> He broke the bail and went on the run. If that doesn't constitute "unwillingness to face charges", am not sure what does.
He's been confined in an embassy building for quite some time, which is roughly equivalent to a minimum security prison! He'd likely not have faced this level of punishment for the alleged sex crimes even if he'd been found guilty of them. It's important to recall that he's been forced to seek political asylum. Being labeled a rapist and unable to vindicate himself (for fear of extradition) is also likely quite upsetting to him if he's innocent.
Being unwilling to face justice isn't exactly helping his case. But we are making full circle to my initial point: you are unwilling to contemplate that Swedish prosecution is acting in good faith and in due process. And the reason for that is you like the guy.
> you are unwilling to contemplate that Swedish prosecution is acting in good faith and in due process
Not at all. The unknown is why the Swedish government won't offer Assange assurance that he wouldn't be extradited. It's probably because he would be, hence, his position is rational. Both the prosecutor and Assange may be acting rationally, as may the Swedish government -- after all, why would it decide to irritate the US by not extraditing Assange?
I would prefer if Assange's guilt or innocence in the rape accusations were determined, because the accusations generally get in the way of the mission of Wikileaks, which I generally support. I don't have a soft spot in my heart for Assange, and if he does turn out to be guilty it will not impact my view on the important issues (the war logs, etc.) whatsoever.
Who cares if Assange himself is a hero or villain, I'm not the sort of simpleton who needs to pretend that everyone whose actions I support is a faultless model citizen. The important issue is that he (hero or villain) helped reveal some very important information about the US Government which should lead to consequences and accountability.
>At a point in time, I truly believed Assange's goals were justice and transparency, now I am beginning to feel like he has his own political agenda, and is making sophomoric attempts to affect political change.
He has always very openly had a political agenda. You just don't like the new flavor of his Koolaid.
They're sometimes useful, and sometimes useful idiots. I think groups like wikileaks are a good thing, and it would be better if there were more of them, to prevent what seems to have happened here where they've been steered into supporting Putin's geopolitical agenda.
There is a difference between Anti-Hilary vs. Pro-Trump. I believe Assange's in the former camp. But since U.S. presidential elections only has a binary choice, some people blur the lines between the two.
Forbidden knowledge promised in files from an unknown source, sitting right there for the taking. It's the phishing equivalent of fish jumping in the boat.
So a spammy email in one of the thousands leaked happened to contained malware? And this is newsworthy why?
People here are using this to question Wikileaks integrity but it seems like a minor mistake given the contents of the dump. This has happened before in hacker dumps on a number of occasions but this one isn't even malicious (targeting wikileaks users).
I don't open random zips from spam emails on my machine and I wouldn't from random wikileaks emails without checking them for viruses like the author of this post did.
There is even an argument for Wikileaks to keep the malwared content for research purposes. Maybe just include a warning for those who aren't technically inclined enough to know to not open them in a clean VM.
Because there's a growing campaign trying to paint Wikileaks as a the "bad guys" (again).
Combine that with the fact that most people don't want Trump to win, so they're automatically on Clinton's side, and with Clinton's deflection of the DNC hack documents that pointed to election rigging towards who hacked the DNC, and that anti-Wikileaks campaign is suddenly a lot more effective.
So now when other sites write about Wikileaks it's usually from the "Here's 3 more ways in which Wikileaks did something bad" angle.
I so wish the U.S. moved to a proportional representation/multi-party system sooner rather than later. I'm so sick and tired of their extremely partisan crap. It seems to make everything worse off. The partisan reality-distortion fields are getting bigger and more powerful than Apple's in the Steve Jobs era.
True, Wikileaks has become politicized recently. I like to check the comment section on NYTimes and other news sites around election times. They always seem to be far more partisan than usual. Almost like people are whipped up into a frenzy supporting their sports franchise to the point it almost seems fake.
Considering there are hundreds of millions of dollars going into either side of the campaign I'd question the source of any online comment taking a highly partisan position that perfectly fits into party lines. Could be either direct 50-cent armies [1] style astroturfing or regular people influenced by other comments fed elsewhere online, or worse, articles fed to reputable news sites.
Even GCHQ docs from the Snowden leaks showed that five eyes have been successfully experimenting with controlling online conversations since at least 2012. So it's definitely doable with a dedicated team.
This is modern PR. Another thing that sites like HN/reddit increasingly have to contend with to keep content authentic and quality...
I think this is a very real concern. Considering how stupid the average comment is on a site like that, and considering how most comments simply parrot talking points from other parties, it's likely straightforward to create astroturfing bots.
Have you missed the substantial news about the David Brock led efforts at "CorrectTheRecord?"[0] He was a GOP operative for a long time until he started working for the Clinton candidacy. His organization has even been accused of posting child pornography to Bernie Sanders facebook pages in order to get them disrupted and shut-down.
I don't doubt there are similar efforts on the part of the GOP or Donald Trump supporters.
Bernie Sanders was subject to vicious propaganda and a generally adversarial mass-media, then when the Democratic nomination was "clinched" by Hillary a sudden swelling of negative media stories on the Green Party's Jill Stein and Libertarian Party's Gary Johnson filled the media channels.
Up until that point, they received almost no media coverage.
This has been the nastiest and most manipulative Presidential election I can remember, though I am only 37 so take that as you will. One thing is certain, hard-core progressives and leftists now know for certain what the DNC and Democrats are really about, and how low they will go to accomplish that.
Wikileaks politicized themselves, look at their Twitter. They clearly made a conscious decision to take a side in a partisan election, rather than just releasing documents and letting them speak for themselves. You can agree or disagree with that decision, but I don't think there needs to be an astroturf conspiracy driving this narrative.
If they only commented on their leaks, that would be one thing, you can't really blame them for not having any Trump documents. But they've given extensive commentary on the email scandal and the FBI investigation, which frankly have nothing to do with their leaks.
It's not even planet Earth, it's just basic logic. It most voters don't want Trump to win, Trump will not win a survey of voters.
There's never been any doubt that most white Americans will vote for Trump. The Democrats haven't won whites since 1964. The Civil Rights Act ended that possibility. The big question is whether Trump will overwhelmingly win whites, or just comfortably win whites.
> I so wish the U.S. moved to a proportional representation/multi-party system sooner rather than later. I'm so sick and tired of their extremely partisan crap. It seems to make everything worse off. The partisan reality-distortion fields are getting bigger and more powerful than Apple's in the Steve Jobs era.
True. I don't advertise this, but I really have a difficult time respecting anyone who would vote for a major party presidential candidate (unless they live in a swing state). It's either a misunderstanding of the longer-term game theory involved or a lack of willingness to risk being on the losing side.
> So a spammy email in one of the thousands leaked happened to contained malware? And this is newsworthy why?
Because it's another example of the unconscionable lack of attention to detail that Wikileaks pays when putting out these dumps. Not quite at the level of outing gay Saudis and rape victims (putting them at risk of death), but still just very amateurish.
Is it a lack of attention? I don't think a virus in a collection of leaked emails is a major threat since you'd be a fool to execute it. On the other hand, it might be useful for researchers if the virus was written to specifically target somebody.
It would hardly take any time to run the trove through a virus scanner, and it wouldn't even need someone to be sitting over it nannying it through the process.
My point is that they shouldn't delete the viruses though. Someone going through the archives probably won't open a random executable from a zip file they stumble across, but a security researcher might want to examine the kinds of malware the leak subject might be exposed to. This is especially the case given we have no idea how many parties (and which parties) had access to these servers.
I don't believe it's well-wrought sarcasm then. As well it's exactly the same sort of earnest comment I might see around the net, which is why I asked for elaboration.
I think this is newsworthy because wikileaks does not maintain the journalistic integrity we expect of them, they never retract their mistakes, nor do they apologize.
Never apologize, if you apologize you will not be spared, if anything your apology will be used as a confirmation of your guilt and you'll be crucified even more.
Not to mention it provides further evidence of Wikileaks' complete lack of scruples in vetting their leaks, or really processing it in any way whatsoever. I was largely on board with Wikileaks at first, but kept their mishandling of personal information flagged in my mind for future reference. Since then they've shown basically zero ability to identify and admit mistakes, let alone learn from them.
Not sure who you think works at wikileaks but I assure you no one gets paid to set on the computer and check every single email. I doubt anyone gets paid at all. This isnt some fortune 500 competitor, this is a group of people that are attempting to give power to the commoners.
>but I assure you no one gets paid to set on the computer and check every single email
No one gets paid to to that anywhere, because it's been possible to automate that for a very long time. It doesn't take the resources of a Fortune 500 company, either.
>Going through government email dumps seems like a great way to locate the next stuxnet.
Which, if everyone reading these dumps was a researcher looking for the next stuxnet, would be a good point. But by that rationale, we might as well not bother with security anywhere on the internet just to maximize the chance of an interesting infection.
The malware should be removed because it's malware, no other rationale is necessary.
I'm sure the same people who get infected by spam emails on wikileaks are the same people who have already been infected by spam emails in their own inboxes.
It really doesn't seem to make much of a difference.
Many nations has policies that require government employees to save and store any corresponding they make, and to offer the public the ability to get copies. I wonder how much malware exist in those archives.
If a member of the public requested a copy and had their computer infected by a virus, is that the governments fault?
Because at this point, large chunks the press are more interested in smear campaigns against Wikileaks than accurate reporting. For example, remember all those breathless headlines about how Wikileaks recklessly leaked the personal information of every woman in Turkey, and how they were putting domestic violence victims in danger through their arrogance? They didn't, a security researcher called Michael Best did; they just took him at his word and tweeted a link to his blog post. The press went on to exonerate the actual reckless leaker of all responsibility whilst continuing to attack Wikileaks for it because no-one really cared about those domestic violence victims except as a way of attacking Wikileaks.
> Seriously. What has "innocent until proven guilty" devolved into? You're bordering on libel.
> Until a court has convicted Appelbaum of the crime of rape, he is not a rapist.
I know Jake very well, I've worked with him in the past and he has conned me into bailing him out of several situations. I also know a good number of women he has dated, including two ex-gfs of mine. I have little doubt of his guilt. Anybody who knows him well has little doubt as well, even if they won't admit it. Because of an ex whom he .. let's say mistreated .. I found myself the target of one of his harassment campaigns long after I stopped dating her. To know Jake is to come face to face with a sociopath.
It's an ad hominem attack, an attempt to distract from the actual issue at hand. I.e., focusing on Chelsea Manning's sexual preferences, or on Snowden being a "narcissist".
There's a difference between thinking something and saying it. You're entitled to think he is a rapist, you're not entitled to say it (in public, without some kind of qualification like "alleged").
It's especially bad form to make libellous comments on someone else's website, as you are making more work for the mods who now have to delete it.
When you've got a small organisation with limited resources and less help from others (like say, media groups), it's not surprising stuff like this will slip through.
And hey, it's also not surprising a bunch of email sent to powerful figures would have scumbags trying to infect their PC with malware in the process. If Obama had a public email, a large percentage of that would be either infected by something or trying to steal credentials via phishing.
Should they have removed dodgy malware? Sure, but for an organisation with limited resources, a founder stuck in an embassy for years on end and far less of the press willing to help them out, having this stuff there isn't exactly unexpected.
> And hey, it's also not surprising a bunch of email sent to powerful figures would have scumbags trying to infect their PC with malware in the process.
I doubt it was consciously sent to specific powerful figures. "Invoice attached" spam is just shotgunned to the world.
> If Obama had a public email, a large percentage of that would be either infected by something or trying to steal credentials via phishing.
It would, not because he's Obama but because it's email. I see a lot of this in my spam folder, and I'm not important at all, I'm just a reachable address.
Since there is much speculation here about Assange's motives, why not at least consider how he himself describes them? In this interview with Bill Maher:
Assange explains that he found it to be "good fun" to release SS and credit card numbers of thousands of random, innocent people.
If we consider that Assange may be one of those (we know they exist, in significant numbers) who get pleasure from hurting other people, much of his otherwise perplexing behavior suddenly makes sense. Why not delete malware from your servers once a security researcher has located it for you? You can hurt more people if you leave it there.
I think you're taking Assange's words out of context. He was talking about the release itself, in that it showed how the DNC actively worked to hamper Bernie's efforts despite being a "neutral" organization. (Neutrality is one of the conditions for the DNC to receive tax breaks for their convention).
> Why not delete malware from your servers once a security researcher has located it for you?
Assange has repeatedly said that they do not filter or edit in any way the contents of their leaks. That means that they don't remove credit card information, social security numbers, or malware.
Is that a good practice?
Well, it depends on what the goal is. Wikileaks has the stated goal of increasing transparency in the government. They could release an edited version and achieve transparency, but editing the contents would mean that the documents are no longer "pristine" in the sense that they have not been altered in any way. This would make a legal process depending on these documents more difficult: A jury may ask themselves whether other things have been removed -- did Wikileaks also remove any content that would affect their decision?
Thus, refusing to edit the content fits with another goal other than just increasing transparency: to do so in a way that the documents can be used in a legal setting with no question of their veracity.
"I think you're taking Assange's words out of context"
I don't believe so, but people can watch the interview and come to their own conclusions. The question was put very deliberately and specifically by Maher, who asked if private people's personal information was "fair game".
To the extent that WL is still willing to publish some personal information, it's much the same as the civilian casualties that result from drone attacks. It is deemed to be an acceptable consequence of the action.
I guess this would be a good analogy if it were trivially easy for the President to bring the civilian casualties back to life, but he preferred not to, and said that killing them was "good fun".
> Assange has repeatedly said that they do not filter or edit in any way the contents of their leaks. That means that they don't remove credit card information, social security numbers, or malware.
This is not true. They redacted all but the last 4 digits of the credit card numbers.
> They could release an edited version and achieve transparency, but...
They _do_ edit. They removed all but the last 4 digits on credit card numbers. So, they edit in the ways they deem appropriate. I think the consensus is that generally, their extremely limited (and IMO, irresponsible) redaction policy does pose a threat to innocent people. The argument against responsible redaction seems to be: "Well, who knows where that social security number may lead!" Under this line of reasoning, _everything_ is fair game, and I find that abhorrent. If an innocent photo were discovered in those emails of a naked child, say the son or daughter of someone working for the campaign, you're telling me that it should be included in the archive simply to protect the sanctity of the dump? Puh-lease. Transparency is important, but not at the risk of our own humanity.
I believe that in the cases where only the last four digits were in the record, that was not due to Wikileaks' redaction - that's just what was in the file. They did not do anything to the SS numbers, for example.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 203 ms ] thread[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_and_Development_Party_...
Anyone viewing files like this should always treat them as extremely dangerous.
[edit: down voting for actually answering a question factually - I would love for the open the attachment not to spread viruses - even anti-virus makers don't catch them all]
In more seriousness. It still would be a hard problem. You never know for certain which files are safe and which harbour 0-day exploits. I guess you do know what textual contents in these emails are 'normal' and which are not (although it's in Turkish), so you could say obvious attempts at fishing-with-attachments are probably infected. Plus that not all virusscanners would recognize all infectations.
So good question, and it looks like the answer is this isn't a novel attack, just normal malware-spam and an imprecise summary.
At a point in time, I truly believed Assange's goals were justice and transparency, now I am beginning to feel like he has his own political agenda, and is making sophomoric attempts to affect political change.
In 2016 Wikileaks's agenda seems to be:
The AKP leak falls into that last line. The coup happened, it was frightening (I watched two F-16s fly over the city at mach1+ for six-hours, and the helicopter which landed at BJK was so close to us at a cafe we could see the faces of the guys inside when it banked), and they capitalized on that fear to increase their own credibility and to demonize the ruling party here.Unlike previous leaks Assange and his gang didn't put ANY effort into vetting the "leak". He didn't have to, because within certain crowds Wikileaks is an indisputably trusted source. His perceived persecution makes him beyond reproach, and now any criticism can be blamed on a conspiracy theory.
Rapist? CIA/Sweden persecuting him. Bail jumper? CIA/Mi5 persecution. Committed the crime of jumping bail? CIA/Mi5. Hiding in Ecuador for years? Illegal CIA detention. His best buddy Jake Appelbaum is a rapist? CIA.
This amount of trust and credibility would certainly make it easier for him, or a foreign agent, to spread malware. It's probably just a slip-up on not scanning the emails before publishing. But if it isn't, what are the odds that they are traced back to Russian hackers?
(Edited for typos and formatting. )
When you add in Julian Assange's antisemitism and lack of respect for women, it all makes sense.
He ran away to the embassy in 2012 because he refused to take responsibility for his sexual assaults. In 2010 he hired Israel Shamir, an extremely outspoken antisemitic blogger, to help run Wikileaks, and a number of photographs show that they had been close friends for some time before Assange hired him. When he was confronted about this by Private Eye in 2011, he began spouting conspiracy theories about how the Jews were out to get him.
Assange is alt-right and has always been.
Assange being alt-right and the fact that he is going out of his way to leak material that improves the chances of the standard-bearer of the alt-right, Donald Trump, becoming head of state of the most powerful country on Earth are absolutely 100% linked together, and those links should be investigated.
Some information should not be public for a reason.
You're assuming that the goal is to expose something - that is, you're starting your argument with the idea that he's got some political agenda to achieve.
But he's stated that his goal is to weaken the powerful by making it so that they can't trust anyone to keep their secrets. In that context, any uncovering of a leader's secrets is work toward his goal.
You can argue that the costs of what he's doing exceed the benefits, but I think your claim doesn't support the argument you're trying to apply it to.
Is there any evidence that he lacks respect for women? I have not yet seen any. He was accused of something which in Sweden is called "rape" but in the US would be called "consensual sex". Is that what you are referring to?
If you have sex with someone and tell them you will use a condom and don't, that isn't consensual.
Saying you are wearing a condom when you aren't is wrongdoing.
Of course it is. Assange disputed the accusation and claimed that there was mutual understanding of the status of the condom. In any case, barring an unwanted VD or pregnancy, it seems peculiar to decide to pursue legal action about this a month after the fact.
While it's possible that Assange acted boorishly and inappropriately, I think rape is not the right word to describe it. Would a woman who lied about having been on birth control reasonably be said to have raped a male partner?
No. But birth control isn't the only aspect to the issue. As you stated, sexually transmitted diseases are an issue. More of an issue arguably.
Also, two women have reported the same behaviour (to my knowledge). Although not enough to be considered a pattern, it's disconcerting.
Yes, it is my understanding that at least one of the women and the new prosecutor involved have expressed that the case should be dismissed.
Sweden is not the only country that considers sex with someone sleeping or otherwise unconscious as rape; a quick look at UK law for instance seems to bring this up in section 75 (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42). Even in Mr. Assange's native Australia, failure to withdraw from sexual intercourse after consent is withdrawn appears in itself to be considered "rape" in all districts but Queensland. (https://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/25.%20Sexual%20Offences...)
There are varying degrees of rape in Sweden, as I understand it Mr. Assange is being accused of the most minor degree of rape due to the circumstances. Still, it seems like what he is accused of is typically labeled "rape" in many places.
http://www.news.com.au/world/europe/julian-assange-rape-case...
I don't know what they stand for. But I visit generally progressive-leaning places on the internet and know I'm supposed to hate them.
I still haven't even figured out who the "reactionaries" are or what they believe in. I think what happened is some people used the wrong word when talking about "contrarians" and through a game of telephone turned created a new political boogieman.
Is the conservative side of the (American) political spectrum really going through this much ideological turmoil and restructuring? I haven't heard about it in any of the mainstream news when I glace at it, nor from the conservatives I talk politics with at work. It looks like a way for the left to shill hate.
It's a small group of maybe 10,000, of which 5,000 don't even take the positions seriously, just love to troll millennial college "activist" consumer-types. The Clinton speech about the alt-right will have the same effect as Geraldo Rivera's goofy coverage of Neo-nazi skinheads in the 80s - multiplying their numbers a hundred-fold.
I completely agree that this group exists, that this phenomenon exists. However, it's also apparent from the way many people use the label "alt right", that they are not limiting themselves to describing this group.
Then why the fuck is anyone talking about them? Is the left really so terrified of taking positions or believing in anything at all that they have to scrape the bottom of the barrel like this for something to talk about?
There's a tiny group of terrible people who happen to also be alt right. We are supposed to associate any person who is labelled "alt right" with that tiny group even if they have nothing significant in common with them.
That's an interesting suggestion. It does look like many so called alt righters seem to be contrarians, non-conformists, critics of mainstream ideology or 'normal' right wing ideology. We need more of those people, and we often benefit from listening to them.
Some of them have beliefs I find abhorrent, but they also clearly do not all share the same beliefs.
Narrow minded bloggers and such on the left have cultivated this widespread belief (among some liberals) that we should automatically despise and ignore anyone that gets labelled "alt right"
It's basically used like the 'Bernie Bros' thing was when he was still running for president. A near meaningless buzzword to insult people the user disagreed with.
Seriously. What has "innocent until proven guilty" devolved into? You're bordering on libel.
Until a court has convicted Appelbaum of the crime of rape, he is not a rapist.
I personally think that the accusations may have a kernel of truth, but are greatly exaggerated by the participants. Only a criminal court is properly equipped with means (both legal and time) to resolve this matter.
'Innocent until proven guilty' concerns the court system, but not the rest of civil society. If someone throws up all the red flags of a rapist, nobody is obligated to balk at them.
To be a truly civil society, we have a moral obligation to raise ourselves to this standard.
Oh no, it does concern society as a whole, or otherwise libel and defamation would not be classified as crimes...
Let's be clear that there's a vast difference between "a court has not convicted him of that crime" vs "he did not commit that crime". A statement can be factually true, even if you can't prove it in court and thereby you lack a legal defense against defamation.
Legally, I'm defaming Al Capone right now, because was into racketeering. It might be unwise to say that, as it would open me to prosecution, but it's certainly not untrue for that reason. (I've thoughtfully considered the risk, and will accept any libel charges from his estate.)
In any case, were Al Capone still alive, you would have to be a complete idiot to treat him as anything but a gangster. Feel free to extend the analogy on your own, and conclude what you will about the public figures in tech who face several rape accusations.
If this had been flipped, and he had only published anti-Trump stuff, would you be making the same comment? (Honest question.)
It's odd to see people fighting to suppress information about the so-called "good guy" when in fact they ought to be considering why they would vote for someone who was involved in such things. Maybe most people just want to feel loved and protected by a powerful warlord.
On one hand, I have daughters, and don't want misogynistic defenders of rape-culture having any power over them.
On the other hand, I care about fairness and justice.
On my third hand (yay radiation!), Clinton is an evil sociopath who is bound to be largely ineffective as your president thanks to a republican legislature. Trump, however, is an incompetent demagogue who I think will cause a massive amount of un-needed suffering in this world.
So my honest answer is, I don't know. It probably depends on if I'd taken my meds that day and how emotional I was feeling.
Backtrack a few years ago, and it was the Republicans and all their supporters who wanted to tar and feather Assange for the Snowden leaks. Hannity talked about how Assange should be in jail and all the crimes he committed against the US intelligence community, got CIA people killed and on and on and on.
It's clear it depends on who's OX is being gored with Assange, which makes him a unique personality to deal with. I don't think he picks sides, he just always picks the publicity angle and doesn't really care who gets in the line of fire. The funny part is how each side treats him like a savior or some kind of patriot but then when he gets leaked documents on their side, suddenly he's the bad guy?
I just don't like him period, but he does have a flair the dramatic doesn't he?
He actually has a pretty consistent agenda - reveal shocking stuff that people don't want revealed, and do it with a dramatic flair. Yes, a couple years back his releases on Iraq / Afghanistan had some things that enraged Republicans and were praised by Democrats. Now he's exposing their house.
He's an agent of chaos with a self promotion streak. Saying his agenda is anything beyond that ignores history.
I'm not a big fan, but I think endangering the non-decision makers is bad.
Although I'm not sure if that is because the majority of the documents he gets are from the US, or if the US has been, and always will be, a place where secrets are so tightly guarded anybody that has an avenue to expose some of them are going to do so.
Does Wikileaks get documents from other countries? Has he gotten the amount of publicity in other countries from those leaks that he has on his US documents?
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/717458064324964352
This is the position of some of the people/groups he's embarrassed. As if to say "Yes, I've been caught, but the person who helped catch me has it out for me, let's just ignore this".
Also, as the US Army intelligence service underscored a few years ago, Wikileaks is ripe for propaganda use, since information can be provided to WL to suit political goals, and with some information removed to create a specific impression.
The US Army Intelligence analysis also suggested that an effective strategy to harm WL would be to leak materials that would reflect poorly on it and and cause people to question Assange's motives. No doubt all powerful entities (governments, people) realize this. WL has many enemies and so likely many are using both of these strategies as situations permit.
Have you read the details of the rape accusations? Sweden has a particular definition of rape that is far more encompassing of conduct that in most jurisdictions constitutes fully consensual activity. Since the claims against Assange would be considered claims of consensual sex in the US, it's hard for me to take them entirely seriously, yet the label of "Rapist" persists. This phenomenon is truly bizarre.
The question to ask is, what qualities do we most hope something like Wikileaks has, so that it can aid the process of truth, transparency, and careful investigative journalism. I'd suggest the following:
- Strong willingness to work with mainstream news outlets to create high production quality investigative journalism (Assange has done all he possibly could).
- Resilience to meddling by the many enemies one makes (Assange has done well with this).
- Reinforcing the strength and bias-free nature of the institution (Assange has made clear that he finds Trump and Hillary both despicable, yet this comment is ignored by many such as yourself).
I think he is just playing sides. Trump doesn't give a crap, but Hillary knows he's after her. Putin has shown an eager willingness to give asylum to Snowden, him, and anybody else. I just think he's a sociopathic narcissist who watched too many thrillers and wants to wield power against governments.
In the beginning, sure, I'll admit you were right on this. The past year or two, however, wikileaks has failed to produce anything of substance. It's "leaks" (of Turkish dessert recipes) have been sloppy at best, irresponsible and dangerous at worst. Not even Fox would be as careless as he was with the personal data of millions of women in an islamist country. Sean Hannity isn't exactly Woodward and Bernstein. Has he? He seems to be attempting to wield his power against his enemies. Is that resilience, or vendetta? His actions state otherwise. I'm not sure who posts more anti-clinton rhetoric, Trump or Assange. Lately Wikileaks' feed has have been emotional responses to criticisms and perceived sleights, and heavily biased character attacks on his perceived enemies. There hasn't actually been any journalism that I can see.Assange has a problem with women. His character assaults against Clinton and journalist Zeynep Tukfeci are pretty good indicators of this.
Is this due to Assange? Or due to the war on whistleblowers? Given the resource constraints of WL, Assange must choose between publishing unredacted information and not publishing at all.
If Assange had not reached out to the worldwide mainstream press, I'd fault him for releasing unredacted material. But the press (and shamefully, the NY Times in particular) has rebuffed Assange and been unwilling to produce investigative stories handed to them on a platter by Assange (via leaked info).
To understand this we must turn to the basic power relationship and realize that major news outlets are largely state propaganda outlets, or at least prefer to act in this role most of the time. Assange did not likely expect this. I certainly didn't, as it seems too cynical a view... of course the NY Times would want to publish details revealing corruption or lies committed by our most trusted officials...
It's easy to vilify Assange and to assume an emotional motive for everything he publishes. Assange's goal is the legitimization of Wikileaks and its maturation into a respected news institution. He cannot get there (especially given his resource constraints) by playing politics. While he does occasionally make a divisive comment, he generally lets the leaked documents speak (unredacted) for themselves.
> His character assaults against Clinton
Are you arguing that the information revealed by the DNC emails is not a reflection of very significant character flaws in Clinton?
Again, your argument is yet another conspiracy theory. You can't argue against this, because no matter what, it's the Cigarette Smoking Man in the background. And the resource-constraint argument is an excuse for sloppy, irresponsible journalism.
The argument that wikileaks is not at all affected by Assange's emotional and mental state seems to be an attempt to make him out to be an altruistic, infallible god, not a human .
Major news caters more towards the people that give them money, and they base their content choices on their sponsors.
It seems that every time Assange has a bowel movement, all of the major news sources write about it as front-page news, and immediately every comment is about how no major news outlet is reporting on wikileaks.
> Are you arguing that the information revealed by the DNC emails is not a reflection of very significant character flaws in Clinton?
I haven't read them all, so can you clue me into what they exposed about her directly in contrast to what they exposed about the DNC organization?
And were you aware of my other point, his attacks on Zeynep from the New York times? She pointed out the danger the leaks put women in. Instead of saying, "hey, that leak wasn't our fault, but mea culpa anyways, we're sorry". Then when she pointed out that if he'd had some Turks read the emails they'd have laughed and said "don't bother", he again went into a campaign of character assaults against her?
Not at all, neither of us knows what information was submitted to WL, so perhaps the issue is that nothing as significant as the war logs was submitted. We know for a fact that the US has significantly tightened up its infosec policies since Chelsea Manning's revelations. These are facts and no conspiracy theorizing is involved whatsoever. My friends who work for the Federal government would never even read this HN thread while at work, so there has been a legitimately chilling effect on the culture as well.
> sloppy, irresponsible journalism
Holding WL to some imaginary journalistic standard is absurd. It would be one thing if the NY Times got the story and overshadowed WL by publishing a carefully redacted, professional piece. But the major news outlets do not for the most part have systems in place for anonymous drop off of data, and simply do not report on much of what WL gets access to. If you ask me, that is the major journalistic failure. Can Assange, with a tiny team, copy edit and responsibly redact everything? Of course not, but we know from his previous releases that he strongly prefers to and that he is operating WL in survival mode at the moment due to harassment from some of the parties he's leaked information about.
> It seems that every time Assange has a bowel movement, all of the major news sources write about it as front-page news, and immediately every comment is about how no major news outlet is reporting on wikileaks.
This statement does not make sense. Assange is not Wikileaks, and Assange's personal failings are not Wikileaks. The stories which don't see much reporting are the actual factual content about corruption and misdeeds by government officials! The problem is that we get stories about Assange's personal details but not any real substance.
I'd rather not sidetrack this discussion into the content of the DNC emails, but would be happy to do so in a different thread.
What's truly bizarre is the crowd who's first to invoke "innocent until proven guilty" is so opposed to the proving part.
You don't really believe that Swedish inquiry is a part of due process, do you? I really doubt if the charges were incriminating whatever constitutes U.S. edition of rape, your position would be any different.
What it come downs to, you guys really really are attached to this fella, simply because he was saying all the right things and going by all the points you read in Cypherpunk Manifesto. You are willing to excuse him things that you'd find inexcusable to anyone from the "establishment".
Not at all. Please recall that Assange has a legitimate concern about extradition and has had to seek political asylum. In spite of this he has offered to face the charges if some assurance could be made that he would not be taken into custody and extradited.
Since Assange is a political refugee, I take his concerns seriously. He has shown no sign of being unwilling to face the charges, and the new prosecutor has requested them to be dropped.
What I find most upsetting is that there appears to be some sort of strategy going on where the governments are trying to ensnare Assange and get him extradited (and imprisoned for espionage).
While it is possible that Assange did commit espionage, the bigger problem is that the US Government has not faced any accountability for the revelations in the Iraq or Afganistan war logs. We're talking about pretty serious illegal behavior if not war crimes that were revealed, and there have been zero consequences. Bush got re-elected and Obama continued and escalated Bush's policies!
Wikileaks is a tiny "institution" that has focused scrutiny on some very large and powerful institutions. As an American citizen who values transparency and the proper functioning of the checks and balances (and democratic process) as well as the appropriate and desirable adversarial relationship between the press and government, I am profoundly disappointed at the lack of consequences or accountability both for the war logs and for the Snowden revelations.
In terms of the total harm caused by these situations, allowing the US Government to survive these sorts of revelations unscathed and unaccountable is terrifying, and goes strongly against the core principles on which our nation was founded.
In general, Assange is a very minor player who happens to have (boldly, foolishly, selfishly, or whatever) helped to reveal some information that we simply must act on. The messenger is simply not important, nor are his personal failings.
So to correct your misapprehension, the story never should have been about Assange at all, at any point. The story should always have been about the misdeeds and corruption revealed by Wikileaks.
He broke the bail and went on the run. If that doesn't constitute "unwillingness to face charges", am not sure what does.
I would agree with you though that Assange persona isn't particularly important in the grand scheme of things.
He's been confined in an embassy building for quite some time, which is roughly equivalent to a minimum security prison! He'd likely not have faced this level of punishment for the alleged sex crimes even if he'd been found guilty of them. It's important to recall that he's been forced to seek political asylum. Being labeled a rapist and unable to vindicate himself (for fear of extradition) is also likely quite upsetting to him if he's innocent.
Not at all. The unknown is why the Swedish government won't offer Assange assurance that he wouldn't be extradited. It's probably because he would be, hence, his position is rational. Both the prosecutor and Assange may be acting rationally, as may the Swedish government -- after all, why would it decide to irritate the US by not extraditing Assange?
I would prefer if Assange's guilt or innocence in the rape accusations were determined, because the accusations generally get in the way of the mission of Wikileaks, which I generally support. I don't have a soft spot in my heart for Assange, and if he does turn out to be guilty it will not impact my view on the important issues (the war logs, etc.) whatsoever.
Who cares if Assange himself is a hero or villain, I'm not the sort of simpleton who needs to pretend that everyone whose actions I support is a faultless model citizen. The important issue is that he (hero or villain) helped reveal some very important information about the US Government which should lead to consequences and accountability.
He has always very openly had a political agenda. You just don't like the new flavor of his Koolaid.
http://cryptome.org/0002/ja-conspiracies.pdf
They're sometimes useful, and sometimes useful idiots. I think groups like wikileaks are a good thing, and it would be better if there were more of them, to prevent what seems to have happened here where they've been steered into supporting Putin's geopolitical agenda.
Is there any evidence for leaks that would have such effect but which wikileaks is not publishing?
People here are using this to question Wikileaks integrity but it seems like a minor mistake given the contents of the dump. This has happened before in hacker dumps on a number of occasions but this one isn't even malicious (targeting wikileaks users).
I don't open random zips from spam emails on my machine and I wouldn't from random wikileaks emails without checking them for viruses like the author of this post did.
There is even an argument for Wikileaks to keep the malwared content for research purposes. Maybe just include a warning for those who aren't technically inclined enough to know to not open them in a clean VM.
Combine that with the fact that most people don't want Trump to win, so they're automatically on Clinton's side, and with Clinton's deflection of the DNC hack documents that pointed to election rigging towards who hacked the DNC, and that anti-Wikileaks campaign is suddenly a lot more effective.
So now when other sites write about Wikileaks it's usually from the "Here's 3 more ways in which Wikileaks did something bad" angle.
I so wish the U.S. moved to a proportional representation/multi-party system sooner rather than later. I'm so sick and tired of their extremely partisan crap. It seems to make everything worse off. The partisan reality-distortion fields are getting bigger and more powerful than Apple's in the Steve Jobs era.
Considering there are hundreds of millions of dollars going into either side of the campaign I'd question the source of any online comment taking a highly partisan position that perfectly fits into party lines. Could be either direct 50-cent armies [1] style astroturfing or regular people influenced by other comments fed elsewhere online, or worse, articles fed to reputable news sites.
Even GCHQ docs from the Snowden leaks showed that five eyes have been successfully experimenting with controlling online conversations since at least 2012. So it's definitely doable with a dedicated team.
This is modern PR. Another thing that sites like HN/reddit increasingly have to contend with to keep content authentic and quality...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party?wprov=sfla1
I don't doubt there are similar efforts on the part of the GOP or Donald Trump supporters.
Bernie Sanders was subject to vicious propaganda and a generally adversarial mass-media, then when the Democratic nomination was "clinched" by Hillary a sudden swelling of negative media stories on the Green Party's Jill Stein and Libertarian Party's Gary Johnson filled the media channels.
Up until that point, they received almost no media coverage.
This has been the nastiest and most manipulative Presidential election I can remember, though I am only 37 so take that as you will. One thing is certain, hard-core progressives and leftists now know for certain what the DNC and Democrats are really about, and how low they will go to accomplish that.
[0]http://correctrecord.org/about/
If they only commented on their leaks, that would be one thing, you can't really blame them for not having any Trump documents. But they've given extensive commentary on the email scandal and the FBI investigation, which frankly have nothing to do with their leaks.
Recently!!!?
Just to bring you back to planet Earth, all the latest polls show the two major candidates in dead heat.
There's never been any doubt that most white Americans will vote for Trump. The Democrats haven't won whites since 1964. The Civil Rights Act ended that possibility. The big question is whether Trump will overwhelmingly win whites, or just comfortably win whites.
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/n...
True. I don't advertise this, but I really have a difficult time respecting anyone who would vote for a major party presidential candidate (unless they live in a swing state). It's either a misunderstanding of the longer-term game theory involved or a lack of willingness to risk being on the losing side.
Because it's another example of the unconscionable lack of attention to detail that Wikileaks pays when putting out these dumps. Not quite at the level of outing gay Saudis and rape victims (putting them at risk of death), but still just very amateurish.
Especially considering how long they've been releasing these data dumps.
Because we were pro Wiki Leaks when it helped Sanders. We are now anti Wiki Leaks because it helps Trump. It boils down to that.
Never apologize, if you apologize you will not be spared, if anything your apology will be used as a confirmation of your guilt and you'll be crucified even more.
Because Wikileaks suggested that when browsers show(ed) a malware warning, it was some kind of conspiracy to censor them. https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/756618117875376129
No one gets paid to to that anywhere, because it's been possible to automate that for a very long time. It doesn't take the resources of a Fortune 500 company, either.
If the detection is as easy to automate as you claim, I'm sure the users antiviruses will take care of it.
Which, if everyone reading these dumps was a researcher looking for the next stuxnet, would be a good point. But by that rationale, we might as well not bother with security anywhere on the internet just to maximize the chance of an interesting infection.
The malware should be removed because it's malware, no other rationale is necessary.
It really doesn't seem to make much of a difference.
https://github.com/bontchev/wlscrape/blob/master/malware.md
If a member of the public requested a copy and had their computer infected by a virus, is that the governments fault?
I know Jake very well, I've worked with him in the past and he has conned me into bailing him out of several situations. I also know a good number of women he has dated, including two ex-gfs of mine. I have little doubt of his guilt. Anybody who knows him well has little doubt as well, even if they won't admit it. Because of an ex whom he .. let's say mistreated .. I found myself the target of one of his harassment campaigns long after I stopped dating her. To know Jake is to come face to face with a sociopath.
However, how does it have anything whatsoever to do with Assange or Wikileaks?
It's especially bad form to make libellous comments on someone else's website, as you are making more work for the mods who now have to delete it.
And hey, it's also not surprising a bunch of email sent to powerful figures would have scumbags trying to infect their PC with malware in the process. If Obama had a public email, a large percentage of that would be either infected by something or trying to steal credentials via phishing.
Should they have removed dodgy malware? Sure, but for an organisation with limited resources, a founder stuck in an embassy for years on end and far less of the press willing to help them out, having this stuff there isn't exactly unexpected.
I doubt it was consciously sent to specific powerful figures. "Invoice attached" spam is just shotgunned to the world.
> If Obama had a public email, a large percentage of that would be either infected by something or trying to steal credentials via phishing.
It would, not because he's Obama but because it's email. I see a lot of this in my spam folder, and I'm not important at all, I'm just a reachable address.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-EJAIXdGp8
Assange explains that he found it to be "good fun" to release SS and credit card numbers of thousands of random, innocent people.
If we consider that Assange may be one of those (we know they exist, in significant numbers) who get pleasure from hurting other people, much of his otherwise perplexing behavior suddenly makes sense. Why not delete malware from your servers once a security researcher has located it for you? You can hurt more people if you leave it there.
> Why not delete malware from your servers once a security researcher has located it for you?
Assange has repeatedly said that they do not filter or edit in any way the contents of their leaks. That means that they don't remove credit card information, social security numbers, or malware.
Is that a good practice?
Well, it depends on what the goal is. Wikileaks has the stated goal of increasing transparency in the government. They could release an edited version and achieve transparency, but editing the contents would mean that the documents are no longer "pristine" in the sense that they have not been altered in any way. This would make a legal process depending on these documents more difficult: A jury may ask themselves whether other things have been removed -- did Wikileaks also remove any content that would affect their decision?
Thus, refusing to edit the content fits with another goal other than just increasing transparency: to do so in a way that the documents can be used in a legal setting with no question of their veracity.
I don't believe so, but people can watch the interview and come to their own conclusions. The question was put very deliberately and specifically by Maher, who asked if private people's personal information was "fair game".
Especially when Wikileaks may have the potential to increase transparency and make politicians more reluctant to allow such civilian casualties.
Exactly, that is the actual punchline of my argument.
This is not true. They redacted all but the last 4 digits of the credit card numbers.
> They could release an edited version and achieve transparency, but...
They _do_ edit. They removed all but the last 4 digits on credit card numbers. So, they edit in the ways they deem appropriate. I think the consensus is that generally, their extremely limited (and IMO, irresponsible) redaction policy does pose a threat to innocent people. The argument against responsible redaction seems to be: "Well, who knows where that social security number may lead!" Under this line of reasoning, _everything_ is fair game, and I find that abhorrent. If an innocent photo were discovered in those emails of a naked child, say the son or daughter of someone working for the campaign, you're telling me that it should be included in the archive simply to protect the sanctity of the dump? Puh-lease. Transparency is important, but not at the risk of our own humanity.