Wikileaks = terrorist organization?

[Conan71]

I doubt all the principals are known to Assange. The things I read about them in the early days indicated that it's pretty decentralized. There's no technical need whatsoever for anyone to be known to anyone else in the organization. That said, those who buy hosting and other services for the organization have easily discoverable identities. Anybody working behind the scenes may be impossible to track, however. That's probably best for them, given that Assange is the only one high profile enough to cause a furor if he ends up dead.

Between encryption, Tor, and Freenet, it's not difficult to be anonymous on the Internet if you have the necessary discipline.

I was going to say it can't be that hard for spooks to track geeks, but then I remembered the geeks wrote all the software and designed the systems for the spooks in the first place. 

[we vs us]

Unless all the principals are rooted out and exterminated.

I think that approach might have been true if the format were a newspaper, a magazine, a book, etc. But as nathan mentioned, the web's a fundamentally different sort of petri dish.  There's nothing to stop a kid in Outer Mongolia from hacking into a server farm, setting aside some storage and putting up a storefront to hold the secrets.

Anyone remember Sneakers?

[Hoss]

I think that approach might have been true if the format were a newspaper, a magazine, a book, etc. But as nathan mentioned, the web's a fundamentally different sort of petri dish.  There's nothing to stop a kid in Outer Mongolia from hacking into a server farm, setting aside some storage and putting up a storefront to hold the secrets.

Anyone remember Sneakers?

Love that movie..have it on DVD but need to see if it's out on Blu-Ray yet.

[heironymouspasparagus]

If they cannot render him ineffective, he will probably just be disposed of.

[Conan71]

Anyone remember Sneakers?

[Hometown]

I've been around for a while and don't have a whole lot of illusions left but when I learned from Wikileaks that Iraqi insurgents had attempted to surrender but were not allowed to surrender while being fired upon by our side I have to wonder if we still get to wear the white hat.   

[Red Arrow]

I've been around for a while and don't have a whole lot of illusions left but when I learned from Wikileaks that Iraqi insurgents had attempted to surrender but were not allowed to surrender while being fired upon by our side I have to wonder if we still get to wear the white hat.   

I can see how our troops would not believe the "surrender" as anything more than an attempt to get closer with a suicide bomb.  It's tough to fight a war when only one side tries to play by the rules.

[Red Arrow]

I remember Keds and PF Flyers. Run faster and jump higher in PF Flyers. (Didn't help me any.)  I remember sneakers as being canvass rather than leather though. I'm pretty sure there was another major brand I am forgetting.

Edit: spelling

[Hoss]

I remember Keds and PF Flyers. Run faster and jump higher in PF Flyers. (Didn't help me any.)  I remember sneakers as being canvass rather than leather though. I'm pretty sure there was another major brand I am forgetting.

Edit: spelling

Those look to be about '88 vintage 3/4 high tops.  I wore them..not because they were Reebok necessarily, but I put a hurtin' on Nike (blow out the seams in about 6 months).  I had a pair of these last me two years.  And the 'cool kids' wore 'em with the laces loosened.

[Red Arrow]

Those look to be about '88 vintage 3/4 high tops.  I wore them..not because they were Reebok necessarily, but I put a hurtin' on Nike (blow out the seams in about 6 months).  I had a pair of these last me two years.  And the 'cool kids' wore 'em with the laces loosened.

I was thinking more along the lines of late 60s and early 70s. 

[Hoss]

I was thinking more along the lines of late 60s and early 70s. 

I remember Keds as a kid in the 70s.  PF Flyers?  Not so much.

[Hometown]

As difficult as this situation is I have to say that as soon as I am told that I am not supposed to know about something I get a strong feeling that that something is exactly what I should know about.  There is just something basicly American about expecting to know the truth.  The curtailment on press coverage that began with Desert Storm is a mistake.  No one ever said that Freedom would be easy.

[Conan71]

As difficult as this situation is I have to say that as soon as I am told that I am not supposed to know about something I get a strong feeling that that something is exactly what I should know about.  There is just something basicly American about expecting to know the truth.  The curtailment on press coverage that began with Desert Storm is a mistake.  No one ever said that Freedom would be easy.

Curtailment? 

If anything it was more pervasive and 24/7 with reporters on the front lines.  It seemed like we had too much coverage of that war and the early days of Iraq II and Afghanistan.  I can still vaguely remember coverage of Viet Nam on the evening news, but that was it.  You maybe got a two minute snippet on the current major battle or efforts at peace talks.  You couldn't sit and watch shellings on live TV.  I also think we've been given as much info as needed to know.  The problem with too much dissemination of information, like CIA torture, is a lot of people react without understanding the true nature of warfare, nor do they appreciate that our enemies aren't exactly humanitarians.

[patric]

As difficult as this situation is I have to say that as soon as I am told that I am not supposed to know about something I get a strong feeling that that something is exactly what I should know about.  There is just something basicly American about expecting to know the truth.  The curtailment on press coverage that began with Desert Storm is a mistake.  No one ever said that Freedom would be easy.

The reports filed by political and military analysts (who have actually read the memos) say it's less like Pentagon Papers expose than it is being outed on TMZ.

If calling someone fat or paranoid is treason or terrorism, then they are more suited for reality TV than public office.

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I think there's been a lot
of hype about all of this. If you think about 92,000 so-called secret documents in which there's
almost no new information, I think that, you know, do the thought experiment, Larry, where these
are all unclassified documents. It's merely because the word "secret" has been put around them
that there's all this excitement.

[nathanm]

The news is turning disturbing on this subject, what with Amazon giving them the boot under pressure from Joe Lieberman and now Paypal freezing their account.

Amazon gave the excuse that Wikileaks doesn't have rights to the material they were hosting. That argument doesn't fly, given that as a product of the federal government, the material by definition can't be covered under copyright. They went on to claim that they were also violating the provision that states that the content hosted may not "injure" others and explained that it wasn't credible that WikiLeaks could have vetted 250,000 documents. WikiLeaks has not released 250,000 documents. Only a few hundred have been released up to this point.

Remind me not to use AWS for anything critical.