Julian Assange Discussion

Re: Soldier Betrayed by Online Informant with Wikileaks

_http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/07/wired-and-adrian-lam.html


"I have been informed today that the U.S. military has arrested
intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, 22, and shipped him from
Baghdad to Kuwait, where he has been detained without trial for the
past two weeks. The military alleged that Mr. Manning was the source
behind the "collateral murder" video released on WikiLeaks showing
an Apache slaying two Rueters photographers and over a dozen other
persons in Iraq.

Manning is also alleged to be the source behind a similar classified
massacre video, yet to be released by WikiLeaks showing the bombing
of 97-160 people, mostly children, in Afghanistan at Garani.

I am seeking assistance for Mr. Manning. If you are able to meaningfully
and reliably assist us in securing Mr. Manning's liberty, please contact me.

Julian Assange
Editor
WikiLeaks"

His email address is julian at wikileaks.org.
 
Re: Soldier Betrayed by Online Informant with Wikileaks

_http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/07/wired-and-adrian-lam.html

"shava replied to comment from fivetonsflax • #26 • 6:59 PM Monday, Jun 7, 2010 • Reply

Part of it might have to do with the article Poulsen and Zetter published last week that falsely claimed that Wikileaks original million or so records were sniffed off the Tor network, based on a story from The New Yorker where Assange (and others) have said they got the story wrong.

I mean, it takes a *lot* for /. to post a correction on a story, and they did. But funny thing, it doesn't seem to have been good enough for Wired and The New Yorker (sister Conde Nast pubs).

So yeah, Julian and Kevin have been going at it for a couple weeks now.

I wonder if Kevin studied journalism while he was in prison too?"
 
Re: Soldier Betrayed by Online Informant with Wikileaks

The discussion about Wikileaks possible connection to the security establishment made me think about a practice in corporate IT security, where someone suspected of leaking classified information will be allowed to carry on their alleged security violations, but instead of it going to their planned destinations, such communications actually stay within a pseudo internet, never leaving the initial network, until sufficient evidence is collected and an analysis is performed to get a better idea of the type on information that was leaked before security caught on.

It wouldn't be much of a stretch to create a site like Wikileaks and attract well meaning higher level participants to manage the network, all the while thinking they are aiding in openness and transparency when, in fact, they are actually working the very system they are trying to work against.

This would allow the security establishment real time information on both the contents of a leak as well as the person doing it. They could easily identify those with deep connections in certain communities, be they government, military or hackers and crackers. They could then choose to lean on some of them using their weaknesses (money, threats to family, arrest, etc.) And have them continue the network's effectiveness.

Pretty crafty, really.

It is like an enhancement on the current practice of creating or merely joining a discussion group for a given topic (new age, aliens, channelling, haarp, etc.) on the web to identify the movers and shakers and to plant misinformation, as we have seen far to often.

I feel we approached the point of not being able to trust anyone and wonder if even that (creating an environment of collective global distrust) was part of a plan. If it wasn't, it certainly is a serendipitous after effect for the PTB, OSIT.

Gonzo
 
Re: Soldier Betrayed by Online Informant with Wikileaks

Wikileaks Julian Assange Missing – Wanted by Pentagon

_http://www.islandcrisis.net/2010/06/wikileaks-julian-assange-wanted/

The good news is that Julian apparently made it to Australia where he has MANY friends. If he brings DestinyMooo back up to post the Diplomatic data packets, I'm gonna laugh 'til I fall out of this chair.
 
Re: Soldier Betrayed by Online Informant with Wikileaks

Gonzo said:
Pretty crafty, really.

This is without any doubt an attempt to destroy Wikileak's credibility. Of course when accusing Wikileaks of snitching out whistleblowers, the various "journalists" just kinda skip over the fact that Wikileaks STRONGLY suggests that ALL material be submitted anonymous. They include detailed instructions regarding how information can be sent to them via snail mail, public hot spots, etc. without leaving a digital trace....right down to explaining how DVD burners have individual serial numbers. Wikileaks DOES NOT want to know where/who the info came from!
 
Re: Soldier Betrayed by Online Informant with Wikileaks

GRiM said:
Wow, great job Jason! I cant really put my finger on it but I have had a creeping suspicion about wiki along time. 600.000$ for the odd Boeing aircraft manual and many lukewarm documents that really does not amount to much.

Yeah...they've just helped topple a small corrupt government or two....no biggie :shock:

_http://www.wikileaks.com/wiki/WikiLeaks:About
"In Kenya, malaria was estimated to cause 20% of all deaths in children under five. Before the Dec 2007 national elections, WikiLeaks exposed $3,000,000,000 of Kenyan corruption and swung the vote by 10%. This lead to enormous changes in the constitution and the establishment of a more open government — one many hundreds of reforms catalyzed by WikiLeaks.

We believe WikiLeaks is the strongest way we have of generating the true democracy and good governance on which all mankind's dreams depend.

Even though they got a lot of publicity for their Iraq Apache helicopter video, what happened? Nothing.

...and that's Wikileaks fault???? A bunch of geeks risk life imprisonment and/or death to publicize a vid of US solders slaughtering innocent people and "that really does not amount to much?"

Would you have put it on your server?
 
Re: Soldier Betrayed by Online Informant with Wikileaks


_http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian

No Secrets
Julian Assange’s mission for total transparency.
by Raffi Khatchadourian June 7, 2010


Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, oversees a populist intelligence network. Digitally altered photograph by Phillip Toledano.

The house on Grettisgata Street, in Reykjavik, is a century old, small and white, situated just a few streets from the North Atlantic. The shifting northerly winds can suddenly bring ice and snow to the city, even in springtime, and when they do a certain kind of silence sets in. This was the case on the morning of March 30th, when a tall Australian man named Julian Paul Assange, with gray eyes and a mop of silver-white hair, arrived to rent the place. Assange was dressed in a gray full-body snowsuit, and he had with him a small entourage. “We are journalists,” he told the owner of the house. Eyjafjallajökull had recently begun erupting, and he said, “We’re here to write about the volcano.” After the owner left, Assange quickly closed the drapes, and he made sure that they stayed closed, day and night. The house, as far as he was concerned, would now serve as a war room; people called it the Bunker. Half a dozen computers were set up in a starkly decorated, white-walled living space. Icelandic activists arrived, and they began to work, more or less at Assange’s direction, around the clock. Their focus was Project B—Assange’s code name for a thirty-eight-minute video taken from the cockpit of an Apache military helicopter in Iraq in 2007. The video depicted American soldiers killing at least eighteen people, including two Reuters journalists; it later became the subject of widespread controversy, but at this early stage it was still a closely guarded military secret.

Assange is an international trafficker, of sorts. He and his colleagues collect documents and imagery that governments and other institutions regard as confidential and publish them on a Web site called WikiLeaks.org. Since it went online, three and a half years ago, the site has published an extensive catalogue of secret material, ranging from the Standard Operating Procedures at Camp Delta, in Guantánamo Bay, and the “Climategate” e-mails from the University of East Anglia, in England, to the contents of Sarah Palin’s private Yahoo account. The catalogue is especially remarkable because WikiLeaks is not quite an organization; it is better described as a media insurgency. It has no paid staff, no copiers, no desks, no office. Assange does not even have a home. He travels from country to country, staying with supporters, or friends of friends—as he once put it to me, “I’m living in airports these days.” He is the operation’s prime mover, and it is fair to say that WikiLeaks exists wherever he does. At the same time, hundreds of volunteers from around the world help maintain the Web site’s complicated infrastructure; many participate in small ways, and between three and five people dedicate themselves to it full time. Key members are known only by initials—M, for instance—even deep within WikiLeaks, where communications are conducted by encrypted online chat services. The secretiveness stems from the belief that a populist intelligence operation with virtually no resources, designed to publicize information that powerful institutions do not want public, will have serious adversaries.

* from the issue
* cartoon bank
* e-mail this

Iceland was a natural place to develop Project B. In the past year, Assange has collaborated with politicians and activists there to draft a free-speech law of unprecedented strength, and a number of these same people had agreed to help him work on the video in total secrecy. The video was a striking artifact—an unmediated representation of the ambiguities and cruelties of modern warfare—and he hoped that its release would touch off a worldwide debate about the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was planning to unveil the footage before a group of reporters at the National Press Club, in Washington, on April 5th, the morning after Easter, presumably a slow news day. To accomplish this, he and the other members of the WikiLeaks community would have to analyze the raw video and edit it into a short film, build a stand-alone Web site to display it, launch a media campaign, and prepare documentation for the footage—all in less than a week’s time.

Assange also wanted to insure that, once the video was posted online, it would be impossible to remove. He told me that WikiLeaks maintains its content on more than twenty servers around the world and on hundreds of domain names. (Expenses are paid by donations, and a few independent well-wishers also run “mirror sites” in support.) Assange calls the site “an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking and public analysis,” and a government or company that wanted to remove content from WikiLeaks would have to practically dismantle the Internet itself. So far, even though the site has received more than a hundred legal threats, almost no one has filed suit. Lawyers working for the British bank Northern Rock threatened court action after the site published an embarrassing memo, but they were practically reduced to begging. A Kenyan politician also vowed to sue after Assange published a confidential report alleging that President Daniel arap Moi and his allies had siphoned billions of dollars out of the country. The site’s work in Kenya earned it an award from Amnesty International.

Assange typically tells would-be litigants to go to hell. In 2008, WikiLeaks posted secret Scientology manuals, and lawyers representing the church demanded that they be removed. Assange’s response was to publish more of the Scientologists’ internal material, and to announce, “WikiLeaks will not comply with legally abusive requests from Scientology any more than WikiLeaks has complied with similar demands from Swiss banks, Russian offshore stem-cell centers, former African kleptocrats, or the Pentagon.”

In his writing online, especially on Twitter, Assange is quick to lash out at perceived enemies. By contrast, on television, where he has been appearing more frequently, he acts with uncanny sang-froid. Under the studio lights, he can seem—with his spectral white hair, pallid skin, cool eyes, and expansive forehead—like a rail-thin being who has rocketed to Earth to deliver humanity some hidden truth. This impression is magnified by his rigid demeanor and his baritone voice, which he deploys slowly, at low volume.
 
Re: Soldier Betrayed by Online Informant with Wikileaks

I admit to being pretty ignorant about wikileaks. Traveling the world and renting houses costs a LOT of money. Who funds Assange?
 
Re: Soldier Betrayed by Online Informant with Wikileaks

anart said:
I admit to being pretty ignorant about wikileaks. Traveling the world and renting houses costs a LOT of money. Who funds Assange?

Wikileaks is funded with donations of money, time and bandwidth.
_http://www.wikileaks.com/wiki/Special:Support

Julian owns practically nothing but his personal gear, no house, land, car, etc. ... and dedicated uber geeks seldom have difficulty generating whatever income they need to do whatever they need to do. They're resourceful little buggers. ;)

WL is HUGE Anart, a worldwide network of wide awake geeks who care, in almost every nation that has electricity (and a couple that don't) .....and the way it's set up, it can NOT be taken down at this point without blocking practically the entire Internet.

Julian is an INCREDIBLE "Leader" among geeks, if you can call it that ...but if he was murdered tomorow, someone else would continue his job as head cat herder.
 
Re: Soldier Betrayed by Online Informant with Wikileaks

Thanks everyone for the compliments!


Guardian said:
Part of it might have to do with the article Poulsen and Zetter published last week that falsely claimed that Wikileaks original million or so records were sniffed off the Tor network, based on a story from The New Yorker where Assange (and others) have said they got the story wrong.

I mean, it takes a *lot* for /. to post a correction on a story, and they did. But funny thing, it doesn't seem to have been good enough for Wired and The New Yorker (sister Conde Nast pubs).

I heard that also. This of course begs the question, so then where did they come from? Of course...even if they did come from a group of Chinese hackers that sniffed Tor, would Assange ever actually admit that and risk revealing his sources and/or methods?

Gonzo said:
The discussion about Wikileaks possible connection to the security establishment made me think about a practice in corporate IT security, where someone suspected of leaking classified information will be allowed to carry on their alleged security violations, but instead of it going to their planned destinations, such communications actually stay within a pseudo internet, never leaving the initial network, until sufficient evidence is collected and an analysis is performed to get a better idea of the type on information that was leaked before security caught on.

It wouldn't be much of a stretch to create a site like Wikileaks and attract well meaning higher level participants to manage the network, all the while thinking they are aiding in openness and transparency when, in fact, they are actually working the very system they are trying to work against.

This would allow the security establishment real time information on both the contents of a leak as well as the person doing it. They could easily identify those with deep connections in certain communities, be they government, military or hackers and crackers. They could then choose to lean on some of them using their weaknesses (money, threats to family, arrest, etc.) And have them continue the network's effectiveness.

Pretty crafty, really.

It is like an enhancement on the current practice of creating or merely joining a discussion group for a given topic (new age, aliens, channelling, haarp, etc.) on the web to identify the movers and shakers and to plant misinformation, as we have seen far to often.

I feel we approached the point of not being able to trust anyone and wonder if even that (creating an environment of collective global distrust) was part of a plan. If it wasn't, it certainly is a serendipitous after effect for the PTB, OSIT.

This is what really concerns me. And I guess it all boils down to who is receiving the leaks, and who is getting to decide what actually gets released and when. I can't imagine they all go directly to, from, and through Assange, and if not all the members involved in the procedure even know each other, let alone identify and communicate only with initials, it would be all too easy, and truly impossible to ever even know. Possibly even for Assange? Maybe he actually does not know who he is working with?

Sadly, I still cannot help but think that it could possibly the utterly perfect intel gathering and subsequent black ops/cointelpro for this day and age. I can see the intel agencies thinking "So much information, too much to sniff and analyze even with all our algorithms...We'll just make a secret website, modeled after Tor with anonymous nodes (people) around the planet and have the important info hand delivered right to us! We'll occasionally release our own files (see the intelligence agencies already have them all - wouldn't it be funny if it was the CIA leaking to the CIA to make it seem like it wasn't the CIA leaking to the CIA so that everyone would trust said group without question?" I still don't think that can be ruled out yet. Again, I hope I'm wrong and that they are are using the Army-Navy developed tech (Tor) for all the right purposes (they use it for communication), and that they are who they say they are. Cuz that would be awesome!!!

But I think history shows us that intelligence agencies are always willing to stretch the envelope, and I wouldn't put the above scenario past any of them. While finishing this post I did find an interesting link where the author has several posts asking these same questions in a more coherent manner:
_https://p10.secure.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/ssl/wikileak/funding-wikileaks/

Seems almost 50/50 whether it could be a government op vs. sincere group of hackers and truthseekers. If it is the former, I imagine many cracks will eventually appear to expose it as self-evident.

Guardian said:
Yeah...they've just helped topple a small corrupt government or two....no biggie :shock:

Even though they got a lot of publicity for their Iraq Apache helicopter video, what happened? Nothing.

...and that's Wikileaks fault???? A bunch of geeks risk life imprisonment and/or death to publicize a vid of US solders slaughtering innocent people and "that really does not amount to much?"

Would you have put it on your server

Of course, toppling a government or two almost always involves participation of another government IMO. It would be interesting to investigate who benefitted from the reform in Kenya, politically and financially - I'm not really familiar with it. But they did release those global warming e-mails too, so yeah there have been some interesting leaks that have affected major change.

Also, we assume that a bunch of geeks are risking their lives here, but again - we don't really know that. We have no idea who these people are at all, and no evidence that even Assange has ever established their identities.

Don't get me wrong, that video blew my mind back when I first watched it, and I instantly thought "Wow, what someone must have done to get that out there." From that point forward, I almost subconsciously trusted Wikileaks as an authentic group, without stopping to question it. I'm guessing millions of people have done the same out there. I sincerely hope it is an independent group! But much remains to be seen I think.

anart said:
I admit to being pretty ignorant about wikileaks. Traveling the world and renting houses costs a LOT of money. Who funds Assange?

Wikileaks was essentailly offline (or drastically reduced format) from Dec 2009 through May 2010 claiming they were totally out of money and could not continue, with a big "donate now!" section and all. In February they said had the minimum amount needed, and the video was released in April. They claim to need $200,000 a year minimum, and $600,000 if all the volunteers are to be properly compensated.
 
Re: Soldier Betrayed by Online Informant with Wikileaks

I've also come across an interesting interview with Lamo, I don't have the link handy this second (I downloaded the mp3 a couple days ago) and it was interesting. I may transcribe portions of it later on. The Lamo fellow seems to trip up on his words quite a bit, which can be difficult to interpret due to his recent Asperger's diagnosis.

I'm definitely interested in any further interviews with Lamo floating around out there if anybody sees any.

Also it seems Ellsberg has been making the circuits appearing on MSNBC and other various shows giving interviews relating the Manning case to his own experiences with unauthorized disclosure of classified files decades ago and attempted assassination, harassment, etc.. I watched 3 different ones yesterday, and they were all interesting because he chooses to focus on a different aspect of the case each time he's interviewed. I recommend watching a couple if this story and it's historical parallels interest you.
 
Re: Soldier Betrayed by Online Informant with Wikileaks

Guardian said:
GRiM said:
Wow, great job Jason! I cant really put my finger on it but I have had a creeping suspicion about wiki along time. 600.000$ for the odd Boeing aircraft manual and many lukewarm documents that really does not amount to much.

Yeah...they've just helped topple a small corrupt government or two....no biggie :shock:

_http://www.wikileaks.com/wiki/WikiLeaks:About
"In Kenya, malaria was estimated to cause 20% of all deaths in children under five. Before the Dec 2007 national elections, WikiLeaks exposed $3,000,000,000 of Kenyan corruption and swung the vote by 10%. This lead to enormous changes in the constitution and the establishment of a more open government — one many hundreds of reforms catalyzed by WikiLeaks.

We believe WikiLeaks is the strongest way we have of generating the true democracy and good governance on which all mankind's dreams depend.

Even though they got a lot of publicity for their Iraq Apache helicopter video, what happened? Nothing.

...and that's Wikileaks fault???? A bunch of geeks risk life imprisonment and/or death to publicize a vid of US solders slaughtering innocent people and "that really does not amount to much?"

Would you have put it on your server?


I agree it was overly harsh of me. I forgot the climate-emails, they were extremely important imo. I did donate to them when they had their donate-button on the site a few month ago, so I'm not anti wiki in any way. As for the Apache-video, you are right, that was not their fault, the frustration should not be taken out on them. It angers me from having read and seen many interviews and comments about it, the constant legalistic nitpicking about it, when its clear that civilians are being executed from far far away by a flying killing machine.


..and no I would not host the documents :)
 
Re: Soldier Betrayed by Online Informant with Wikileaks

Jason Best said:
Wikileaks was essentailly offline (or drastically reduced format) from Dec 2009 through May 2010 claiming they were totally out of money and could not continue, with a big "donate now!" section and all. In February they said had the minimum amount needed, and the video was released in April. They claim to need $200,000 a year minimum, and $600,000 if all the volunteers are to be properly compensated.

That sounds about right to me. We would like to be able to have full-time sott editors who were compensated, and full time people to work in publishing and online tasks and managing FOTCM, but we don't... everything is done by volunteer labor and we barely manage to keep a roof over our heads here most of the time. Thankfully, our readers came through on our lawsuit! But still, we could do so much more if we had more income! Right now, about 25 people are working full time for no pay, just a place to live and food and all of them have given up full-time, good paying jobs to do what they feel is important. So, yeah, 600K a year would enable us to do AMAZING stuff!
 
Re: Soldier Betrayed by Online Informant with Wikileaks

Personally I don't trust nor believe in sites like wikileaks. LIke C`s once said , it is 3D STS world , so EVERYTHING is done on purpose. It does not have to be money. Form an IT world wanderer perspective , I can tell that hackers/crackers/hacktivists (whatever you call`em) are also doing it on purpose. It is virtually impossible to do something without an agenda in a first place. Let`s take few examples. Bill Gates did it easy way , he wrote a software which he sold and made a fortune out of it. There are also more clever ways of achiveing such goals. Linus Torvalds - Yes I know he wrote Linux and gave source code to the world but question is why he did it ? Did he do it for money or fame or to get a steady life ? or maybe it was his personal ambition ? Whatever it was it was he has done on purpose of getting something in an exchange. In IT world in order to get more information you have to know people , to know them you have to get their trust/respect , to get their trust/respect you have to give them something in an exchange and it is almost never money , it is either knowledge or software that you write or information etc etc.. but almost never money.

What I am trying to say is the fact that I cannot accept an idea , that there is a guy like Julien Assange who just figured out that he will be an activist and sets up a company which gathers info from hackers and publishes it.There has to be a catch somewhere.
First of all he has to be aware that he is playing with fire so he has to be either super trustworthy in eyes of hackers or he has biiiig backup (like gov maybe ? ). Second of all wikileaks is not releasing all information that they claim they have , just filtered stuff.

This whole wikileaks stuff , fits perfectly in a clever scenario made by not necessarily government but maybe by some sort of private 'I`ll take over the world'
wannabe. There are to many questions around this case. They could have released Iraq war videos just as a bait. Now they may create an illusion of being chased by US gov just to get away from all the mess that they did not predict in a first place - Like I said they play with fire , maybe they simply forgot that a skillful hacker is a double-edged sword , so in order to not being exposed they want to shutdown their selves.

Of course vast part of what I wrote is pure speculation , but I am trying to point out different possibilities.

Also about Kevin Poulsen - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Poulsen , notice that he worked for FBI , plus I should add that wikipedia is NOT covering his whole story ;)

There is also this : Lamo claims that Manning also leaked thousands of pages of classified data and diplomatic cables to Wikileaks, though Wikileaks claims otherwise. src:__http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Lamo

So like they say - stay vigilant :)

ps. Assange`s image looks kinda devilish to me :P
 
Re: Soldier Betrayed by Online Informant with Wikileaks

Laura said:
That sounds about right to me. We would like to be able to have full-time sott editors who were compensated, and full time people to work in publishing and online tasks and managing FOTCM, but we don't... everything is done by volunteer labor and we barely manage to keep a roof over our heads here most of the time. Thankfully, our readers came through on our lawsuit! But still, we could do so much more if we had more income! Right now, about 25 people are working full time for no pay, just a place to live and food and all of them have given up full-time, good paying jobs to do what they feel is important. So, yeah, 600K a year would enable us to do AMAZING stuff!

That's 1000 people donating $50.00 a month ...sounds doable to me :)
 
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