Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Cryptome Threatened

Posted by michael on from the having-a-talk-with-guido-and-the-boys dept.

e-gold writes: "See www.cryptome.org for a scoop on some Japanese CIA intel. John Young (an architect) does a better job at journalism on the Web than the VAST majority of paid "Web journalists," so this is par for the course for him. I'm glad to have hoisted a beer with him this summer." It's not so much the document itself but the FBI's reaction to it that's interesting. For some reason, the FBI in New York City is none too swift when it comes to threatening Web sites. Note that as I write this, cryptome.org is down, but there's no reason to think the site was pulled - it was mentioned on the AP wire, which seems to have been enough to beat it down to its knees.

5 of 15 comments (clear)

  1. Other John Young News by Jim+Tyre · · Score: 3
    Apparently, the FBI isn't enough to keep John busy. In the New York DVD/DeCSS trial, he's been trying to get a live raw feed of the court reporter's notes using LiveNote.

    If he gets it, it will be a first. This is what Judge Kaplan said about the request during trial on Wednesday:

    534
    1 THE COURT: Before we start, is Mr. Young in the
    2 courtroom?
    3 I have had a request from a John Young at Cryptome
    4 for an approval of a live feed of proceedings from the court
    5 reporter who's doing the realtime for the purpose of receiving
    6 the transcript as it's generated to post on the Internet.
    7 I wanted to inform him, and if anybody is talking to
    8 him, you can tell him that the matter is under consideration,
    9 but it involves a whole series of complex issues that involve
    10 the court reporters' rights for being compensated for their
    11 work, the fact that the realtime transcript in this case,
    12 because of the technical nature of much of the time leaves a
    13 great deal to be desired, inasmuch as neither party has yet
    14 provided the court reporter with a glossary, at least so I
    15 have been told in the last five minutes, so the draft
    16 transcript is not what it would be if that had occurred.
    17 And thirdly, I need technical advice on the extent to
    18 which if at all connecting any outside computer by direct
    19 cable to the court reporters' equipment potentially gives
    20 access to my own equipment.
    21 And, lastly, there are U.S. judicial conference rules
    22 that prohibit electronic connections between computers that
    23 are on the Judiciary's network and anybody outside the
    24 judiciary and mine is on the judiciary's network.
    25 I will look into these matters, but it isn't going to

    535

    1 happen in a matter of hours.

    1. Re:Other John Young News by AndrewD · · Score: 3

      It's actually an excellent notion, much though I misdoubt anyone involved in the administration of that courtroom is reading this.

      I have a lot of time for LiveNote, where the size of the proceedings justifies the cost of using it: in our regular courts here in the UK, proceedings are tape-recorded and transcribed by one of the certified transcription services if someone asks for it (this arrangement is done on grounds of cost - most proceedings don't need a transcript). It's slow, unwieldy and a pain in the backside since all you get is a typed transcript.

      LiveNote, where I've had it for arbitration hearings (usually at least as formal as courtroom work) has been a real boon, since it's quick and reasonably accurate. A direct link from the hearing room to the office has never really justified the cost (if something urgent comes up, someone ducks out of the hearing room to phone back for whatever document is needed.)

      Perhaps when speech recognition gets good enough to distinguish between speakers, filter out coughs and generally behave to the point where a box in the courtroom will do it automatically, we can all spectate on trials in progress.

      On the other hand, the embuggerment to the orderly progress of justice that TV cameras in the courtroom represent (grandstanding witnesses and lawyers, for example) might come in through the back door. Here in England we've resisted cameras in court for precisely this reason and so haven't had OJ/Kennedy-Smith shenanigans yet (our miscarriages of justice tend to be less showy). Whether the court service and the judges will regard real-time verbatim reporting as an extension of the same thing is an interesting question.

      --

      -- AndrewD

      A Maze of Twisty Little Laws, All Different.

  2. Freenet by phUnBalanced · · Score: 2

    You might also be interested to know that this information (FBI names etc) and files have all been posted into the freenet system. They'll be around for quite a while it appears. Freenet

  3. Why did Slashdot "hide" this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    This is a very important article!! Yet it has only 7 replies (including "first post"). Why is it not in the slashdot front page? I had to get to it only by clicking a link on YRO. The FBI taking down a Web site is far too important to hide.

  4. Cryptome mirror by juju2112 · · Score: 2

    For the record, there is a nice mirror of cryptome at: https://www.ccc.de/mirrors/cryptome.org/ I am surprised that there is not more about this in the traditional hacker media.. this seems like a huge deal to me..