WikiLeaks Under Fire

kan0r writes "The transparency group WikiLeaks.org currently seems to be under heavy fire. The main WikiLeaks.org DNS entry is unavailable, reportedly due to a restraining order relating to a series of articles and documents released by WikiLeaks about off-shore trust structures in the Cayman Islands. The WikiLeaks whistle blower, allegedly former vice president of the Cayman Islands branch of swiss bank Julius Baer, states in the WikiLeaks documents that the bank supported tax evasion and money laundering by its clients from around the world. WikiLeaks alternate names remained available until Saturday, when there seems to have been a heavy DDoS attack and a fire at the ISP. The documents in question are still available on other WikiLeaks sites, such as wikileaks.be, and are also mirrored on Cryptome. Details of the court documents have also been made available."

Comments

But why?

[jrothwell97]

Wikileaks is an interesting website, and I can see no reason why anyone would want to take a site hosting confidential leaked documents from governments and big business offline...

Speaking seriously here, I wouldn't doubt it being a corporate or political DDoS attack, considering the confidentiality of the documents, and how damaging they could be to said companies/governments' reputations. Not a bad thing in my opinion, but they would think otherwise.

Re:But why?

[smittyoneeach]

This is not a bad rendition of the answer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGmA1Cpmldg

Re:But why?

[utnapistim]

I think it was a bad move on the part of whoever did the attack, if their intention was censorship: it only created more publicity for the documents.

Re:But why?

[smittyoneeach]

Going fully Machiavellian, an attacker might a) call attention via DIOS, or b) buy time to negotiate.
The latter seems unlikely, because if the information was available for any length of time
then it has likely escaped.

Re:But why?

[fastest fascist]

Maybe they have something more to hide. Or maybe it's just petty vengeance.

Re:But why?

[Jurily]

what if they did it themselves? :)

Re:But why?

[morgan_greywolf]

Interesting, but not likely. WikiLeakS is already well-known and they have plenty of traffic on their site. The publisher of the leaks themselves is known and WikiLeakS is just a neutral party to this really -- they just serve up what people post.

Besides, what about the mysterious UPS fire? I find that interesting because UPSes, especially commercial grade ones installed in server rooms, typically have safety mechanisms (read: big breaker switches) in them that prevent them from overloading and catching fire. In 15 years of working in server rooms, I've never actually seen one catch fire, though I've heard of a few freak accidents.

Re:But why?

[antifoidulus]

Because everyone loves Krusty the clown and getting him in trouble with the IRS over his secret, illegal account in the Cayman Islands is going to make everyone mad!

Re:But why?

[josecanuc]

http://www-viz.tamu.edu/staff/kglueck/images.php3?list=vizfire

Wasn't a UPS, but a 3-phase power conditioner for a machine room. Yes, it was a freak accident.

Re:But why?

[Brian Gordon]

Maybe it's related to the DDoS.. the routers just burst into flames :)

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

It generates more free publicity and advertising for the bank's tax-sheltering and money-laundering services, with the reassuring message that the U.S. courts are standing behind you should you patronize aforesaid bank.

Meanwhile Wikileaks gets to have it's operating premises reinforced, play victim, garner more support, funds, etc.

So you see, it's a win-win strategy all around. What, me cynical?

Re:But why?

[morgan_greywolf]

Of course, like I said, freak accidents are known to happen. But this seems just a wee bit too coincidental to be a freak accident. I mean, in the example you provide, I'm sure there wasn't a 500 Mbps DDoS atack, combined with a legal attack staged by infamous Hollywood shysters happening at about the same time, either.

I smell the work of international organized crime here.

Re:But why?

[bhima]

No I fear the near leathal combination of a My Mini City movie with Rick Astley singing in the background.

Re:But why?

[somersault]

In pictures 5 & 6, mr 3-phase power conditioner looks really pooped out. Kinda like "-.-"

Re:But why?

[erroneus]

I think they are simply attacking something they don't understand.

"The internet is a bunch of TUBES!!!"

Re:But why?

[BytePusher]

IMNVHO(In My Not Very Honest Opinion) I agree, I love the smell of a good conspiracy.

Re:But why?

[jasen666]

I think most organizations or groups with the means and know-how to perform a large-scale DDOS, would likely know this by now.
Maybe they're doing it for publicity purposes

Re:But why?

[ediron2]

What do pics datestamped 2001 (and involving Texas A&M) have to do with the wikileaks UPS fire? The way you reply, you could be saying 'yeah, this *sort* of freak accident can happen', but it comes across as 'here's pics, it wasn't a UPS but a PCU'. Care to fill in a bit more info?

Re:But why?

[josecanuc]

It's truly irrelevant to the meat of the discussion. Just some photos of a fire in a machine room.

Re:But why?

[D-Fly]

Hard to believe, but they were taken offline by court order in the United States. A corrupt Swiss Bank, Julius Baer, objected to wikileaks posting documents showing malfeasance on the part of the bank, so this crazy judge, Jeffrey White, who really doesn't understand the First Amendment (and was nominated to the Federal bench by Bush of course), ordered the site to be taken offline. Here's a BBC link describing what happened. And another one from Counterpunch.

Re:But why?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Massive flooding of the network could lead to a sudden burst, sustained power draw as hard drives and perhaps network electronics were taken to full capacity, and then some. If the power supply couldn't handle it, foomp! Especially an aging or perhaps poorly-tested or inadequate one for the total max load.

I doubt the pingbomber (or whatever it was) knew this would, or could happen. Still, it could raise charges from merely whatever DDOS penalties are to reckless or malicious destruction of property, if not outright endangering lives.

Re:But why?

[smittyoneeach]

Hard to believe, but they were taken offline by court order in the United States.

What's so hard to believe about this?
Europeans want to vote in US elections: http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/2825
People in the US want to extend US rights to non-US citizens, variously in Guantanamo Bay and for those present on US soil in less than legal circumstances.
Treaties like the UN Law of the Sea Convention want to set up international bodies that can fine countries.
Are we not oozing towards a single world government?

Re:But why?

[Ironsides]

How kind of you not to mention any reasoning behind the order.
The selected document evidence exhibits "A" through "O", comprised of selected portions of Plaintiffs' confidential and protected bank files, records, data and consumer account information
Even if they are committing a crime, banking privacy laws still apply.

Now, having said that, I hope the IRS go after these folks.

Re:But why?

[xENoLocO]

No! It has to be a conspiracy!

I love the conspiracy-supportive /. description, too. There "seems to have been" a fire. Like it took a detective to figure that out, and it's still debated on whether or not shit went up in flames.

Re:But why?

[Nasajin]

I don't think that it should be considered a bad thing for countries or big business to be held accountable for their actions. In the argument you seem to be giving, then Saddam Hussein's government should never have been toppled, the Vietnam War should never have involved troops that were not Vietnamese, Cuba's political position should be irrelevant to any embargos, and North Korea should be left to its own devices. I think that human rights violations in certain countries should be confronted and stopped, and it's not going to happen from within those countries. Organisations like Wikileaks helps people to know information about countries and organisations that they would otherwise not know. While I don't think it is a perfect system at all, I still think it's a very important site for collecting leaked information about illegal or inhumane practices.

Also, in response to your question, "Are we not oozing towards a single world government?", I doubt it. Given the effective power of international organisations like the UN (having nearly no money or resources) and the fact that there is an increasing social distance between different parts of the world due to political, religious, and ideological differences, there's really no indication that global government is happening -- unless you count the somewhat unified interests of international corporate enterprises.

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Missing Iraq & Katrina money perhaps? Inquiring minds want to know.

Re:But why?

[smittyoneeach]

No, my points were all leading up to the oozing question.

I don't think that it should be considered a bad thing for countries or big business to be held accountable for their actions.

I don't, either, insofar as it doesn't tend towards yet another layer of control above sovereign nations, even further removed from the will of the governed.

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

extend US rights to non-US citizens

The rights mentioned in the constitution are considered to be unalienable rights extended to all of mankind by the Creator Himself (for definitions of man that have varied throughout time, generally in a more-encompassing direction. I hear some places even let retards and cripples marry these days). Furthermore, within the constraints placed upon the entire federal government (yes, even pudge's "all powerful" executive) "No Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized" does not say "except for non-Americans". "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial" does not say "except for non-Americans" (and the judicial section of the Constitution does not provide for any options except for "criminal" or "civil", there is no "other" (except for the military courts regulated by the legislative branch and dealing only with military issues, and the administration refuses to permit its captives to go down that road), even for non-Americans (or for Americans who fly to the middle-east and get rejected from Al Qaeda)).

It's just convenient for the people in power to convince the public otherwise.

Re:But why?

[smittyoneeach]

It's just convenient for the people in power to convince the public otherwise.

Suspending disbelief momentarily, pending legal review, I have this question:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Are you really sure about the document's scope?
I suppose if you mean the physical territory of these United States, then anyone standing within the borders could be seen as "People of the United States".
Too, WRT Guantanamo Bay, the fact that the detainees are not in CONUS may be seen as keeping them out of legal theory range.
Not here to shill for anybody: it's a debate that reasonable people can chew on for a while.

Re:But why?

[T Murphy]

Actually, no one may know what information was intended to be censored- there are enough companies, governments and individuals who would have motive to take the site down that the culprit has a certain level of anonymity amongst the crowd of them. For once censorship may not have the typical backfire we're used to.

Re:But why?

[demonlapin]

Not here to shill for anybody: it's a debate that reasonable people can chew on for a while.

Although, given that this is /., I can almost certainly guarantee that it won't happen here.

Re:But why?

[SlippyToad]

So, nothing about their stalking and harassment of Rudolf Elmer and his 6-year-old daughter could possibly be massively embarrassing to such a fine institution?

Re:But why?

[Ironsides]

Sorry, but as much as you might like to think otherwise, that isn't the only thing on the website, and isn't covered under the judges order.

Re:But why?

[Anonymous Coward]

"A corrupt Swiss Bank", hmm, I think I just found another tautology...

Re:But why?

[kesuki]

personally, i think that Europe is heading towards a single 'national' government, with the 'current' national governments becoming state like governmental bodies, but i don't see any reason for that process (if it happens) to spread world wide. although the European union currently lacks teeth, i have a feeling that it's just a matter of time before online crime, copyright law, etc causes the people in those countries to Want a stronger EU government that can go after criminals, universally protect the copyrighted material in all countries etc...

the reason why this will never go 'global' is simple. 'modern' nations are built in part off the resources of 'less developed countries' just look at how modern environmental regulations have driven global production to china... and consider where in the world 'copper' is currently being mined for use in America, Japan, Europe etc..

with oil running out, there will be a need for large tracts of land that need to produce 'renewable' energy resources, since it's cheaper to do in Africa and south America, that's where it will be done. unless of course, we start harvesting oil 'underneath' the sea, in underwater oil platforms that connect to an undersea pipeline in the arctic and antarctic oceans. the technology to do that exists, and if oil goes high enough, it will be done. personally, i think bio-fuels can be done for less than building undersea platforms to continue sucking at the teat of oil.

ah well, at least the undersea oil money won't necessarily go to the mid-east (unless they invest in the companies that start doing so, but nothing is stopping them from investing in bio-fuel companies either)

Re:But why?

[SETIGuy]

[Preamble of the Constitution deleted]

Are you really sure about the document's scope?
I suppose if you mean the physical territory of these United States, then anyone standing within the borders could be seen as "People of the United States".
Too, WRT Guantanamo Bay, the fact that the detainees are not in CONUS may be seen as keeping them out of legal theory range.

So you would be OK with the CIA assassinating you if you just happened to be on a trip to Mexico?

But that's beside the point. The Constitution enumerates the limited powers of the government of the United States. Where it makes no distinction between citizens and non-citizens, it makes no distinction between citizens and non-citizens. Also where it makes no distinction between U.S. territory and non-U.S. territory, it makes no distinction between U.S. territory and non-U.S. territory. They are both truisms.

The 4th amendment says: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

It does not mention dressing up as a clown. That doesn't mean it's legal to conduct warrantless searches while dressed as a clown. No reasonable person could argue that the 4th amendment doesn't apply if the people conducting the searches are dressed as clowns. No reasonable person would state that it's "a debate that reasonable people can chew on for a while."

Not here to shill for anybody: it's a debate that reasonable people can chew on for a while. No, it's a debate that unreasonable people can and will use to convince easily frightened and uneducated people that it is necessary to give up some of their rights.

Re:But why?

[smittyoneeach]

So you would be OK with the CIA assassinating you if you just happened to be on a trip to Mexico?

I dunno. Am I beavering away on plots to spread mayhem north of the Rio Grande?
This is certainly a fine extreme case, and it's a good thing that we do consider things like waterboarding. The will of the people seems to be strongly opposed. Excellent. Wouldn't want that carried out on me. Like a minefield in the enemy harbor, though, waterboarding isn't so much about the actual yes/no should it be used on prisoner X at time Y, but rather the threat of doing such. Which is exactly why the executive branch, and the US in international treaties, is very careful about where and when specific language gets set down.
In the highly-charged emotional debates, this fine point seems missed.

No, it's a debate that unreasonable people can and will use to convince easily frightened and uneducated people that it is necessary to give up some of their rights.

Not sure that you've modeled the problem well in this phrasing.
There are citizens, foreigners, and a constitution. The constitution says what it says. Reality is what it is. Government overachieves frequently, e.g. the District of Columbia ban on firearms. Labelling some viewpoints as tools to frighten the uneducated hardly helps debate.
Presidents tend to have a very expansive view of their job. The Congress checks that view, or, often, writes checks to support that view.


Some wandering thoughts, not necessarily on this topic:
The sad nature of the current political tautology is that, even if there was an impeachment proceeding against Bush and Cheney, any verdict less than "guilty" would be interpreted as a sign that the proceedings had been corrupted. In other words, the question is not one of facts and reasonable debate, but has passed into the realm of the religious.
In this kind of discussion, I'm left to wish that history could support experiments, and drop some of the members of the peanut gallery in key positions, just to see them react to the sorts of challenges that have been faced by the post-9/11 leadership. Ah, Teddy.

Re:But why?

[starman97]

Well, they're not really offline, just no Nameservice.

This IP is still up. It may be a mirror though.
http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks

Goes to show, attempts at net censorship just make more copies of the information available.

Re:But why?

[Hes Nikke]

That's all well and good but if the those that supposedly represent the people, and defend the constitution do neither, what are we the governed to do about it? They need the consent of the governed, and yet, the governed now have no other choice but to consent under duress.

If you ask me, what ever government we have now, it isn't restricted by the constitution. Or the founding document of this nation: The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America. Unfortunately, the LAST time we tried to put the corrupted power in check resulted in the rape and ravaging of the Southern states who declared independence from the 3rd monster of the land.

Re:But why?

[sp3d2orbit]

Europeans want to vote in US elections

So why not do it? Any country can petition the US to become a US territory and then a US state. Texas, for example, was at one time the Country of Texas.

Of course, then you have to pay US taxes.

Re:But why?

[jproffer]

I wouldnt be surprised, if this isnt an attempt to censor or take down wikileaks, but rather an attempt to discover, and possibly gain control of, the owner(s) of the website. You notice in the judge's order, part of it was to remove any privacy protection and to turn over all records, current and past, of all administrative, technical, and billing contact person(s) since the creation of wikileaks. Want to bet, that the judge was pressured by someone (or some people) in the US govermnent who have accounts at said bank in question at wikileaks? :)

Re:But why?

[celle]

-rant-And why is this judge still on the bench? He obviously hasn't read the constitution or followed the court decisions of the last 40 years. Why hasn't he been censured, even disbarred, already for judicial misconduct? You know, issuing an order that is in direct violation of constitutional law as laid out in the constitution and prior supreme court decisions.(I keep thinking pentagon papers even though its a foreign issue) This smells like a bought judge, get the tar and feathers ready, and the disbarment hearing. The prison uniform comes next. Also review his past decisions, if any of them deal with innocent death row inmates or people destroyed by corporations, lock him and his family in a room large enough to house all the family members of those that suffered. Public revenge and removal of genetic undesirables all in one swoop.

Funny, judges act on their own opinion when money/power is at stake, you know bribes/access. But when the public is abused it seems to take forever for them to order anything. You know RIAA/*AAs when this shit should have been laughed out of court and *AA lawyers disbarred for committing legal harassment unto the public at large.

Shouldn't it be an act of war when foreign corporations attack native citizens, especially in large numbers? At minimum they're acts of terrorism. And legal aggression is still an attack just like any other form of aggression.-/rant-

-rant- -- because on slashdot anything else is meaningless!!

Re:But why?

[panderso]

You don't like this? --- Well then send your comments to the lawyer for Bank Julius Baer, a Mr. Evan N. Spiegel at mailto:espiegel@lavelysinger.com

Re:But why?

[iminplaya]

...yet another layer of control above sovereign nations...

Sovereign nations are an anathema to sovereign individuals.

Re:But why?

[iminplaya]

I suppose if you mean the physical territory of these United States, then anyone standing within the borders could be seen as "People of the United States".

I would consider that all people in the hands of the American authorities, no matter where they are, have the same rights as any American.

Re:But why?

[smittyoneeach]

OK, but there exists a Law of War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_war that states otherwise.

Re:But why?

[smittyoneeach]

sovereign individuals

Who are these famous people? Can you tell me how to extricate myself from Social Security?

Re:But why?

[smittyoneeach]

That was the Republic of Texas, and there was also a Republic of California.
Of course, those were fig leaves to paper over the US expansion at the expense of Mexico.
From a larger historical perspective, all of the illegal immigration seems like an evening of the scales.

So why not do it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_Acton
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.
Concentrated power, across the DIME is ++ungood.
Hence the fact that all this seductive socialism scares me as much or more as the Team America: World Police foreign policy that we can't seem to escape.

Re:But why?

[Omestes]

Not trying to flame you, genuinely curious about this line of thought. What is so evil about a world government? Reading further you mention national sovereignty, but that doesn't seem to be the real crux, since nations are largely arbitrary constructs which are never actually culturally homogeneous.

I don't know if its a good idea, but I can certainly see some good things coming from the idea, as long as it was limited, for one with a world government the U.S.'s current international idiocies never would have happened.

Re:But why?

[smittyoneeach]

certainly see some good things coming from the idea

Oh, absolutely. There will indeed be much good. And you will hear about it. It will be advertised, oh yes.
The concern comes from the concentration of power.
Families and clans are presumably the oldest constructs. Then you get into nations. The more abstracted the governing system, the more layers of bureaucracy, the more the individuals get reduced to little cells in a spreadsheet. The decision makers are too removed from the individual voter.
Then the various patronage systems come along. It's all packaged nicely, of course. Taxes are kind of high, and I suppose it's all right if you have simple tastes, and are from basically healthy stock, so you don't get too sick.

the U.S.'s current international idiocies never would have happened

I suppose if you're confident that some other idiocy would not have come along, you could feel good about it. Stated otherwise: I don't see how this world government guarantees actual peace, though I'm sure the propaganda organs would say otherwise.
Does this government directly tinker with the human spirit, perhaps?

Re:But why?

[AndersOSU]

Would it be reasonable to assume that James Madison (the father of the constitution) employed spies during the war of 1812? Would it further be reasonable to assume that any espionage upon the British during this time was carried out without the proper warrants?

If those scenarios are reasonable, I think a legitimate argument can be mounted that the fourth amendment does not, and was never intended to apply to all people regardless of citizenship, location, or political situation.

Re:But why?

[Omestes]

The concern comes from the concentration of power. [...] The more abstracted the governing system, the more layers of bureaucracy, the more the individuals get reduced to little cells in a spreadsheet. The decision makers are too removed from the individual voter.

I always thought that if we did end up with a monolithic world government of some sort it would be more like a confederacy than a large republic or such. Sort of like what the UN was supposed to be like, or like what the EU is. 7b people would be unwieldy for any non-tyranny. We can see see this in the U.S. where we already feel the strain from dealing with exponentially more people than our government was formed to deal with, thus leading to some tearing at the seams. China seems to upscale fine, but I wouldn't want to live there. A truly democratic single world government would probably collapse in 15 minutes. But a republican, or confederate one, would probably work rather well, with the added benefit of a retaining much of sovereignty.

I would think of it as another abstraction layer on top of what we have now, another layer of error checking. the federal level checks states (and interstate relations), the global government checks nation states (and their relations), and keeps them from acting out in an anti-social way. If limited in this way, it shouldn't impact the character of individual states too much.

Does this government directly tinker with the human spirit, perhaps?

Not sure what your going for there. EVERYTHING tinkers with the human spirit, from the federal level, to what brand names you like, to the social group you enjoy going to the pub with. I'm taking your use of "spirit" to be synonymous with "human nature", which I think is a largely erroneous idea.

Again, I'm still out on the idea, but its nice to play devil's advocate to work on my position.

Re:But why?

[Meski]

[Preamble of the Constitution deleted]

Are you really sure about the document's scope?
I suppose if you mean the physical territory of these United States, then anyone standing within the borders could be seen as "People of the United States".
Too, WRT Guantanamo Bay, the fact that the detainees are not in CONUS may be seen as keeping them out of legal theory range.

So you would be OK with the CIA assassinating you if you just happened to be on a trip to Mexico? Is this a straw-man I see?

The US Constitution, is, strangely enough, a constitution for the USA. Others of us may admire it, but that doesn't make it globally binding.

Re:But why?

[smittyoneeach]

I do mean human nature.

another layer of error checking

This is by no means a personal attack, but I consider this concept the height of wishful thinking.
Irrespective of whatever high ideals the concept is born under, it will be a full-on cartel within 10 years, and I'm being generous.
No perfect systems exist, and, thus, the smaller the system, the less the imperfections.

Re:But why?

[Omestes]

This is by no means a personal attack, but I consider this concept the height of wishful thinking.

I don't take it to be one, and it very well may be. I'm looking at this from a rather optimistic line of thought, trying it on, if you will. I would be suspicious of any move towards a single government, since it would be based on some ideology, and I am distrustful of ANY ideology. Historically all attempts on monolithic governments generally were genocidal regimes with some version of homicidal entitlement and ideology. Stalin, Hitler, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, etc... None of these can be taken as historical precedents. But these were cults of ego, and not a form of representative confederacy (like a U.N. with teeth, and no super-veto).

Re:But why?

[smittyoneeach]

The UN has to be put in the context of the horror of WWII, and the tension of the nuclear arms race that followed.
There was a need to have a forum to increase communications, and a security council to keep an eye on "them commies",
but no one was keen on it doing anything more powerful than cajoling.

Re:But why?

[SETIGuy]

So you would be OK with the CIA assassinating you if you just happened to be on a trip to Mexico? Is this a straw-man I see? No, it's a legitimate question for those that think that there are no legal bounds to what the U.S. government can do outside of U.S. territory.

The US Constitution, is, strangely enough, a constitution for the USA. Others of us may admire it, but that doesn't make it globally binding. It is globally and universally binding on the government of the U.S. except in cases where it specifies otherwise.

Re:But why?

[iminplaya]

Who are these famous people?

You, me, and six billion others.

Can you tell me how to extricate myself from Social Security?

It's all a matter of perception. Negotiate your net pay, and get someone else to do the paperwork for you. I used to be all upset with the government about the difference between what I was told I was getting paid and what was on the check until I realized it was the employer who was ripping me off. Now that I only discuss what I net, the rest doesn't exist. It works when you're self employed also. Adjust your prices so that you take home the amount you want. One of the nice things about socialized medicine and insurance, etc is that you only have to make out one check. It's what I liked about renting as opposed to owning a house. I pay the landlord, and he's responsible for all the things like the appliances and plumbing, etc. I rode public transport because the price was at fixed rate, no matter how often I ride or how far I go. Their prices go up, and so do mine. Remind your customers how much goes to the government and let them complain to them about it. Personally, I consider things like social security (an honest one anyone) to be a good thing. I see people who want to keep everything for themselves as a little less than human. It's just a circle anyway. What's their problem? Decide what your time is worth to you, and work with that. The problem is not the government. It's those who enable it. It's all those sovereign individuals who give up their (and take away your) sovereignty for perceived personal advantage. They may be following orders, but it's still them that put the gun to your head. The ability to say "no" is universal.

Re:But why?

[iminplaya]

Regardless of what any law says, a person still has an absolute right to equal treatment by the authorities. Don't take this wrong, but using a written law to justify mistreatment of people is something that pudge tries to do. There used to be laws that considered some humans as property. Does that make it right just because it's the law? Not to me it doesn't. The military commissions act is a crime against humanity. It doesn't matter one bit to me whether it's "constitutional" or within the constructs of the Geneva Convention or not, and the people who voted for it and signed it into law should be removed from power at the very least, brought before an international court, and probably should be imprisoned.

Re:But why?

[smittyoneeach]

The problem is not the government. It's those who enable it. It's all those sovereign individuals who give up their (and take away your) sovereignty for perceived personal advantage. They may be following orders, but it's still them that put the gun to your head. The ability to say "no" is universal.

I guess I can agree that government, in the abstract, is not, itself, the problem.
However, "those who enable it" are also components of the government.
Look at the current sales pitch that seems to be saying that there is some universal human right to health care.
As if, somehow, without the government nipple thrust between your lips, you yourself are incapable of determining how to choose a reasonable diet/exercise plan that is going to help you live a long and healthy life. Never mind the thousands of years of recorded history that existed prior to this wonderful government decree. Never mind the rather mixed results of these systems in other countries.
Of course, the message is not put as crassly as I just did. It's all subtext. And, as "a matter of perception" you can simply choose to ignore it.

Re:But why?

[smittyoneeach]

Regardless of what any law says, a person still has an absolute right to equal treatment by the authorities.

Yes, this is embodied in the 14th Amendment.
I can even see this point from a theological standpoint in Galatians 3:28 "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."
Existentially, however, "the authorities" have vastly different scopes. Driven to its logical extreme, a "wand of equal treatment" would conclude in a single world government, so that there is but one authority, and all are indeed guaranteed equal treatment, for certain values of "equal".
However, IMO human nature, while not infrequently doing "good" things, has a certain entropy to it, and tends toward the ++ungood. Keeping the world fragmented, and limiting the scope of authority, while, certainly breeding a raft of problems, makes at least as much sense as trying to merge everything and giving an elite few the authority to define what "right" and "equal" mean, as YMMV.
Given the real fragmentation of the world, conflict arises.
Given conflict, there is a body of work known as the Law of Armed Conflict that attempts to offer a framework for limiting the violence.
Answering your question, then, it's quite easy to argue that "the military commissions act is a crime against humanity". The bigger challenge is to develop a "solution" (if a politician ever claims to 'solve' a problem, the problem had better be a tiny one, or this is an indication that your leg is being pulled) that can be implemented in The World As We Know It.
This is not meant to mock your idealism in the slightest. Keep it alive, as it is a valid input towards overall improvement in the world.
You may think me some great rationalizer. I certainly am, and I thank you for a post that knocks some of the dust off of my own internal ideals.
The only utopian approach I can personally get to, however, is a theological one. The secular humanist approaches, in my worldview, are themselves variations on the theme of "I am God".
The various Socialist approaches seem to place the State on the level of God. This is idolatry to me, for the State is a convenient abstraction shared by a bunch of people. The land on either side of the Rio Grande has as much knowledge of "Mexico" and "The United States" as the river does "Rio Grande".
Thus, my curiosity piqued: under what banner would you propose to unite humanity such that "absolute human rights" are guaranteed absolutely equal enforcement? This is a serious question, and not intended as flamebait in the slightest.

Re:But why?

[sp3d2orbit]

It doesn't seem to me like a push towards world government is a concentration of power across the DIME, as you put it. Multiple levels of government can coexist independently, especially in the American-style federation. And, those levels can continue to function when they are in opposition (such as California's medical marijuana laws in defiance of Federal drug laws).

I agree that an absolutely powerful world government would be absolutely corrupt -- but I don't think anyone is suggesting that solution (Islamists aside). The UN, for example, has very little power. When governments don't agree with UN resolutions they don't have to follow them (Iraq until 2003, Iran now, North Korea, Sudan, etc). I would argue that the lack of power at a world level causes war.

The failure of the UN is in its structure. It is an oligarchy, not a federation, republic, or democracy. The 5 WWII Allies hold the rest of the world hostage for their own interests. Personal interests are a threat to liberty.

On the other hand, the American federation works extremely well and has withstood the test of time and scale better than any comparable system. I see no reason why, if a country wants to influence American policy, it shouldn't join the federation. They trade a measure (not all) of sovereignty for the right to affect the overall system. Change from within.

Really though, the Europeans see themselves as the center of history. They would no sooner join the US federation than ratify the EU's constitution. Submitting to any higher level of government would invalidate the arrogant attitude of global relevance. Belgium is no more relevant on the world scene than California. But, to admit that would be admitting the end of Charlemagne.

One final note, Mexico would probably be much better off today had they too become part of the union 150 years ago. California and Texas are doing pretty well, they have a massive say in American politics (Bush is from Texas, after all), and the Mexicans who live in the US, on average, enjoy a higher standard of living than those still in Mexico.

Re:But why?

[smittyoneeach]

It doesn't seem to me like a push towards world government is a concentration of power across the DIME, as you put it. Multiple levels of government can coexist independently, especially in the American-style federation. And, those levels can continue to function when they are in opposition (such as California's medical marijuana laws in defiance of Federal drug laws).

I'm contending it's a slow push in this thread, decades, even into centuries off.
Multiple levels tend to compress. Consider how weak these United States have been since the Civil War.

I agree that an absolutely powerful world government would be absolutely corrupt -- but I don't think anyone is suggesting that solution (Islamists aside). The UN, for example, has very little power. When governments don't agree with UN resolutions they don't have to follow them (Iraq until 2003, Iran now, North Korea, Sudan, etc). I would argue that the lack of power at a world level causes war.

The UN lacks power, yet people keep wanting to insist that it take on more. Treaties such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_sea_convention are, in fact, suggesting there be regulatory organs above countries with the power to exact fines--a step towards taxation.

The failure of the UN is in its structure. It is an oligarchy, not a federation, republic, or democracy. The 5 WWII Allies hold the rest of the world hostage for their own interests. Personal interests are a threat to liberty.

The UN is a little coffee shop where countries can scream and keep an eye on each other. Some parts of it are effective.

On the other hand, the American federation works extremely well and has withstood the test of time and scale better than any comparable system. I see no reason why, if a country wants to influence American policy, it shouldn't join the federation. They trade a measure (not all) of sovereignty for the right to affect the overall system. Change from within.

Globalization? You mean economically, right?

Really though, the Europeans see themselves as the center of history. They would no sooner join the US federation than ratify the EU's constitution. Submitting to any higher level of government would invalidate the arrogant attitude of global relevance. Belgium is no more relevant on the world scene than California. But, to admit that would be admitting the end of Charlemagne.

Which is why the EUrocrats slipped their people a mickey in Lisbon:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/13/AR2007121301539.html

One final note, Mexico would probably be much better off today had they too become part of the union 150 years ago. California and Texas are doing pretty well, they have a massive say in American politics (Bush is from Texas, after all), and the Mexicans who live in the US, on average, enjoy a higher standard of living than those still in Mexico.

Mexico is an oligarchy, AFAIK. If you're holding power, why give it up?

Re:But why?

[sp3d2orbit]

Globalization? You mean economically, right?

No, I'm honestly suggesting that countries that want to influence American power should become a US state. I'm also saying that the US model would work much better than the UN model if scaled up to a global level.

It is not a popular idea. But, if people really want change, it is a practical idea. The alternative is to sit around and whine about US policies without affecting them.

Re:But why?

[smittyoneeach]

the US model would work much better than the UN model if scaled up to a global level

Well, the US model has been around 200+ years, but the Europeans somehow missed the part about the bicameral legislature, and the EU Constitution died in referenda over there.
So they've repackaged it as the Lisbon Treaty, because the lumpen proletariat isn't, you know, reliable.
Long way to go before any US ideas are replicated worldwide in countries where we didn't explicitly help write the constitution, but most would agree that our adventurism wad is fairly shot for a few decades.

Restraining order?

[somersault]

I hereby judge that WikiLeak's DNS entry is not allowed to pass within 100 feet of any US DNS server, on penalty of having to memorise himself in IPv6 form

Re:Restraining order?

[somersault]

How is that insightful? o_o

Re:Restraining order?

[arth1]

Someone thinks a post funny, and slaps +1 Funny on it. Karma is unchanged.
Someone else then thinks it's not funny, and since there's no -1 Unfunny, slaps another -1 on it. The result is lowered karma for a post some people thought funny.
A third person then sees the -1 Overrated, and slaps on a +1 which does restore karma (which, as said before, the +1 Funny doesn't).

Isn't this even a FAQ entry?

No, it's not a good solution, but as long as there's no "-1 Unfunny" that won't change people's karma, and "Underrated" and "Overrated" don't null each other out, these things will happen.
I suggest you stop paying attention to how others rate the posts, and let it flow. In the grand scheme of things, it should all even out (or that's the Plan, at least), even if individual posts are mislabeled.

Re:Restraining order?

[Mr2001]

I thought Underrated and Overrated didn't affect karma either. Or are they just not subject to metamod?

Insult + Injury

[cthulu_mt]

Great idea. On top of a DDoS attack lets add the Slashdot effect. I can smell the smoke pouring off their servers.

Re:Insult + Injury

[mrxak]

Yay! Second wave attack gogogo! Burn their tubes to the ground! Oh well, at least they'll feel better about this one, right?

Re:Insult + Injury

[craagz]

maybe kan0r posted to slashdot hoping for the site to get slashdotted. He is one of THEM!!!

Re:Insult + Injury

[rucs_hack]

If their tubes fail, there's always the trucks...

Re:Insult + Injury

[eldepeche]

IT'S NOT A TRUCK!!!

Re:Insult + Injury

[jimbojw]

No no, that's UPS smoke you smell - server smoke is more bacony.

To those behind the attacks...

[Loibisch]

To those behind the attacks: It's too late!
Remember: What's once on the internet stays on the internet...one way or another.

Just deal with it.

Re:To those behind the attacks...

[TheRealMindChild]

You know, maybe I am a few links shy on my paperclip necklace, but don't you think it kind of conspicuous that while said DoS attack is going on, this submitter not only informed Slashdot about it, but actually pointed us all to the still-left-standing mirrors... as if to try and trigger the Slashdot effect.

Re:To those behind the attacks...

[petermgreen]

the /. effect is WAY overrated, if you are suffering from it you either have big file downloads, really shitty hosting (think home DSL/cable or similar) or a badly designed dynamic site (this last one is probablly the most common).

Re:To those behind the attacks...

[TheThiefMaster]

After all, "The Slashdot Effect" can't be more than what Slashdot itself feels, and it survives fine. It's even dynamic.

Still, Slashdot has been designed to handle this much load. Those poor webservers that feel "The Effect" have probably been running perfectly fine at a lower use for years until someone uses them to announce a breakthrough of some sort with images and video and, shortly afterwards they burn out.

Though you missed the 4th possibility: The webserver is a Commodore 64. We only linked to that one once :(

Re:To those behind the attacks...

[Anonymous Coward]

I zipped a copy and will spread it around.

Re:To those behind the attacks...

[krelian]

I also find your post unusual as it made go back and check the links in the original /. post.

You've just become the main suspect.

Re:To those behind the attacks...

[TheRaven64]

Though you missed the 4th possibility: The webserver is a Commodore 64. We only linked to that one once :( I think we actually hit it twice, but it stood up very well. Admittedly it was only hosting a 100-byte text file, but it was responsive when I tried it. Perhaps everyone assumed it would be down and skipped the link?

The page about the C-64 web server, hosted elsewhere and full of pictures, only lasted a few minutes, as I recall.

Re:To those behind the attacks...

[hotdiggitydawg]

Though you missed the 4th possibility: The webserver is a Commodore 64. We only linked to that one once :( Wasn't one of them also a George Foreman grill?

Re:To those behind the attacks...

[bhtooefr]

Actually, it wasn't just a web server. And, I think it was slashdotted three times (there's a link to the C64 in there.)

And that's not counting other devices running the same TCP/IP stack or OS getting slashdotted.

Re:To those behind the attacks...

[Raenex]

After all, "The Slashdot Effect" can't be more than what Slashdot itself feels, and it survives fine. It's even dynamic. Does it? I've noticed several times now that occasionally the site is extremely sluggish, and it clearly seems to be a Slashdot problem.

Must be doing someting right...

[TripMaster Monkey]

When you're slapped with a restraining order, you get hit with a dDOS, and one of your UPS units "accidentally" ignites , you know you must be doing something right.

Re:Must be doing someting right...

[lekikui]

Sorry, accidentally modded this redundant. Posting to clear it

Re:Must be doing someting right...

[PopeRatzo]

When you're slapped with a restraining order, you get hit with a dDOS, and one of your UPS units "accidentally" ignites , you know you must be doing something right.

If this were an episode of 24, they'd kidnap WikiLeaks' daughter, too.

Re:Must be doing someting right...

[Breakfast Pants]

Maybe it "accidentally" ignited so that they could get rid of damning evidence.

Re:Must be doing someting right...

[urcreepyneighbor]

you know you must be doing something right. Or you're just one unlucky bastard.

Re:Must be doing someting right...

[ColdWetDog]

Maybe it "accidentally" ignited so that they could get rid of damning evidence.

Storing data on a UPS? That would be security through obscurity.

Re:Must be doing someting right...

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one, can't wait to see that episode in which WikiLeaks tortures a presidential aid for democracy.

Re:Must be doing someting right...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not like it hasn't been done before though.

Re:Must be doing someting right...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I always use FedEx or the USPS. No one believes they can power a rack or servers for 30 minutes OR store documents.

Re:Must be doing someting right...

[Anonymous Coward]

Storing data on a UPS? That would be security through obscurity. Like everything else, already been done...http://www.inventgeek.com/Projects/ProjectSilver/Overview.aspx

Re:Must be doing someting right...

[Anonymous Coward]

WikiLeaks' daughter is hot, but i wish she would just stop talking.

Re:Must be doing someting right...

[mqduck]

When you're slapped with a restraining order, you get hit with a dDOS, and one of your UPS units "accidentally" ignites , you know you must be doing something right. I have half a mind to make that my new sig.

Re:Must be doing someting right...

[BungaDunga]

Stash a HD in a UPS

You know you're doing something right

[Silver Sloth]

when they start shooting at you.

Re:You know you're doing something right

[Anonymous Coward]

This is more commonly expressed as:

If you're taking flak you're over the target.

Yawn

[4D6963]

Wake me up when the anchor of a ship accidentally cuts every cable around the WikiLeaks server buildings..

Winner: Counter-productive move of the year

[MosesJones]

Could the people leaked about on WikiLeaks really be this dumb? Is there anything that will guarantee that this information will be more broadly distributed and read and more likely to come to the attention of the main stream media?

Why don't they just go the whole hog and DDoS the BBC and CNN at the same time to close the loop.

Re:Winner: Counter-productive move of the year

[Anonymous Coward]

> Could the people leaked about on WikiLeaks really be this dumb? Is there anything that will guarantee that this information will be more broadly distributed and read and more likely to come to the attention of the main stream media?

Maybe that's the point.

Re:Winner: Counter-productive move of the year

[TripMaster Monkey]

Could the people leaked about on WikiLeaks really be this dumb?

Fortunately, yes, they can, and it seems they are. Not 'dumb' per se, mind you, but operating without any idea of how things work in this day and age, when any information that finds its way onto the Internet is effectively immortal, and any attempts to suppress that information only succeed in calling even more attention to it.

There's no way to silence the truth directly anymore in this new medium. Indirect methods, however, like repeating a lie loudly and often enough, can still be effective.

Re:Winner: Counter-productive move of the year

[MrMr]

I'm curious about the judge though. Is that a simpleton as well; or perhaps a shrewd official, well aware that allowing the case is going to splatter a new meme "tax avoidance cayman islands bank julius baer" across the web for years to come?

Re:Winner: Counter-productive move of the year

[Alsee]

Joe Garelli on NewsRadio said it best:
"You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool."

-

Re:Winner: Counter-productive move of the year

[mOdQuArK!]

There's no way to silence the truth directly anymore in this new medium. Indirect methods, however, like repeating a lie loudly and often enough, can still be effective.

Actually, the simplest way to "silence: the truth is to drown it in misinformation (one of the applications of the indirect methods you referred to). Once nobody can tell what the truth is, and what the lies are, then someone trying to hide the truth can breath a little easier.

Modern-day PR hacks are really good at this kind of thing, Third World repressive regimes are still learning how to do it effectively.

Re:Winner: Counter-productive move of the year

[SharpFang]

Actually, the way to get things off the net is NOT TO TOUCH THEM.

There were quite a few entries linking my nick to my real name in the past - accidential leaks. Nowadays Google provides only false positives. All the old data has expired, died forgotten. If it still exists, it's not being indexed.

Re:Winner: Counter-productive move of the year

[91degrees]

Julius Baer, or their lawyers are used to dealing with large, for-profit organisations You deal with them by making it too expensive for them to operate. If WikiLeaks relied on advertising, or even subscription fees they'd be severely struggling at this stage.

These typically reliable tactics tend not to work against a non-profit organisation that exists for the purpose of disseminating embarrassing information. They're not the first group to rely on unsuitable tactics. Certainly won't be the last.

Re:Winner: Counter-productive move of the year

[Anonymous Coward]

The judge probably had no idea exactly what it means to block DNS resolution. Probably the logic would be that public availability of this information would hinder a US case against this bank. If the judge did indeed understand the document he put his name to, then he has done a great disservice to the notion of free information.

Re:Winner: Counter-productive move of the year

[Anonymous Coward]

Not dumb, crazy. Like a fox. Like a software engineer who sells a
DRM system to RIAA member corporations as "unbreakable", full well knowing
better. Like an "IP Attorney" launching waves of mass lawsuits which he
knows full well will damage the reputation and undermine the capital base
of his customers. As "Bob" says, "They may be pink, but their money is
green, and they'll pay to know what they really think."

Imaginary dialog in a smoke filled room ...

"Yeah, sure, we can take dem bastids down off da Internet for ya. We'll
start a lawsuit wit a bought and paid for judge, pay da Chinaman to
wipe dere website off da map, and for a few dollars more we can get some
private security people to pay a little midnight visit an leave a calling
card so's dey know youse mean business."

Crooked and unethical people are quick to rob each other.

Re:Winner: Counter-productive move of the year

[Pig Hogger]

Could the people leaked about on WikiLeaks really be this dumb?

Well, yes, they're bankers and lawyers. They function in a set of narrowly defined rules that are unthinkable of breaking, totally oblivious to the outside world.

Anti-Conspiracy Theorists

[Anonymous Coward]

Somewhere on the blogosphere or the net SOMEONE will say that these are just coincidences.

DDOS, fire, lawsuit. All a coincidence.

Just like the numerous internet cable cuts. All a coincidence.

Israeli art students celebrating the terrorist strike on the world trade centers minutes after the crash. Just a co-inky dink.

Anyone who says otherwise is a conspiracy theorist.

The thing that is funny is that the majority of those persons who claim that these are all coincidences are also the same persons who are of a right-leaning bent, and also like themselves a bit of the ol' good time gospel.

So on the one hand, you have crazy wingnut pundits claiming that any surreptitious event, any secretive group, anything that just doesn't add up, is met with screams of "nothing to see here, move along". These are also the same persons who claim that there is a "grand watchmaker" and that the earth must be intelligently designed, or that the Iraqis had WMD based on the poorest of evidence.

Re:Anti-Conspiracy Theorists

[hostyle]

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Re:Anti-Conspiracy Theorists

[Anonymous Coward]

...the times where the truth is moded as troll are the times blackshirts march the streets saluting flags and insignia...

Streisand effect

[apodyopsis]

the Streisand effect should be kicking in about now...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

Re:Streisand effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't always work. NSA was ordered (by Executive Order) to get rid of Bush's nude pictures released on the Internet a few years back, where he was 1) nude in a coffin with Kerry and 2) where he (Bush) was dancing nude atop some roof in a Skull & Bones party. They did their job excellently. The journalist who published these pictures committed "suicide" by shooting himself in the head, _twice_. Today, you can't find these pictures on the Internet anymore. Even the executive order, ordering NSA to remove the pictures from the Internet, was later removed from public record and made top secret.

Re:Streisand effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Some sources to back this story:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE7D91131F936A25752C0A963958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

Doesn't necessarily have to be big business/ gov't

[usul294]

You know it could always be some 14 year old prankster who figured out how to DDOS a server, and correctly thought "Hey, if I can effectively shut off WikiLeaks, everyone will assume that groups which suffer from WikiLeaks were responsible." I mean it takes alot of brains to maintain a big business, I doubt the CTO or CIO of a giant firm suggested DDOSing a fairly well-known website in order to prevent access to content.

Questions

[CHESTER COPPERPOT]

Is it possible to overload a power supply to the point of fire from a remote location? I've heard of black hats getting into the climate control systems of certain areas and loading up the heat and frying certain parts of computers, but a power supply?

Secondly, Does wikileaks hold a record of the DDoS? As in the technical parameters, IPs etc.?

Thirdly, is their a translation to English of the bank records in question yet?

Re:Questions

[morgan_greywolf]

Is it possible to overload a power supply to the point of fire from a remote location? I've heard of black hats getting into the climate control systems of certain areas and loading up the heat and frying certain parts of computers, but a power supply? There are UPSes with intelligent controllers, of course. I don't really know how easy or difficult it would be to make these cause a UPS to overload, maybe someone else here has knowledge I don't. I would hope anyone using such a controller would take proper safety precautions, such as making them inaccessible from outside the internal network, but you know how smart some people are ... :)

Re:Questions

[BadHaggis]

Yes, it is possible to hack modern UPS's. That's one of the reasons it is important to keep the firmware up to date, mostly to prevent some type of SNMP snooping/monitoring software from being used. However, I'm not sure if once hacked if the UPS could be made to self destruct, it might be possible if you could turn off the charge monitoring and force an overcharge on the batteries. Just a theory, and I'm sure there are people who know better than I if this is possible.

Re:Questions

[Corwn of Amber]

An UPS that can receive packets ... No. No, no, no. It's dead easy to construct a circuit with an absolutely reliable breaker, one that shuts it off as soon as the temp goes above some threshold. If there wasn't one in the UPS, then the engineer who designed it should be shot on sight!

Information wants to be free!

[jollyreaper]

That's why you pay good money to hunt it down and kill it.

If it can help...

[this great guy]

Personally I can resolve the wikileaks.org hostname from time to time only. Their website is still accessible from my network location (SoCal): http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks

$ dig wikileaks.org
;; ANSWER SECTION:
wikileaks.org. 864 IN A 88.80.13.160
wikileaks.org. 864 IN A 87.106.162.82
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
wikileaks.org. 198841 IN NS ns3.everydns.net.
wikileaks.org. 198841 IN NS ns2.everydns.net.
wikileaks.org. 198841 IN NS ns4.everydns.net.
;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns2.everydns.net. 101251 IN A 204.152.184.150
ns3.everydns.net. 12596 IN A 208.96.6.134
ns4.everydns.net. 601 IN A 64.158.219.3

(special message dedicated to whoever wrote the slashdot lameness filter: foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar foobar)

This is why....

[brunes69]

..WikiLeaks is a flawed idea.

What they should have is a very simple page at WikiLeaks.com instructing people on how to easily download, install and use FreeNet, with FreeNet links to a FreeNet-hosted WikiLeaks website.

Then the site would not easily be able to be brought off line, because no one would know where it was hosted (since it is not actually hosted *anywhere*)

Re:This is why....

[fastest fascist]

That's great, except hardly anyone actually uses Freenet.

Re:This is why....

[Anonymous Coward]

It already is, probably even more so than Tor was.

There is almost certainly a large amount of private networks for pedos to gather at.

Re:This is why....

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, can you use Freenet to molest children? I didn't know IP packets had such capabilities. (Posting AC as this is OT)

Re:This is why....

[trytoguess]

Oh ya install a program that requires you to manually find and connect to people.... While we're at it lets also wonder why Linux isn't the dominating OS, and why people just stop fighting.

Re:This is why....

[vadim_t]

I tried Freenet back when it was new. It was an incredible pain to use.

I still say that their biggest mistake was to use Java to write it.

It uses really incredible amounts of resources. Back when it appeared, a computer with 128-256MB RAM was decent. Problem is that Freenet brought this hardware to its knees. My server had load averages of 20, it was unbearable. Even if I could have dedicated this box to Freenet exclusively, a loadavg of 20 means it's not getting nearly all the time it wants, which adds to the latency of the network. And Freenet's latency is horrible as could be expected.

I believe that this is one of the major reasons it didn't catch on. Freenet should have been something light, easy to install, and as unobtrusive to the owner of the machine as possible to maximize its spread. Instead it was a hog, hard to install on any OS, and required lots of fiddling to keep it from griding your box to a halt.

It simply doesn't make sense that something with a relatively simple function can consume much more resources than an Apache server.

Freenet also had many bugs. Some of which were due to its massive use of threads IIRC. It also had horrible, scary bugs. For example a bug in the implementation of the encryption algorithm meant that half of every 256 bit block was encrypted, and the other half wasn't. The attitude on the mailing list was basically "oops", and "it's still in development, we didn't guarantee security, so sucks for whoever was bitten by this" from the main developer.

IMO, Freenet shows how "release early, release often" needs a small addition: "after making sure it's not a huge pain in the ass to use". Because when the user's impression is "This is pretty raw, but it's neat already" you're going well, but when it's "I spent an hour figuring out how to set it up, and now the darn thing killed my server" they're not likely to hang around for very long.

Re:This is why....

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it's certainly of use to them. But, despite media hysteria, most people (even males!) just aren't paedophiles, and are just repulsed by prepubescent children being molested. Fighting freenet because paedophiles can use it to exchange disgusting crap is like fighting roads because paedophiles can drive kidnapped kids around on them (or, hey, drive disgusting crap to exchange around...) without people noticing on them. Anyone fighting freenet on "paedo" grounds is either dumb or has an ulterior motive - perhaps they just don't like the idea of uncensorable communications that threaten their power.

Re:This is why....

[FreenetFan]

If WikiLeaks hosted content on Freenet, a lot more people *would* use it.

These things can be a chicken and egg situation. Sometimes you have to be first instead of just following the crowd.

Re:This is why....

[FreenetFan]

I would urge you to try Freenet again. It has improved a massive amount recently. It is now very easy to install and use.

The reference version is written in Java for reasons of portability. The JVM does have some overheads but I don't think they are significant in this case. It runs fine for me on a relatively old machine, using minimal resources: the system load and CPU usage barely registers, although it is understandable that using a lot of crypto will take some work. Maybe it was a whole since you last tried it? Performance has increased a lot over the past year or two, although I must say that I never experienced your problems over the past few years.

The latency is not as good as the internet, but that is the price you have to pay for anonymity and lack of censorship. For things like filesharing the latency isn't that important anyway: you just queue it up overnight and pick it up in the morning.

Freenet *is* catching on. I estimate a ten-fold increase in size over the past year, from 500 to 5000 users.

For me it is light and unobtrusive - I run a lot of other programs and Freenet just does its thing in the background without me even noticing it.

It's true there are bugs, like any software, but nothing has ever compromised anyone, and I find it very polished for its stage of development. The installer has been made very simple this year, and an OpenNet method of connecting to the network has been implemented, with seednodes, that makes the initial connection very easy. But there is still the DarkNet method of connection that can be used if things like seednodes are censored in the future or in your country.

Re:This is why....

[FreenetFan]

Freenet hasn't required you to manually find and connect to people for a long time now. It just connects automatically using seednodes. This is called the OpenNet method of operation.

The problem is that seednodes are a centralised point that can be easily censored.

As Freenet is designed for combating government censorship in very harsh conditions, not just as a plaything for bored immature geeks, it also operates in a DarkNet mode. This is where you have to manually connect to other Freenet users that you know and trust, and yes, it is more hassle than the OpenNet mode, but it is also more secure and censorship-resistant. You choose which mode to use: they both connect to the same network, and you can you a mixture of the two, or change from the OpenNet mode to the DarkNet mode at any time.

Re:This is why....

[trytoguess]

That's good to know, but from the looks of things the lastest version capable of this was released less than a month ago, and that version is in alpha stage.

Re:Doesn't necessarily have to be big business/ go

[CHESTER COPPERPOT]

There are also a number of "citizen groups" out there that want to shut down wikileaks because they think it is anti-democratic. It seems a lot of them are affiliated with the guys who "hunt" terrorists online. One such blog of note is the "Civilian Irregular Information Defense Group". See this blog post here. Though they seem to be from a psychological operations bent rather than hackers.

This is What Freenet Was Made For

[Anonymous Coward]

"DDoS attack"

This is why WikiLeaks, although good in theory, won't be able to survive in practice. It is centralized, and being as such it can be subject to attack, threat and intimidation.

Those running WikiLeaks should also post their material to Freenet. This is advantageous for two main reasons: First, insurance against the site going down due to attack, lack of funds, etc. Second, it will prevent attacks in the first place since the attackers know nothing can be gained, there material is already out there and won't be able to be taken down. So even if Freenet isn't to be the main site, it is still useful to have the content on Freenet too.

Re:This is What Freenet Was Made For

[Corwn of Amber]

Yeah, but there are problems with FreeNet :

1/ It's slow
2/ No one uses it
3/ No one uses it because it's so slow
4/ It's so slow because no one uses it
5/ It's not preinstalled on all computers
6/ Its installation is as much jumping through hoops as a first use of Windows Vista

So yeah, backups on FreeNet is a good idea, but hosting the main site? Not if they want to be acessed sometimes.

I'd rather d/l the full archive off The Pirate Bay or Mininova, though. A lifetime of reading about "why all the systems should all be completely transparent to any one in the general public".

Re:This is What Freenet Was Made For

[Damocles the Elder]

If there's mirrors up and running, I don't know how "centralized" you can call it. Besides, after this, I imagine they'll the benefit in mirroring it elsewhere (read: multiple countries) too.

Re:This is What Freenet Was Made For

[0100010001010011]

7/ Still carries a stigma of being associated with child porn.

I would like to see an update to the bittorrent protocol which allows 'dynamic' torrents. The hashes and files of a directory could be changed as a file is added or changed. Build in some mechanisms so that only the original seeder can make changes and set it up and point it to /wwwroot/.

First download might take a little long, but everytime someone added/changed a file it would be almost instantly replicated across the torrent network. I know that I'd donate some HD space and an open 'dynamic torrent' in rtorrent for something like this.

Re:This is What Freenet Was Made For

[evanbd]

If you haven't used one of the recent builds, you should try it again. Currently I have it set to use a max of 18KiB/s outbound bandwidth (I'm on a somewhat slow connection), and CPU usage varies from about 5% to 25% on a 1.2GHz Athlon. Memory usage is under 100MB. Both CPU usage and memory will grow with increased bandwidth usage, but it's way way better than it used to be.

Re:This is What Freenet Was Made For

[evanbd]

Freenet has improved remarkably. It's certainly not what you'd call fast, but for popular content or anything small (text documents, for example) it isn't bad at all. You'd probably end up waiting several minutes for a 1MiB chunk of text that wasn't overly popular, but that's hardly problematic for something like this.

My usual browsing experience is that Freesites load their text in somewhere between 10s and 60s, with the pictures loading over the course of the next 2-3 minutes. Some load instantly if they're popular enough for your node or one of its immediate neighbors to have a copy already. If you haven't tried it recently, check out the current build. Be patient, and give it a couple hours of uptime to get thoroughly integrated, but it's way better than it once was.

Re:This is What Freenet Was Made For

[generic-nickname596]

...which is why we should create a decentralized file storage system which can easily be read-accessed from the web. These limitations on Freenet et. al. are purely implementation problems - if Freenet could easily and transparently be accessed through a website front-end, anyone interested in making sensitive information publically available could create a web portal to the network. Such a system couldn't be compromized through DNS blocking (another poral would just pop up, and most people reach their websites through a search engine anyway, which updates automatically) or any number of security problems which plague centralized systems.

The reason Bittorrent is so popular is that there are so many nerds using it - but if you could access it through web forms, it would be a hell of a lot _more_ popular.

Let's get hacking.

Re:This is What Freenet Was Made For

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't speak for Freenet, but was a copy of wikileaks available as a Tor hidden service (analogous to a freenet site) last time I looked.

Re:This is What Freenet Was Made For

[jollyreaper]

If you haven't used one of the recent builds, you should try it again. Currently I have it set to use a max of 18KiB/s Gah! Yours is the first place outside of Wikipedia I've seen kibi used. Is anyone else here seriously using it?

Re:This is What Freenet Was Made For

[The -e**(i*pi)]

I will use it when you pull my toung out of my cold dead body

Re:This is What Freenet Was Made For

[FreenetFan]

Have you tried Freenet recently?

1. It's slower than the regular internet, sure, but that is to be expected. Anonymity and encryption isn't totally free. But it is perfectly usable for things like this.

2. An rapidly increasing number of people are using it. About a year ago, numbers were estimated at about 500. Today it is more like 5000. Due to the anonymity, numbers aren't definite, by design, but there are mechanisms to guess the network size.

3. I don't think Freenet's slowness is the main reason for people to not use it. It is easily fast enough for websites (known as freesites), forums (using the Frost message board software) and filesharing of songs, movies and ebooks.

4. I don't think the network size makes it particularly slow. The routing algorithm is designed to scale to millions of users. With a larger network, popular files will possibly be faster to download if your peers are also downloading them but I don't think it will have a massive effect. At the moment you can see that popular Freesites and content are very fast to retrieve.

5. No p2p software is installed on all computers, but millions of people still use it. I realize you are comparing this to website where a web browser is pre-installed on all computers, but I think this will only be a barrier to the casual user.

6. The installation process for Freenet is very simple and getting easier all the time. It's just a few clicks on an installation wizard and you are ready to go. It is designed to work through firewalls so they shouldn't be too much of an issue.

I agree that at this moment in time it isn't feasible to move wikileaks wholesale onto Freenet, but I predict that what will start happening more is that sites such as this will move contentious sections off their main site and provide links to a Freenet site that can't be censored.

It already happens to some extent now, content that is at risk of being censored gets uploaded to Freenet fairly rapidly. I see that trend continuing and Freenet becoming more mainstream.

See my homepage link to download and try out Freenet.

Re:This is What Freenet Was Made For

[FreenetFan]

Freenet has a built-in web proxy called FProxy that you use to browse freesites. These are just regular HTML webpages but without dynamic content. FProxy has filters that strip out anything that could compromise your anonymity, such as links to the regular internet.

You visit sites by using a standard web browser and visiting an address like this:

http://localhost:8888/USK@....../wikileaks/23/

where the dots are a string of characters that provide keys to the location of the site within Freenet and the decryption keys for the content. The number 23 is the version of the site; Freenet will automatically fetch updates as they are inserted.

It is trivial to expose FProxy so that it is visible to the whole internet. The reason people don't is that you could find yourself in legal trouble if forbidden content is accessed from your IP address. To browse anonymously you have to run a Freenet node yourself, I don't think there is any way round this.

Re:This is What Freenet Was Made For

[David Gerard]

Mediawiki needs a backing store based on a version control system, e.g. git. Then backups and replication are a simple matter of pulling a given tag.

Re:This is What Freenet Was Made For

[complete loony]

I've thought about exactly that type of design myself, in a reasonable amount of detail. Some bullet points;

• swap from a list of hashes in a torrent file to a hash tree for block verification, don't hash nodes together that have no sibling, instead maintain a list of hashes for the current right edge of the hash tree
• the tracker returns the current right edge hash list for the torrent with every response
• when the torrent is updated, the tracker adds the new block hashes and returns the new list of hashes for the right edge of the hash tree
• add p2p messages to [ request / respond with ] any hash in the hash tree
• change the global identifier of the torrent from a hash of the meta data to a hash of the master tracker URI
• copy / move meta data from the torrent file to the end of the data blocks, peers can then bootstrap everything from the tracker or other peers knowing only the torrent URI
• add semantics to the meta data to include "patch process from previous version" instructions, include size information so the location of the previous meta data blocks can be determined by the client
• clients should respect 3xx http redirects and use them to identify other trackers

Re:This is What Freenet Was Made For

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually if I understand the way it works correctly, 4 is not exactly correct as it would be slow even if it were popular...the problem is that if requesting specific information were efficient, the request would be traceable.

It's still an interesting concept, and probably useful in some circumstances, but not exactly a drop-in replacement for anything we're used to in daily use.

Re:This is What Freenet Was Made For

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried Freenet a while ago and stopped later because of technical issues and also what you referred to. Now I tried again. People looking for child porn are still there. This is extremely annoying to me because I have three children myself. On the other hand it turns out governments get more and more nazi (or stalinist if you will) about surveillance and censoring increases rapidly. I had it before, and I know this is no fun. Therefore I am reconsidering Freenet myself and maybe you should do the same. Inserting the site in freenet would not harm anybody, mind you.

Re:Doesn't necessarily have to be big business/ go

[TurinPT]

I doubt a 14 year old prankster who figured out how to DDOS a server could manage a 500Mbps attack.
It takes time to build up a botnet of that scale and remain undetected.

Re:Doesn't necessarily have to be big business/ go

[skulgnome]

Just what the _fuck_ are these people on about. "Directing unauthorized viewers at the classified material"?

I guess I now know what too much Tom Clancy will do to a person.

Clouds on the Cayman tax heaven REPOSTED HERE

[Anonymous Coward]

Clouds on the Cayman tax heaven From Wikileaks

Is David helvetic and Goliath a bear?

DANIEL SCHMITT
2008-02-15

This is the story of Rudolf Elmer of Switzerland, former Chief Operating Officer of Bank Julius Baer on the Cayman Islands. The story of a man suspected of leaking to the press information about the activities of a Swiss bank specialized in hiding and laundering the money of the ultra rich through anonymizing offshore trust structures. It also is the story of a man and his family living with the consequences of being suspected of fouling the nest of a traditional Swiss bank engaging in dubious activities. This story might differ from previous ones related to this issue, mainly because while researching the story, Rudolf Elmer has also been asked for his account of things.

Over the last few months Wikileaks has obtained and published various documents related to allegedly illegal activities in the Cayman Islands performed by Bank Julius Baer and started initial research into these. Regarding the same bank Wikileaks had obtained legal documentation on the case of a Rudolf Elmer, former debuty head of BJB cayman, in a Dec 2007 Zurich court case against Bank Julius Baer. The law suit relates to various irregularities of health-care/social-security payments by the bank, as well as the matter of stalking (including at least one acknowledged car chase) Elmer and his family by BJB-hired Private Investigators Zurich-based Ryffel AG,

Initial research easily turned up that 2002/2003 some sensitive documents had slipped out of the Swiss banks office in the Cayman Islands, apparently reaching US tax investigation units and eventually sent to the Swiss financial magazine CASH, which reported on the disclosure, but possibly due to an injunction or Swiss banking law, not the details. This event also triggered an article in the Wall Street Journal an article in Swiss Weltwoche, titled "The leak in paradise", giving background information on what happened back in 2003 on the Caymans.

When the leak of trust structures was discovered in 2003, Bank Julius Baer initiated legal investigations on the Caymans, involving the search of the home of each employee and when not gaining any insights from that, undertaking a polygraph test on the employees. It still remained unclear where the data went.

The group of people having legitimate access to these documents was small, Rudolf Elmer, who was BJB Caymans deputy head and Chief Operating Officer at that point in time also fulfilled the position of Hurricane Officer, whos duties included keeping backups. Elmer, facing a spinal surgery coming up in a few days time, was on sick leave and had some trouble scheduling the test. He thus became a suspect.

The Polygraph Test

The transcript of the polygraph test conducted by a Lou Criscella and passed on to Wikileaks is very abstract to read with names of clients being substituted with single letters. While not all the context thus is properly understandable, the transcript does not show any wrongdoing.

Reading the transcript one gets the impression that data has slipped out of the Cayman Islands as early as 1997, and timelining the transcript with a couple of later documents will also reveal that Elmer is accused of having leaked data that was produced after the date that he left from the Caymans.

Elmer complained to the American Polygraph Association, the institution his interrogator works for, the Cayman Prime Minister and other entities about the conduct of the test.

Normally sick people would not be interviewed, but the APAs Ethics Commission, stated in a letter that the ethical rules for polygraphing do not apply to the Cayman Islands, and as the test had not been fully carried out, most of the APA rules would not apply anyway. He was informed there are no regulations on the Caymans for polygraph tests as in the United States.

Re:Clouds on the Cayman tax heaven REPOSTED HERE

[VoltageX]

There's an idea! Host the entirety of Wikileaks in the Slashdot comments!

Re:Clouds on the Cayman tax heaven REPOSTED HERE

[Warbothong]

Question: Is my brain so truly messed up that I subconsciously started reading that article to the theme tune of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air?

Answer: Yes.

Dead Pool

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm putting that former Bank VP ahead of Amy Winehouse and Brittany Spears on the Deadpool. He is messing with the world's most powerful people. They, especially any involved 3rd world dictators, won't take this lying down.

Re:Doesn't necessarily have to be big business/ go

[alx5000]

I mean it takes alot of brains to maintain a big business

Sure it does...

Good way to help WikiLeaks

[Alain Williams]

is to add a couple of links to some of their sites (in different top level domains) from your site. This will increase their search engine rating and also introduce more people to them - as they browse your site.

This is a real way of hitting back - respond to this attempt at burying WikiLeaks by giving them extra publicity!

The people vs the banks

[Colin Smith]

"The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is The People vs. The Banks." - Lord Acton, Historian, 1834 - 1902

Re:Doesn't necessarily have to be big business/ go

[Fantastic Lad]

Sure it does...

Oh my. The disappointing part of that collection of videos is that Balmer didn't give himself a heart attack. --In any case, it was nice to note that even though the apocalypse arrived and nobody thought to wake me up, I was still able to catch it on Youtube.

-FL

How is this a troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't providing the IP of a host that can't be reached through DNS useful? Anyway, why are these people allowed to decide what websites I should be allowed to visit? After all, I did nothing wrong and yet they are restraining me, outside of their jurisdiction no less. And that's where such an IP address comes in handy.

Re:Doesn't necessarily have to be big business/ go

[Corwn of Amber]

A 14 yo prankster with enough skillz can direct an existing botnet to conduct the attack... They're all controlled by an IRC-like protocol, and if they're encrypted, that's what a man-in-the-middle attack based on IP spoof is for. Botnets don't have security strong enough to withstand that.

Privacy for all or nothing

[tjstork]

The problem with Wikileaks and other "expose" sites like it is that they rationalize what they do by choosing selective enforcement of privacy rights. They say that it is ok for them to trump an interest in privacy because doing so benefits the public good. While this might be laudable at the service, a more studied approach to this would show that one could also use the selective revealing of private documents to advance a political agenda. Everyone's private documents "look bad", and so, cherry picking which documents should be revealed, really just undermines the people being cherry picked.

For this reason, if you want truth, and are that interested in the truth, then you should advocate the full public disclosure of all corporate, charitable and government documents. Since this covers just about everyone, it follows that there should be no privacy at all and we ought to live in a world where everything is online. The alternative is to accept that there is a right to privacy, and if so, then institutions such as wikileaks ought to be viewed with a well deserved deep distrust, as the outcome can only be ultimately political.

Re:Privacy for all or nothing

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

The exact same argument goes for piracy as well. You can have one of 2 things : privacy or piracy. Privacy OR thepiratebay.org.

Just killing the privacy of "the rich" (like e.g. the riaa currently is) will unfortunately cause the elimination of everyone's privacy (and this is not "Bush's fault", not even China's, and not anyone's, it's a somewhat-less-obvious truth of the world we live in, like gravity is). Enforcing everyone's privacy rights, including the right of "the rich" to keep their ideas limited to whoever they choose (and profit by that mechanism), will indeed protect everyone's privacy, but obviously will enforce copyright to a rather extreme degree.

(and the same thing goes for "racism", either you allow racism, and it's consequences, or you disallow it, including any racist ideologies (like islam and communism), you can't have it both ways, muslims or tolerance, choose ONE)

Re:Privacy for all or nothing

[Grym]

For this reason, if you want truth, and are that interested in the truth, then you should advocate the full public disclosure of all corporate, charitable and government documents. Since this covers just about everyone, it follows that there should be no privacy at all and we ought to live in a world where everything is online.

I think this is a false choice. Why should we be forced to choose between a complete lack of transparency within government-chartered and/or publicly-traded organizations and no privacy--for anyone--at all?

There can be a reasonable balance between transparency and privacy. Trade secrets, proprietary processes, and national secrets, I agree, should be undisclosed, but should things like financial records, safety/environmental studies, and so on should be publicly available. If businesses don't like that, then they could easily remain private, un-incorporated entities.

The alternative is to accept that there is a right to privacy, and if so, then institutions such as wikileaks ought to be viewed with a well deserved deep distrust, as the outcome can only be ultimately political.

Well, of course wikileaks can be used as a political tool. But if that leads to the exposure of corruption and fraud--who cares?!? I would expect that, over time, organizations like wikileaks, even if they are biased, would come to compete in exposing dirt from opposing sides. In fact, I see no reason why anyone should be against such a situation, because all true capitalists love competition (right?) and everyone wants to end corruption and fraud (right?). So what's the problem?

-Grym

Re:Privacy for all or nothing

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

There can be a reasonable balance between transparency and privacy. Trade secrets, proprietary processes, and national secrets, I agree, should be undisclosed, but should things like financial records, safety/environmental studies, and so on should be publicly available. If businesses don't like that, then they could easily remain private, un-incorporated entities.

Financial records of the government will necessarily expose national secrets.
Safety/environmental studies need to be limited for exposure. Unreleased products are always trade secrets, as are some aspects of released products that apply to safety (e.g. the full inner workings of a virus scanner software obviously relate to the safety of the user).

In short, you did not sufficiently indicate where to draw a line ...

Re:Privacy for all or nothing

[Grym]

In short, you did not sufficiently indicate where to draw a line.

Explicitly enumerating the specifics of such a policy would undoubtedly be left up to the courts to decide and was not the point of my post. I was merely observing that both privacy and transparency are not mutually exclusive and how maximizing utility of a situation such as this is likely to be achieved by focusing on what benefits the public the most.

-Grym

Re:Privacy for all or nothing

[tjstork]

There can be a reasonable balance between transparency and privacy. Trade secrets, proprietary processes, and national secrets, I agree, should be undisclosed, but should things like financial records, safety/environmental studies, and so on should be publicly available. If businesses don't like that, then they could easily remain private, un-incorporated entities.

The thing is, all of the deliberations behind what you suggest have dark sides as well. There's always going to be someone who writes a few emails saying that the sky is falling if the organization takes a particular course, and you'll always have someone with some sort of a political axe to grind on any study. So, if you have a safety study, it could also be a political tack disguised as safety. Similarly, in the case of a financial record, you'll have people arguing either way the appropriateness of a particular investment or even overall investment strategy.

Re:Privacy for all or nothing

[Chyeld]

I have, for a long time, advocated the idea that if the concept of privacy was done away with, a good deal of the angst in the world could be done away with. It's a permutation of the 80/20 rule. 80% of what everyone fears anyone else could ever learn about them is dreck they share with the majority. And the remaining 20% would be far less shameful when it comes to light that everyone has their own personal 20% to deal with.

All of the power of shame is based in the belief that somehow, you are the only one. And most of the power of secrets is based in the idea that you have more power derived from them the fewer in the loop.

However, you present a false dichotomy. You make a fair representation for legal entities to have no right to privacy, but then make the spurious leap that it would then follow that no one should have privacy. Regardless of my agreement of that view, there are numerous shades of grey between a corporation/government group and an individual.

Re:Privacy for all or nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

...selective enforcement of privacy rights.

I would tend to distinguish between "privacy rights" and "secrecy rights". An individual can have the feeling of a desire for privacy while an organization does not have feelings. Individuals and organizations can both benefit from keeping secrets (possibly at the expense of others).

Because individuals have feelings and are generally less powerful than organizations, the default should be toward protecting individual privacy/secrecy unless there is a compelling public interest at stake. Because organizations do not have feelings and can be quite powerful, the default should be toward public transparency unless there are other compelling considerations. In particular, the federal government does not have a right to privacy but there are limited circumstances where it may be appropriate to allow the government to maintain some degree of secrecy.

Everyone's private documents "look bad",...

Some look worse than others. Not every corporation's private documents show evidence of pervasive illegal activity, for example.

...the outcome can only be ultimately political.

So exposing government corruption is political? Is there one political party that is in favor of corruption and another political party that is opposed to corruption - and reasonable people disagree on whether government corruption is good or bad?

Re:Privacy for all or nothing

[crunzh]

Is this not what all respectable newspapers do (those that actually investigate stories)? I know, they might have other standards they hold to when deciding what to make public, but in essence its just the same.

Re:Privacy for all or nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

Only on a nerd-oriented site would it be considered +5 insightful to suggest that every issue in the real world be considered in such an extremist binary manner. Heaven forbid that any position in between the two extremes become political. Oh the horror!

Re:Privacy for all or nothing

[LaskoVortex]

Um, if you have some dirt on somebody, post it to wikileaks! They may not be interested in how full someone's laundry basket is, or whether some guy skirted a subway fare 15 years ago, but if someone's actions affect a lot of people, then it will probably stay up on wikileaks. In this sense they are probably fair.

You operate under the paranoid belief that wikileaks has a political agenda. Perhaps you should identify said political agenda explicitly rather than just alluding to it vaguely. Otherwise your post has foul scent of propaganda.

Re:Privacy for all or nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

A related issue: if we assume that there should be a right to privacy for individuals, does this necessarily imply that there should be one for corporations?

Re:Privacy for all or nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

What you are saying then, is that the release of private documents should be kept in the hands of the government and corporations, who obviously have no political agenda.

Re:Privacy for all or nothing

[rastoboy29]

Uh, people are different from governments and corporations.

Just fyi.

Re:Privacy for all or nothing

[shutdown -p now]

and the same thing goes for "racism", either you allow racism, and it's consequences, or you disallow it, including any racist ideologies (like islam and communism)

How exactly either is racist? Some form of argument can be made against modern extreme Islam, what with the literal and generalized interpretation of "slay the Jew" quotes from the Qu'ran. But communism? The one that Hitler cursed for spreading internationalism?

Re:Privacy for all or nothing

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

"all non-muslims are lower than the filthiest of beasts because they reject islam" - quran 8:55

Unless you wish to argue that the quran isn't part of "moderate muslims" understanding. Oh by the way, the next verses are about how infidels should be killed when muslims have the chance.

So let's define, according to you who/what is a muslim :
-> moderate muslim : either hasn't read the quran (nor sunnah nor ...) at all, or knowingly disobeys their own "God"
-> extreme muslim : everyone else

Are we in agreement ? Why don't you go and check out whether or not the god of the muslims did or did not say this (quran is the literal word of god according to these poeple).

Re:Privacy for all or nothing

[shutdown -p now]

So let's define, according to you who/what is a muslim :
-> moderate muslim : either hasn't read the quran (nor sunnah nor ...) at all, or knowingly disobeys their own "God"
-> extreme muslim : everyone else

Yeah, pretty much. Exactly the same for Christians, by the way. The only difference is that the proportion for Christians is much more in favor of moderates than it is for Muslims.

Missing something

[griffjon]

Offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands are used for tax fraud???? I thought they were there for decoration. Seriously; I was under the opinion that their reputation along these lines was well-established?

Re:Doesn't necessarily have to be big business/ go

[Lehk228]

By "psychological operations" you mean "operations by lunatics" amiright?

Stupid is as Stupid does.

[Fantastic Lad]

If you're silly enough to think that money is god, then you're silly enough to try to attack information on the internet.

Psychopaths live in utterly false realities where their idea of how things work totally overshadows how things actually work. --But it does make them dangerous and tiresome, because they just keep trying to kill and destroy things and they never stop. It's like having somebody constantly trying to break down your Leggo structure while you're trying to build it. --And they'll also go running to the teacher to try to get you in trouble for the shit they're pulling.

--And information does vanish if you don't work to keep tabs on it. --The prime minister of Canada was caught trying to hide his millions worth of personal wealth from taxation in such an off-shore scheme, but it's very hard to find that info now.

One of the most effective ways for information to get lost is when the key word for the issue happens to be the same as for some other totally unrelated item which happens to be many times more current and popular. That one is frustrating.

-FL

MOD +1 TRUTH

[Anonymous Coward]

These skeletons just keep popping out of the Clintons' closet. There's just so many in there that it's hard to keep the door closed. Abusing your mod points won't ever change that.

WIKILEAKS under fire...

[SillySlashdotName]

It is not UNDER fire, it is ON fire!

Re:WIKILEAKS under fire...

[rvw]

It is not UNDER fire, it is ON fire! No of course not. That's why it's leaking man! (Otherwise they would call it wikiheating wouldn't they?)

http://gaddbiwdftapglkq.onion

[giminy]

WikiLeaks on The Onion appears to be unaffected. Gotta love that that server is anonymously located. If you want to read the document, follow the link above and install TOR, then punch in the URL in the subject...

Guess I should have posted this as an anonymous coward ;-).

What's Its IP#?

[Doc Ruby]

The site is blocked by stopping its DNS. So what's its IP#? If the site is still up, people can link to it by IP#, and pass around the story that way. Sure, if its IP# changes later, the links will be lost, but if it doesn't get its DNS back eventually it will be lost anyway. Linking to its IP# will help it survive to fight to get its DNS back.

The court has targeted WikiLeaks' DNS registrar, not WikiLeaks itself with this order. So WikiLeaks shouldn't have to depend on DNS while it defends itself.

What's the IP#?

Re:What's Its IP#?

[Anonymous Coward]

'this great guy' posted IPs already

http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Wikileaks

Those "citizen groups" are right

[cowwoc2001]

You can't mount a decent psychological or intelligence-based warfare against an enemy if you publish what you're going to do every step of the way. I'm not trying to advocate censorship here but I'd love to hear a *serious* answer as to how you expect any country to mount this sort of effort under the limitations of full disclosure.

Some specific points I'd like to discuss:

- What is the point of publishing Coalition "soft spots" to the public? Aren't you just begging for terrorists to attack them? It makes perfect sense to publish this to a limited group of trusted people that can fix the problem but not to the general public. Again, I understand there are times where publishing this information might be appropriate, but for the vast majority of the time it is not.

- What is the point of publishing real-time army positions and schedules to the public? Is anyone benefiting from this except from the terrorists?

etc.

My point is that Wikileaks or others have published certain information in the past that has absolutely no benefit to anyone except the very people trying to kill our troops. It's one thing to publish information which embarrasses governments or big companies, it's another thing altogether to publish information whose sole use is the killing of our people.

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[bluefoxlucid]

There's a lot of classified stuff that probably would be in our better interest to know. In fact, it's probably a great idea for every American and American ally to know everything marked TOP SECRET in the US Government. ...Unfortunately, you CAN NOT distribute that information in ANY WAY without the risk of having it fall into enemy hands, which is bad. It leaks even as-is; if this stuff was common knowledge, it'd be common knowledge everywhere. Anyone wanting to pull anything-- terrorist attack, pre-emptive war, whatever-- would have all the intelligence they need.

While it'd be great for us to be able to comment openly on our government's secret inner workings and raise education systems around it, it'd leave us totally defenseless. With perfect knowledge of the target's tactics, weaponry, and current military positions, you can stage a perfect attack and basically level their military resources with minimal effort. Do you want that to be the US? There wouldn't be planes hitting the twin towers, it'd just be a 5 hour long take-over of the US government and then we'd all be under rule of some batshit crazy cult that would probably just kill everyone that didn't swear allegiance to them.

Shit's classified for a reason. Don't go releasing secrets because you think they shouldn't be secret, you're just going to fuck people over.

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[mOdQuArK!]

That's like saying if you have perfect knowledge of a cryptographic system, then you will always be able to break it. If your system is strong enough, then it doesn't matter whether you have perfect knowledge of the system or not - it will still be hard to break.

I'm certainly not claiming that our current system is even remotely close to "unbreakable", but you are making the classic argument of "security through obscurity", which is almost as much a logical fallacy when applied to physical security as it is when applied to electronic security.

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[Anonymous Coward]

When you wake up tomorrow, look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself whose side you're on.

Then, ask yourself why the truth isn't on your side.

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[triskaidekaphile]

then we'd all be under rule of some batshit crazy cult that would probably just kill everyone that didn't swear allegiance to them.

That would explain the guano.

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe things like wikileaks will push us back to a rational doctrine of warfare. If it's a political end worth killing people over, maybe it's best that it be as bloody as possible to establish a lasting equalibrium following the conflict, and preventing conflict in circumstances where it's not worth killing a lot of people. There's more than a little evidence to support this idea, and support coming from idiologies as diverse as surrealism to William Tecumsa Sherman. Worrying about the collateral damage and image is worthless. If you have that kind of asymetry of capability, you are already the bully. To not use it only encourages those on the otherside of the conflict to throw their lives away for decades or centuries in a conflict that they can not ultimately win should that inequality of might be put in play. To not use it only exposes those who fight for you and ally with you to harm in a conflict you don't really believe is worth a final, incontravertable end. It is a fool's hope. If there can be no acceptable peace with militant islam, and the militant islam and or arab/persian nationalism cannot be seperated from the peaceful islam, perhaps the approach that demonstrates a willingness to annihilate it all in ernest while most savage, in initial appearance, is more merciful, compasionate, and ultimately just. What would Sun-Tzu do? Would he endeavor to govern well so that any foe would be met with swift, resolute, overwhelming force? Indeed a culture of complete transparency, open debate, coupled with rapid excecutions of decisions would be a new milestone of inscrutability. Why continue a failed strategy of trading lives on god forsaken desert? Why blame wikileaks for helping the enemy when it is our own false preconceptions which make it possible for them to attack us at all?

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean, its not ok to publish information about your troops killing people, if it could lead to your troops being killed? Welcome to war. You started it, so reap what you sow.

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[Anonymous Coward]

If there can be no acceptable peace with militant islam, and the militant islam and or arab/persian nationalism cannot be seperated from the peaceful islam, perhaps the approach that demonstrates a willingness to annihilate it all in ernest while most savage, in initial appearance, is more merciful, compasionate, and ultimately just.

Having thought about this subject for awhile, I can only agree, that the US took the wrong approach in the initial invasion of Iraq. They should have did without the "smart" bombs, and "surgical" strikes and went back to how it used to be dropping megatons of bombs on city after city killing as many people and making it as bloody as it could be. The fact of the matter is these people have been subjected to control for so long, they don't know how to govern themselves, and culturally speaking, democracy does not work in the region. Cultures don't change much, and I can't expect to force a culture to adapt to a way of government because it's just not going to happen. They don't value life the way the Western nations do, and dying at an early age is no different from them dying at 40.

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[CHESTER COPPERPOT]

Hey, I totally agree, that's why I read that blog, I tend to agree mostly with what the guy says. I think some of the material on wikileaks is no benefit to the public at all, a lot like the publishing of maps and imagery of certain areas within the U.S. on the Cryptome eyeball series.

Then there is other material, like money laundering etc. Which deserves to be investigated if they try to cover it up.

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[rtechie]

You can't mount a decent psychological or intelligence-based warfare against an enemy if you publish what you're going to do every step of the way. I'm not trying to advocate censorship here but I'd love to hear a *serious* answer as to how you expect any country to mount this sort of effort under the limitations of full disclosure. There is no such thing as "decent psychological or intelligence-based warfare". The notion that we SHOULD be terrorizing and torturing Iraqis for information and then using that information to kick down more doors and terrorize and torture more Iraqis is wrongheaded. It can't work. It won't work. There must be a political settlement in Iraq which means making concessions to the jihadis. Our current strategy of handing the nation over to Iran and the Shite militias is not a good one.

None of the documents leaked to Wikileaks reveal sensitive operational material. If you think they do, you don't know what "sensitive operational material" is. There are no names or precise locations of anything in the Wikileaks documents ("Baghdad" is not a precise location).

What is the point of publishing Coalition "soft spots" to the public? Aren't you just begging for terrorists to attack them? "The terrorists" already know. They do have eyes, you know. None of the information posted to Wikileaks is a secret to Iraqi residents.

What is the point of publishing real-time army positions and schedules to the public? To inform the American public about how THEIR military is being utilized. Again, the Iraqis have eyeballs. They already know where the troops are deployed.

My point is that Wikileaks or others have published certain information in the past that has absolutely no benefit to anyone except the very people trying to kill our troops. Again, wrong. The US government has a long history of LYING to the American people about the manner in which military forces are deployed in their name. Every American citizen has a RIGHT to know every detail of how the American military is deployed. It is incumbent upon the military and government to demonstrate, in each individual case, that it is absolutely necessary to not to reveal that information because it could lead to the deaths of American servicemen.

Classification is used way too much for CYA. There IS legitimate secret information: the identities of undercover agents, the source code for avionics, launch codes for nuclear weapons, etc. But it's a tiny subset of what they claim should be "secret". All of their fake secrecy actually makes it harder to protect the REAL secrets.

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[cowwoc2001]

You can't mount a decent psychological or intelligence-based warfare against an enemy if you publish what you're going to do every step of the way. I'm not trying to advocate censorship here but I'd love to hear a *serious* answer as to how you expect any country to mount this sort of effort under the limitations of full disclosure. There is no such thing as "decent psychological or intelligence-based warfare". The notion that we SHOULD be terrorizing and torturing Iraqis for information and then using that information to kick down more doors and terrorize and torture more Iraqis is wrongheaded. It can't work. It won't work. There must be a political settlement in Iraq which means making concessions to the jihadis. Our current strategy of handing the nation over to Iran and the Shite militias is not a good one. I wasn't talking about Iraq specifically. Deterrence is an example of a decent psychological or intelligence-based warfare that you can't make use of if citizens insist of being told every minute detail of our military capability. Many wars were prevented by virtue of deterrence during the cold war and in recent history of the middle-east. There is absolutely no value in declassifying this sort of information.

"The terrorists" already know. They do have eyes, you know. None of the information posted to Wikileaks is a secret to Iraqi residents. There is a difference between having eyes and being told the exact schedule and capability of military personnel. Regardless of whether they can find this out or not it serves absolutely no positive purpose being posted online.

What is the point of publishing real-time army positions and schedules to the public? To inform the American public about how THEIR military is being utilized. Again, the Iraqis have eyeballs. They already know where the troops are deployed. John Smith does not give a rat's ass about specific military details. He cares for a general summary of how well we're doing and if we did anything wrong. It is fine for whistle-blowers to point out if our troops do anything wrong, but doing so does not necessitate revealing sensitive information.

Again, wrong. The US government has a long history of LYING to the American people about the manner in which military forces are deployed in their name. Every American citizen has a RIGHT to know every detail of how the American military is deployed. It is incumbent upon the military and government to demonstrate, in each individual case, that it is absolutely necessary to not to reveal that information because it could lead to the deaths of American servicemen. The level of information you are asking for is utterly useless to anyone without a military background. Again, as a citizen I'd like to know if we're doing anything wrong and if we are give me some proof this is actually taking place, but there is no need to reveal specific operational details to do this.

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[McGiraf]

If the American army is about to attack "terrorists" in MY village I would like to know. So i can't get the fuck out before they come in and kill half the village.

If I live in a "soft spot" and the gov know it the most surrly the terrorist know it too. I would like to know too, for obvious reasons.

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[cowwoc2001]

If the American army is about to attack "terrorists" in MY village I would like to know. So i can't get the fuck out before they come in and kill half the village. Uh, right. I'm not going to answer this kind of rhetorical point. I would love to see you prove that 50% of all American army "kills" are civilian.

If I live in a "soft spot" and the gov know it the most surrly the terrorist know it too. I would like to know too, for obvious reasons. 1) It's not your right to know, nor should it be. First of all, you're not a citizen of the country whose army is protecting you. Second of all, even in cases where a country's own army is protecting local cities I'd love for you to show me a case where they openly announced "soft spots". No country in the world does this!

2) You assume that just because the Army knows its own soft spots, terrorists know it too. This is clearly not the case. You're not trying to imply they have ESP do you? Sure they know of *some* soft spots, but not all of them, and you're implying we should be publishing them all.

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[rtechie]

Deterrence is an example of a decent psychological or intelligence-based warfare that you can't make use of if citizens insist of being told every minute detail of our military capability. In order for deterrence to work the ENEMY must have a very good idea of the capabilities of their opponent. If you keep all of your fancy weapons secret the enemy won't know about them so they'll have no deterrence value. Israel speak publicly about their NBC stockpile because they're in violation of numerous treaties, but they certainly wink and nod about them. This 'deterrence' hasn't worked very well. They're still the subject of constant attack.

And 'deterrence' can backfire. The main point of torture is deterrence, "Mess with us and we'll torture you." Of course, this kind of belligerence can also foster resentment and ATTRACT attackers. Someone walking around heavily armed is "looking for trouble". Nobody accuses Sweden of being fascists.

John Smith does not give a rat's ass about specific military details. He cares for a general summary of how well we're doing and if we did anything wrong. And who writes that summary? People in the Pentagon a.k.a. professional liars. The specific military details need to be leaked because the Pentagon is dishonest when dealing with the American people and Congress.

It is fine for whistle-blowers to point out if our troops do anything wrong, but doing so does not necessitate revealing sensitive information. What counts as "doing something wrong"? Does "pissing away money" count? Because if it does, it should be fine to point out virtually everything the military does because almost all of it involves pissing away large sums of money. Anything you can do, the Pentagon can do it half as well for three times the cost.

The level of information you are asking for is utterly useless to anyone without a military background. This is simply wrong, there are plenty of non-military analysts that can process this information. And that's the whole point: INDEPENDENT analysis. The Pentagon can't be trusted.

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[cowwoc2001]

In order for deterrence to work the ENEMY must have a very good idea of the capabilities of their opponent. If you keep all of your fancy weapons secret the enemy won't know about them so they'll have no deterrence value. Israel speak publicly about their NBC stockpile because they're in violation of numerous treaties, but they certainly wink and nod about them. This 'deterrence' hasn't worked very well. They're still the subject of constant attack. Not true. The enemy needs to think you have some weapon. They don't need to know any specifics or real information for deterrence to work. Israel's deterrence worked great for years until the UN and US started "expressing concern" whenever they tried to take out terrorist groups. Ever since then their deterrence power went down the drain.

Deterrence reduces the amount of real violence you have to use but obviously it doesn't work if you don't respond to attacks time and time again. Eventually your enemies will think you're bluffing. No one is expecting Israel to nuke its neighbors to prove its point but it is expected to at least hit back with smaller weapons when attacked.

And 'deterrence' can backfire. The main point of torture is deterrence, "Mess with us and we'll torture you." Of course, this kind of belligerence can also foster resentment and ATTRACT attackers. Someone walking around heavily armed is "looking for trouble". Nobody accuses Sweden of being fascists. No one is using torture as deterrence. We're talking about concealing the size of your army, your military capability or your willingness to respond to any attacks by your enemies. If Iran believes that nuclear development leads to invasion Iraq-style they will think twice before continuing. In fact, both Syria and Iran did stall their support of terrorism in the first couple of years after 9/11 but then went right back into it once they saw how much crap the US was taking from the international community.

And who writes that summary? People in the Pentagon a.k.a. professional liars. The specific military details need to be leaked because the Pentagon is dishonest when dealing with the American people and Congress. There are plenty of NGOs that read the papers in full and publish their own summaries. Individuals don't need the kind of information you're asking for. They don't understand enough about the military to interpret the data, though the NGOs I mentioned do.

What counts as "doing something wrong"? Does "pissing away money" count? Because if it does, it should be fine to point out virtually everything the military does because almost all of it involves pissing away large sums of money. Anything you can do, the Pentagon can do it half as well for three times the cost. Every government in the world pisses money away. Breaking news about how your particular government does it does not justify risking the lives of our soldiers to do it. Lives are worth more than this. Secondly, the citizens know how much the army is spending as a black-box. If they don't like the amount they can always pressure their representatives on this point. Again, civilians don't know enough about the military to judge for themselves what is proper use of the money. How am I supposed to know whether spending $200 million on a particular Jet is normal or pissing money away?

This is simply wrong, there are plenty of non-military analysts that can process this information. And that's the whole point: INDEPENDENT analysis. The Pentagon can't be trusted. You need to stop being so paranoid. Independent NGOs don't need to know specifics about how we got our intelligence (i.e. who are our sources) or what is the specific working schedule of our military. Yes, they need to know what is going on on a bigger picture (i.e. we spent $1 billion on 50 jets of type X, we have 20,000 troops on the ground, etc) but that's where it stops.

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[McGiraf]

"Uh, right. I'm not going to answer this kind of rhetorical point. I would love to see you prove that 50% of all American army "kills" are civilian."

If you read better you'll notice I implied they kill 50% of the civilians, not that 50% of those killed are civilians, which is obviously not true; but wars since the beginning of the 20th century have killed many times more civilians than military personnel.

"1) It's not your right to know,"

Says who ?

"nor should it be."

Why?

"First of all, you're not a citizen of the country whose army is protecting you."

Then it is invaders. But anyway friend, foes , invaders or liberators I do not want to find myself in the middle of a battlefield completely by surprise.

"Second of all, even in cases where a country's own army is protecting local cities I'd love for you to show me a case where they openly announced "soft spots". No country in the world does this!"

Of course not. It would inform people that they are in danger and that the government does protect them. That could cause them problems. That why we need other sources to inform us.

"2) You assume that just because the Army knows its own soft spots, terrorists know it too. This is clearly not the case. You're not trying to imply they have ESP do you? Sure they know of *some* soft spots, but not all of them, and you're implying we should be publishing them all."

No ESP but they probably know most of them, and the gov know in some cases which one the "terrorists" know about. The only ones kept in the dark are the one who are actually at risk.

Information is power, they must keep it out of the hands of the masses.

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[cowwoc2001]

Dear friend, you cannot open-source the military. Security by obscurity actually works just fine in the physical world.

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[McGiraf]

It may work fine for the military, but civilians die because of it. That's the point.

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[cowwoc2001]

It may work fine for the military, but civilians die because of it. That's the point. Open-sourcing it will make matters worse. Consider the civilian kill-rate of the army versus the civilian kill-rate of terrorists. You will find that as terrorist attacks go up because of Army transparency the number of civilian deaths actually goes way up. Sure our Army might end up killing slightly less civilians but overall it's a loss for everybody.

I sympathize with your desire to weed out corruption but this isn't the way to do it. Bureaucratic transparency shouldn't come at the price of human lives. Also please note that this isn't a purely American problem. Many other armies all over the world have dealt with this problem and they have done so without the Wikileaks approach you are advocating. If they can do it, so can we.

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[bluefoxlucid]

If my knowledge includes all the passwords and everything, yes. And if your cryptographic system is breakable in 5 minutes, but the system can only be analyzed in an hour, and the message loses value in 30 minutes (set the bomb to blow in 30 minutes, get to the extraction point), then it's damn well a good idea to keep that system secret for 55 minutes and then discard it for a better technology.

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[rtechie]

Israel's deterrence worked great for years until the UN and US started "expressing concern" whenever they tried to take out terrorist groups. When was this? The only time in the past 50 years Israel has not been under constant attack was during a brief period before and after the Oslo accords from about 1992 to about 1996, and that was entirely due to an effective two-way ceasefire. When it became clear that the Israeli government was unwilling to implement the accords, the ceasefire collapsed. Israel has not, and will not, achieve security in the Holy Land through sheer force of arms.

No one is using torture as deterrence. You fail to understand the purpose of torture. Torture does not produce useful information, everyone knows this. The purpose of torture is to, literally, "terrorize" the subjects of torture. It is to intimidate the victim specifically and the public generally. "Don't act against us or we'll torture you."

There are plenty of NGOs that read the papers in full and publish their own summaries. Individuals don't need the kind of information you're asking for. They don't understand enough about the military to interpret the data, though the NGOs I mentioned do. So you think this information should be released to any NGO that asks, and that's NOT a security risk, but shouldn't be given out to individuals because that IS a security risk? I think there's a contradiction here.

BTW, You're wrong. This information isn't "released" to anybody. The NGOs analyze the kinds of leaks posted to Wikileaks.

Breaking news about how your particular government does it does not justify risking the lives of our soldiers to do it. Lives are worth more than this. This is a false dilemma. Even if releasing this information risked the lives of soldiers, and without a shadow of a doubt it does not, the lives of soldiers do not have UNLIMITED value. Is it worth $100 billion for an operation to save the life of the President or ? Fuck no it isn't! NOBODY'S life is worth that much.

Nor is it worthwhile to spend $100 billion to save the lives of 10,000 soldiers. That money is much better spent on medical care that will save the lives of MILLIONS. If a nation is passing away all it's money on the military it won't have money for other things.

Secondly, the citizens know how much the army is spending as a black-box. No, they don't. The Pentagon goes to great lengths to hide their actual total budget.

If they don't like the amount they can always pressure their representatives on this point. No, they can't. In recent years the Pentagon has refused to give any details of their budgets to Congress. Look into it.

Again, civilians don't know enough about the military to judge for themselves what is proper use of the money. Yes, they do. As I pointed out earlier their are countless academics, researchers, hobbyists, etc. qualified to make these judgments.

How am I supposed to know whether spending $200 million on a particular Jet is normal or pissing money away? 15 minutes with Google? It doesn't take an aviation expert to know that Joint Strike is a huge ripoff.

You need to stop being so paranoid. I'm not being paranoid. It's called C.Y.A., or "Cover Your Ass". We've given the military the ability to make all their mistakes secret and they use it at every opportunity. Look at Abu Graib. If you could make all your mistakes secret you'd be doing it too. Have you ever worked in or with the US military?

Independent NGOs don't need to know specifics about how we got our intelligence (i.e. who are our sources) or what is the specific working schedule of our military. Independent auditors need to be able to... AUDIT. If all they get is summary reports generated FOR THEM by the military, do you really think those summary reports will show any malfeasance? Yes, they need to know the deployments because the Pentagon lies about them. Yes, they need to know about sources because the Pentagon ALMOST ALWAYS lies about them.

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[cowwoc2001]

Israel's deterrence worked great for years until the UN and US started "expressing concern" whenever they tried to take out terrorist groups.

When was this? The only time in the past 50 years Israel has not been under constant attack was during a brief period before and after the Oslo accords from about 1992 to about 1996, and that was entirely due to an effective two-way ceasefire. When it became clear that the Israeli government was unwilling to implement the accords, the ceasefire collapsed. Israel has not, and will not, achieve security in the Holy Land through sheer force of arms.

Talk about a twisted sense of history. From 1973 onward (mostly due to the 1967 war) Israel stopped living under the threat of attack from foreign countries. Individual terrorist groups are another matter, but it is quite hard to deter stateless players. No country seemed to have figured that one out yet. As for Olso, I guess you are living in lala land because every source of information (except the Palestinians themselves) agree that the Oslo accords fell apart because Arafat was a corrupt egomaniac that promised a lot and delivered nothing. He preached peace in English and hate in Arabic. His own people voted in Hamas because they were sick and tired of his corruption and the corruption of his party. The Palestinians first requirement under the Oslo accord and Road Map is to disarm their terrorist groups. They never began doing this, not even in the slightest. Meanwhile, Israel has yielded Palestinians self-rule in large parts of the West Bank and completely withdrew from Gaza. These are permanent concessions Israel has made at great personal cost (in terms of lives, money and heartache). The Palestinians have given nothing back but lip service.

No one is using torture as deterrence.

You fail to understand the purpose of torture. Torture does not produce useful information, everyone knows this. The purpose of torture is to, literally, "terrorize" the subjects of torture. It is to intimidate the victim specifically and the public generally. "Don't act against us or we'll torture you."

Whatever you're smoking, please stop it. No western country uses this form of deterrence, though former dictator Saddam Hussein and current middle-east dictators probably still use it.

There are plenty of NGOs that read the papers in full and publish their own summaries. Individuals don't need the kind of information you're asking for. They don't understand enough about the military to interpret the data, though the NGOs I mentioned do.

So you think this information should be released to any NGO that asks, and that's NOT a security risk, but shouldn't be given out to individuals because that IS a security risk? I think there's a contradiction here.

No. I think that detailed classified information should remain classified until it no longer poses a security risk. You could declassify the information 30 years later (I believe this is the current practice in many countries around the world). I think higher-level information should be released to NGOs without including security-sensitive information. For example, you could discuss how many informants you have, what percentage of raids were successful, the rate of mistaken civilian deaths, etc. But it makes little sense to discuss *who* your informants are, *how* you maintain contact with them, etc.

Breaking news about how your particular government does it does not justify risking the lives of our soldiers to do it. Lives are worth more than this.

This is a false dilemma. Even if releasing this information risked the lives of soldiers, and without a shadow of a doubt it does not, the lives of soldiers do not have UNLIMITED value. Is it worth $100 billion for an operation to save the life of the President or ? Fuck no it isn't! NOBODY'S life is worth that much.

Nor is it worthwhile to s

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[rtechie]

From 1973 onward (mostly due to the 1967 war) Israel stopped living under the threat of attack from foreign countries. Individual terrorist groups are another matter, but it is quite hard to deter stateless players. No country seemed to have figured that one out yet.

I don't think we're going to be able to bridge the gap in perception here. Israel fought a war LAST YEAR with Lebanon over security concerns.

No western country uses this form of deterrence

The French used it in Algeria, the UK used it in Northern Ireland. It's very difficult to believe that torture isn't used this way by the British and American forces in Iraq given the countless eyewitness accounts by prisoners and interrogators, the video recordings and photographs, and they have plainly stated they are doing so. What more do you need exactly?

I am saying that if you can protect even a single life by not releasing security-sensitive information then you should do so.

And what I am saying is that keeping "security-sensitive" information secret costs people's lives.

You could reveal this information months after this information is changed but you definitely shouldn't be revealing it while it's "live" and poses a security risk to reveal.

Since this has never actually happened, and these kinds of leaks have been going on for centuries, I don't think we have much to worry about.

More importantly, if we're discussing a subjective matter (which I believe we are) then who the heck cares what they think?

Fair pricing on goods really isn't subjective. Remember that $600 toilet seat? It's now $2000. Does it take an "expert" to determine that? Why do meals served in Iraq cost $250 each? The idea that only the military and defense contractors themselves are qualified to do any assessment whatsoever of military spending is a canard used for decades to avoid scrutiny for their corruption.

Army personnel have to bear responsibility for their actions if they do something wrong

Really, how? The generals that make purchasing decisions never set foot on the battlefield. There hasn't been a serious investigation into procurement corruption in the Pentagon in over 60 years, so there is no possibly for punishment. The worst case scenario is early retirement to the cushy "consulting" job defense contractors gave you in exchange for procurement favors.

It would really suck if the tables were turned and *you* were being constantly watched, criticized and second-guessed.

1) I am. I do security work and I'm closely scrutinized.

2) THEY SIGNED UP FOR IT! This is akin to celebrities whining about the paparazzi. They wanted all this power and money, and make no mistake they're all making millions, scrutiny comes with the territory. And it damn well should. These people control the lives of millions of people and trillions of dollars. If it were up to me they'd be under 24/7 public video and audio surveillance and tagged with GPS tags. They would, literally, not be able to go to the bathroom without the public knowing about it. All of their personal financials should be made public. Transparency will lead to less second-guessing as the decisonmaking process is more open.

Maybe it makes great strategical sense to go one way or another.

What strategy? To prove to our enemies we're too stupid to be a threat?

No, I have not.

I have. Maybe you should speak from a little experience.

And people who believe that what went on in Abu Graib is torture don't know what the heck they're talking about. ... You should hear the kinds of things they do in the middle-east. Abu Graib pales in comparison.

Stop splitting hairs. You obviously agree that what took place at Abu Graib is torture, just not "as bad" as some other tortures you've heard about. Is attacking a hog-tied naked man with a police dog torture? Is

Re:Those "citizen groups" are right

[cowwoc2001]

From 1973 onward (mostly due to the 1967 war) Israel stopped living under the threat of attack from foreign countries. Individual terrorist groups are another matter, but it is quite hard to deter stateless players. No country seemed to have figured that one out yet.

I don't think we're going to be able to bridge the gap in perception here. Israel fought a war LAST YEAR with Lebanon over security concerns.

That's because for years they threatened to bomb Hezbollah bases in Lebanon and cut off shipments of weapons from Syria and Iran but were under international and domestic pressure to keep things quiet. So for years Hezbollah bombed civilian and military sites in the Israeli border and Israel did not reply. All the critics said this would destroy Israel's deterrence and it did.

No western country uses this form of deterrence

The French used it in Algeria, the UK used it in Northern Ireland. It's very difficult to believe that torture isn't used this way by the British and American forces in Iraq given the countless eyewitness accounts by prisoners and interrogators, the video recordings and photographs, and they have plainly stated they are doing so. What more do you need exactly?

I can only speak on the few photos I've seen. Pretty much all of them (with the exception of the single water boarding incident) amounted to intimidation, not torture. Who cares how uncomfortable you make people under interrogation? They're not going to reveal secrets under they're under *some* form duress. I believe that on this count people are watering down the definition of torture.

I am saying that if you can protect even a single life by not releasing security-sensitive information then you should do so.

And what I am saying is that keeping "security-sensitive" information secret costs people's lives. How?

You could reveal this information months after this information is changed but you definitely shouldn't be revealing it while it's "live" and poses a security risk to reveal.

Since this has never actually happened, and these kinds of leaks have been going on for centuries, I don't think we have much to worry about.

More importantly, if we're discussing a subjective matter (which I believe we are) then who the heck cares what they think?

Fair pricing on goods really isn't subjective. Remember that $600 toilet seat? It's now $2000. Does it take an "expert" to determine that? Why do meals served in Iraq cost $250 each? The idea that only the military and defense contractors themselves are qualified to do any assessment whatsoever of military spending is a canard used for decades to avoid scrutiny for their corruption.

Toilets and food is one thing, Apache Helicopters are another.

Army personnel have to bear responsibility for their actions if they do something wrong

Really, how? The generals that make purchasing decisions never set foot on the battlefield. There hasn't been a serious investigation into procurement corruption in the Pentagon in over 60 years, so there is no possibly for punishment. The worst case scenario is early retirement to the cushy "consulting" job defense contractors gave you in exchange for procurement favors.

Numerous individuals were fired from their positions or placed in jail when investigation found they did something improper. I agree with you though that there should be more investigations and more frequent punishments for misconduct.

It would really suck if the tables were turned and *you* were being constantly watched, criticized and second-guessed.

1) I am. I do security work and I'm closely scrutinized.

2) THEY SIGNED UP FOR IT! This is akin to celebrities whining about the paparazzi. They wanted all this power and money, and make no mistake they're all making million

The Text: "Clouds on the Cayman tax heaven

[Anonymous Coward]

http://88.80.13.160/wiki/Clouds_on_the_Cayman_tax_heaven

Clouds on the Cayman tax heaven
From Wikileaks
Jump to: navigation, search

Is David helvetic and Goliath a bear?

DANIEL SCHMITT
2008-02-15

This is the story of Rudolf Elmer of Switzerland, former Chief Operating Officer of Bank Julius Baer on the Cayman Islands. The story of a man suspected of leaking to the press information about the activities of a Swiss bank specialized in hiding and laundering the money of the ultra rich through anonymizing offshore trust structures. It also is the story of a man and his family living with the consequences of being suspected of fouling the nest of a traditional Swiss bank engaging in dubious activities. This story might differ from previous one's related to this issue, mainly because while researching the story, Rudolf Elmer has also been asked for his account of things.

Over the last few months Wikileaks has obtained and published various documents related to allegedly illegal activities in the Cayman Islands performed by Bank Julius Baer and started initial research into these. Regarding the same bank Wikileaks had obtained legal documentation on the case of a Rudolf Elmer, former debuty head of BJB cayman, in a Dec 2007 Zurich court case against Bank Julius Baer. The law suit relates to various irregularities of health-care/social-security payments by the bank, as well as the matter of stalking (including at least one acknowledged car chase) Elmer and his family by BJB-hired Private Investigators Zurich-based Ryffel AG,

Initial research easily turned up that 2002/2003 some sensitive documents had slipped out of the Swiss banks office in the Cayman Islands, apparently reaching US tax investigation units and eventually sent to the Swiss financial magazine CASH, which reported on the disclosure, but possibly due to an injunction or Swiss banking law, not the details. This event also triggered an article in the Wall Street Journal an article in Swiss Weltwoche, titled "The leak in paradise", giving background information on what happened back in 2003 on the Caymans.

When the leak of trust structures was discovered in 2003, Bank Julius Baer initiated legal investigations on the Caymans, involving the search of the home of each employee and when not gaining any insights from that, undertaking a polygraph test on the employees. It still remained unclear where the data went.

The group of people having legitimate access to these documents was small, Rudolf Elmer, who was BJB Caymans deputy head and Chief Operating Officer at that point in time also fulfilled the position of Hurricane Officer, whos duties included keeping backups. Elmer, facing a spinal surgery coming up in a few days time, was on sick leave and had some trouble scheduling the test. He thus became a suspect.
The Polygraph Test

The transcript of the polygraph test conducted by a Lou Criscella and passed on to Wikileaks is very abstract to read with names of clients being substituted with single letters. While not all the context thus is properly understandable, the transcript does not show any wrongdoing.

Reading the transcript one gets the impression that data has slipped out of the Cayman Islands as early as 1997, and timelining the transcript with a couple of later documents will also reveal that Elmer is accused of having leaked data that was produced after the date that he left from the Caymans.

Elmer complained to the American Polygraph Association, the institution his interrogator works for, the Cayman Prime Minister and other entities about the conduct of the test.

Normally sick people would not be interviewed, but the APA's Ethics Commission, stated in a letter that the ethical rules for polygraphing do not apply to the Cayman Islands, and as the test had not been fully carried out, most of the APA rules would not apply anyway. He was informed there are no regulations on the Caymans for polygrap

WikiLeaks.org at IP#: 88.80.13.160

[Doc Ruby]

This court order has blocked the Wikileaks.org DNS. But the site is still up and running at its IP number, which is 88.80.13.160 .

Spread the word. DNS can be replaced, with some inconvenience, with manual labor.

Re:WikiLeaks.org at IP#: 88.80.13.160

[Doc Ruby]

Since its site is still running, its own wiki explains the story of the current injunction attack.

Re:WikiLeaks.org at IP#: 88.80.13.160

[Anonymous Coward]

And if this site get pulled down, it can always be raised as an .onion domain. Censorship on the Internet does not work. Screw this judge.

Re:WikiLeaks.org at IP#: 88.80.13.160

[jnnnnn]

Or just use an alternative DNS record: still works.

Re:WikiLeaks.org at IP#: 88.80.13.160

[Anonymous Coward]

For now:
        wikileaks.jricher.com

I really like the loading page, and its quote.

Re:WikiLeaks.org at IP#: 88.80.13.160

[Doc Ruby]

linked to wikileaks.jricher.com for your surfing pleasure

Re:WikiLeaks.org at IP#: 88.80.13.160

[notrelevant]

Hint: Once you get to WikiLeaks via the IP number, bookmark the page and it is saved using the IP number so you no longer have to worry about DNS being down (or locked). This can work for any site once you know the IP number (easily findable) for that site.

Re:WikiLeaks.org at IP#: 88.80.13.160

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if anyone else picked up on this, but the injunction is against the registrar (Dynadot), not Wikileaks. Moreover, the injunction was entered into by stipulation of the parties. The registrar agreed to permanently disable the domain in exchange for getting out of the suit. In fact, the registrar rolled over before anyone at Wikileaks had been identified or served with notice.
This creates some dangerous possibilities. No registrar is ever going to want to defend a suit aimed at one of its customers. Dynadot is making $8.99 a year on the contract. The cost of defending a frivolous suit far exceeds anything they'll ever make off of one customer. This means that if I want to shut down a website all I have to do is sue the registrar and then offer to dismiss the suit if they agree to disable the domain.

Re:WikiLeaks.org at IP#: 88.80.13.160

[Doc Ruby]

I think we picked up on it, but I haven't seen a solution offered to defend from this type of attack.

What would work would be if the authoritative DNS record were held by a group of registrars, not just one, as I'll now detail. The registrant has a contract with each registrar in the group. That contract requires each one to poll the others and keep their record synced. Contracts among the registrars to "respect the vote" further enforce that sync. The registrant's contract also allows it to tell each and every registrar to drop one or all the rest from the group, and conversely to tell one to resign from the group. Then ensure the registrars are in different countries, some of whom are enemies of each other and won't respect each other's legal system (but optimally with some bridges among them, so none are totally isolated from the force of another's contract).

Then at the first sign of trouble with one registrar, trigger its resignation clause. That can be done in realtime with networks, winning the race with the much slower legal process in practically every country. The redundancy of the group will keep the "authoritative" record under control of the registrant, not the registrar. It's possible that a rogue registrar will advertise a redirected DNS to something wrong or null, but that will not stop most people, and is probably unlikely because other DNS operators will drop the rogue that's broadcasting false and contradictory records that are corrupting the integrity of the global DNS system - so they probably won't do it. By the time someone could force a registrar to go rogue, it would already be too late to matter, so that would deter trying.

It's worth noting that this defense system guards also against crooked registrars holding their authority hostage and jacking up prices, or just shutting down domain traffic to steal the name. It's been a long time coming, but patching this single failurepoint in the essential DNS system was inevitable. And now we're staring it in the face, the face of a Northern California judge. Creepy, but not the end of the world.

WikiLeaks.be Address

[Doc Ruby]

WikiLeaks is also available at WikiLeaks.be, which Belgian DNS is not under the Califoria court's jurisdiction.

Re:WikiLeaks.be Address

[Em Adespoton]

This is one of the reasons I like OpenDNS; it adds some diversity to the DNS solution, and often allows me to see domain names that vanish from the official DNS system.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Next up, /. under injunction?

[OhHellWithIt]

I guess we all need to add 88.80.13.160 and 87.106.162.82 to our sigs, right under the DeCSS key.

Privacy for no one, then.

[spun]

Pragmatically, there is no right to privacy. Get used to it. Not only that, there is no moral reason to uphold a right to privacy. Finally, there is no longer any practical reason to uphold privacy rights.

Let me explain.

Privacy is a stopgap measure. It existed to ensure that those who had better access to information and more power to act on that information could not use that to dominate the rest of us. If everyone has equal access to information, then we can know when someone is trying to use their power to gather or act on information to harm someone else, and we can act collectively to stop them. There is no practical reason to have privacy if everyone can see what everyone else is doing.

There is no moral reason to uphold privacy because it is essentially limiting other people's rights. If no one else were around limiting me, I could experience anything that I had the physical capacity to experience. Privacy limits my freedom to access information. While that my have been a useful compromise at one time, it is rapidly approaching the point where it no longer will be.

And pragmatically, bad guys do not respect the right to privacy while at the same time demanding it. Good guys won't use the information they gained to harm another. It's like guns, outlaw them and only outlaws have guns. Outlaw access to information and only outlaws will have access to that information.

Re:Privacy for no one, then.

[Ironsides]

There is no moral reason to uphold privacy because it is essentially limiting other people's rights. If no one else were around limiting me, I could experience anything that I had the physical capacity to experience. Privacy limits my freedom to access information. While that my have been a useful compromise at one time, it is rapidly approaching the point where it no longer will be.

In that case, would you kindly post your bank account and credit card information? Along with your medical records?

Assuming you're in the U.S., Privacy is one of the things used to determine where and when a warrant is needed under the U.S. Fourth Amendment. If you say you never have privacy, then theoretically, a warrant would never be necessary.

Re:Privacy for no one, then.

[spun]

Currently, I would not post such information because I would not have access to information about who used that information and how. And a bank employee wouldn't have access to accurate information about who was using that information. As long as there is an information imbalance, privacy is a necessary compromise. And as I mentioned, the bad guys do not respect privacy. That includes spooks working for the US government, who could easily declare you an enemy combatant and record anything and everything about without regard to your privacy.

As for my medical records, why wouldn't I share that information? I'm not embarrassed about any medical conditions I may have, and nothing I have would make anyone or institution prejudiced towards me.

Re:Doesn't necessarily have to be big business/ go

[mevets]

> I doubt the CTO or CIO of a giant firm suggested DDOSing...

That isn't the role of the CxO; the CxO could be punished for saying such a thing. The CxO has a carefully selected team which correctly interprets "we NEED to hush this up" into the appropriate action, without regard for ethics or laws. Building such a team is the critical competency of an executive. The result is a highly effective and resilient organization that is capable of anything from fraud to torture.

Re:I wonder if Clinton's pal Mark Rich...

[Anonymous Coward]

"You folks ready for 8 more years of that bullshit?"

I've never been more ready. And besides, we know with this Clinton we won't have to worry about a blowjob being an issue. I mean, could you imagine Hilary blowing someone?? Eww, I just threw up a little in my mouth.

Harvard recently had a UPS fire...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and it took down most of their Cambridge network. Not because of the small fire (which went out on its own) but the idiots at the Cambridge Fire Dept. that insisted on shutting down power to the entire room, and they wouldn't wait for a proper shutdown of equipment.

Re:Harvard recently had a UPS fire...

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Yeah, those idiots! :rollseyes:

Re:Harvard recently had a UPS fire...

[Meski]

Curious that a computer room wouldn't have been protected by halon or inergen http://fm200.biz/inergen.htm systems

hosts file entry.

[anwyn]

For those who are not TCP/IP aware here is the entry you need to add to your hosts file, (that is on Unix like systems (like linux) (/etc/hosts)) to bypass the missing DNS entry.

88.80.13.160 wikileaks.org

In this way, you will bypass the absurd DNS injunction, and undermine the courts. (But wait, SCO has already done that.)

"The net interprets censorship as damage and routes around."

Depending on your OS you may need to log on to root to edit this file. If wikileaks.org ever changes its IP address you may need to update this entry. When the injunction is lifted DNS starts working again, the entry should be removed.

Re:hosts file entry.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can be done on Windows NT-kernel systems also (NT, 2k, XP, Vista)

You want to add the line to %windir%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

BBC - result of the Julius Baer case

[pev]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/technology/7250916.stm

lucky numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

From: http://www.juliusbaer.com/global/en/independentassetmanagers/Pages/default.aspx

We have some winners!

You can call them and do a little 'citizen journalism' by asking questions such as, 'what's it like working for people who are so stupid they think they can censor the internet?', and 'Are you really independent? if so, what do you think about money laundering through the Caymen Islands?'.

--------------
Independent asset managers domiciled in Switzerland & Europe

German speaking

        * Walter Wichert
            Zurich
            +41 (0)58 888 8367
        * Martin Bucher
            Basle
            +41 (0)58 889 8253
        * Sarah Fessler
            Berne
            +41 (0)58 889 5442
        * David Reymond
            Singapore
            +65 6827 1634
        * Peter Vangehr
            Nassau
            +1 242 394 9109

French speaking

        * Walter Infanger
            Geneva
            +41 (0)58 885 3321
        * Thomas Vogel
            Singapore
            +65 6827 1631
        * Veronique Noé
            Nassau
            +1 242 394 9121

Italian speaking

        * Marco Meroni
            Lugano
            +41 (0)58 885 8612
        * Gian-Paolo Bardelli
            Singapore
            +65 6827 1900
        * Keva Ingraham-McPhee
            Nassau
            +1 242 394 9124

Independent asset managers domiciled in Asia Pacific

        * Mateos Atamyan
            Singapore
            +65 6827 1688

Independent asset managers domiciled in Latin America

        * Sylvain Courrier
            Geneva
            +41 (0)58 889 6231

Perhaps Judge White...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is attempting to conceal his own money laundering thru the Caymans? I can see how blackmail would motivate a corrupt judge to ignore the Constitution and sneak this injunction thru without any representation on the affected party whatsoever. And people think the Mexican judicial system is corrupt. They learned from the best! Ours.

Libel or tortious interference?

[Myria]

The court order doesn't seem to say why exactly the order was given. It's not even clear whether the order is because the statements are libelous, or because they are in breach of trade secrecy. Maybe the statements are simply false?

Re:I wonder if Clinton's pal Mark Rich...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm ready! Let the "accidental mysterious death" bodycount start to rise and the secret documents be stuffed into socks once again!

Clintons Forever!

Silencing the truth is possible

[davidwr]

The key to silencing the truth is to silence it BEFORE it spreads.

If I'm a corrupt employer and I suspect one of my employees is about to blow the whistle, it's not too late to either overtly bribe him into silence, blackmail him into silence, transfer him to a cushy job that doesn't have any access to secrets so he'll see the wisdom of not burning his employer, or if those don't work, hiring a hit man. I'll tell the hit man he gets paid double if the death is ruled accidental.

Once the information hits the media, it's pretty much too late for direct action. About all you can do then is use indirect methods then later quietly and permanently get rid of the people who have seen the damning evidence.

Oh, I thought you meant the other Onion

[davidwr]

You know, this one.

The war of the injunctions

[davidwr]

The domain is owned by people in Great Britain.

It would be interesting if a British court ordered ICAAN to transfer the domain registration from Dreamhost to a registrar of Iwein Dekoninck's choosing, under penalty that if it did not, the court would order British ISPs to blackhole anyone using Dreamhost for DNS.

This would create an international incident no doubt.

It won't happen in a UK court but I wouldn't be surprised if some small country wanted to flex its muscle in a case like this in the future.

Re:Doesn't necessarily have to be big business/ go

[Anonymous Coward]

or maybe they thought we thought they thought they weren't dumb

The court challenges should continue, though...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a (very) small business owner. I am trying to grow it. I really dislike Wikileaks. DDoS attacks are not great, but the court challenges should continue for the sake of future victims.

Let's say that my company does some work for a company that the Wikileaks guys happen to dislike. I'm thinking typical Slashdot targets like Microsoft, Sony Music, or SCO. (That's a bad idea, doing work for SCO and planning to get paid, but that's beside the point.) Let's say that one of my employees with access to my contract with the Big Bad Company (henceforth "the BBC") gets disgruntled for some reason and posts the contract anonymously to Wikileaks. Wikileaks decides it is in the public interest to see what the BBC is currently paying for software services, and posts it publicly.

So, this is bad for me because my other customers now see what I'm charging the BBC, and they all demand discounts; I'm in breach of my confidentiality agreement with the BBC, and they have cause to kill the deal or demand better terms as 'payment' for not killing the deal; and some employees who get a salary and not options (there will always be some) will get disgruntled at the supposed giant amount of money I'm getting from the BBC. I'm in a bad position with everybody.

If a newspaper did that in the US, I could go after them in the courts, if we assume I can prove that they damaged me to the tune of X dollars. But who do I go after on Wikileaks? Anonymous Belgians who unilaterally decide whether or not the world should see my confidential documents? There's no reason for them not to post anything they get that strikes them as interesting on a particular day.

Their statements about this on the Wikileaks FAQ do not inspire confidence. They say something like "we think corporations should be more open". Well, thanks for your opinion on how capitalism ought to work, Wikileaks, but I think I should have the right to maintain the privacy of whatever documents I deem private.

Everyone add an A record

[fremean]

No seriously, do. Anyone have the IP addresses of the wikileaks.org servers, lets all add a records to our own dns's.

Re:Everyone add an A record

[stm2]

88.80.13.160

Re:Doesn't necessarily have to be big business/ go

[Anonymous Coward]

"A lot of brains to run a big business, i.e. CTO/CIO?"

Oh, puleez...then why are some of these 'brains' insisting on inflicting the likes of Vista on company employees/the public, etc.?

Brains has nothing to do with it. The stock market binary switch, i.e. greed vs. fear, explains this nonsense quite nicely, thank you very much.

American corporate greed/fear/dumbness rules for the time being...but the East is rising, while the U.S.(Rome? :-)) slowly falls...

Re: Question? Answer.

[not_hylas( )]

CHESTER COPPERPOT:

Question:

"Is it possible to overload a power supply to the point of fire from a remote location? I've heard of black hats getting into the climate control systems of certain areas and loading up the heat and frying certain parts of computers, but a power supply?"

Answer:

"The trojan has controllers on the universal power supply."

http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/articles/11372/33500/threaded#33500

http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/articles/11372/34207/threaded#34207

Seems an unlawful prior restraint

[mbstone]

Would the court have enjoined distribution of the New York Times if it had published the info? Not likely. See NYT v. US, 403 US 713 ("Pentagon Papers" case). Wikileaks has a good appeal to the 9th Circuit, and is represented by California legal counsel. Watch the sparks fly.

It's not DoS, it's by Court Order that shut it

[sasha328]

According to the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7250916.stm/ wikileaks was shut down at the source by the hosting company as a result of a court order:

Whistle-blower site taken offline

The case was brought by lawyers working for a Swiss bank
A controversial website that allows whistle-blowers to anonymously post government and corporate documents has been taken offline in the US.
Wikileaks.org, as it is known, was cut off from the internet following a California court ruling, the site says.

The case was brought by a Swiss bank after "several hundred" documents were posted about its offshore activities. Apparently offshore mirrors are still available.

Re:It's not DoS, it's by Court Order that shut it

[Wolfier]

> Apparently offshore mirrors are still available.

They may not be, very soon. The information there is worth our 15GB or so of space - mirror them and creat BT seeds while they last.

Power conditioners fail all the time

[nerdbert]

They're not so freaky. They blow all the time. We had ours burn out spectacularly two years ago. And when I was at NASA we managed to do a power spike that took out a half dozen relay stations from Ohio to Tennessee with a rather spectacular failure in a wind tunnel, not to mention what it did to our own facilities.

wasnt right

[corwin155]

im sure the bank owners have ppl to do there dirty work for them so the ultra rich will stay rich please stop blaming Bush for dumb crap like this im sure the ultra rich left is who really got the court order

Is Dynadot to blame?

[russotto]

It looks to me like Dynadot may have simply rolled over on their customer to get themselves out of the line of fire:

The Court, having considered the stipulation between Plaintiffs JULIUS BAER & CO. LTD and JULIUS BAER BANK AND TRUST CO. LTD. (collectively "Julius Baer" and/or "Plaintiff's") and Defendant DYNADOT LLC ("Dynadot"),

A stipulation is an agreement between two parties in a lawsuit that a certain fact or issue is not contested. What exactly did Dynadot stipulate to? Was it just that they were indeed the registrar for wikileaks.org, or was there more?

Re:Is Dynadot to blame?

[russotto]

And the answer is, yes, Dynadot did indeed roll over on them (though they are now denying it). They stipulated to the order.

The stipulation is at Citizens Media Law Project

Oh, right. Blame the freaks.

[HiggsBison]

Yes, it was a freak accident.

A mysterious computer room fire (as opposed to a scheduled, well publicized one) happens, and suddenly everyone who was within a hundred miles of Woodstock gets blamed. Typical! "Ay-yup. Musta been freaks what done it. Damn hippie-freaks."

Excuse, mod points here, please?!

[Gazzonyx]

That's brilliant. It's a Good Thing DNS was made to route around outages :) I salute you!

"never"

[smittyoneeach]

is a real long time, friend. I used the term "oozing" to indicate that I'm thinking way off in the future.
Of course, given the proper crisis engineering, the viscosity of the ooze could be altered...

Re:"never"

[kesuki]

For 300 years the British had a global array of colonies, supported by their navies... then the modern area began, and the ruthless taxation and primitive conditions were no longer enough to keep some of those colonies from revolting, and changing the global sphere of power.

Expecting the 'modern era' to survive, when we know oil is post-peak, most counties are running short of 'king coal' atomic energy, although widely used, can't possibly be increased without changing reactors to sodium or liquid metal based reactors, instead of water cooled reactors...

well, all I have to say is that the technology that enabled a 'nation' as large and powerful as America is beginning to crumble. because of when America was founded, it was only natural for the country to remain unified, had the technology of the 'British' era continued, there might well have been a successful split in the civil war, breaking America in two, and there would never have been a world war 1 much less a world war 2... since the technology needed to spur such massive war efforts would have never been invented...

to a certain extent bio-fuels could sustain a 'modern' world, but only on the backs of countless 'working poor' in nations where living conditions are atrocious. so frankly, i expect the future to be bleak, and revert to a world where the 'rich' live off the backs of the 'poor' in the third world nations. as such, technology that exists today may well be lost, due to the insanely high cost. As such, smaller governments will prevail, and the technology we have today that might allow global unification, will collapse like a deck of cards in the 'great economic collapse' of 2xxx (year uncertain as yet)

Re:"never"

[smittyoneeach]

For 300 years the British had a global array of colonies, supported by their navies... then the modern area began, and the ruthless taxation and primitive conditions were no longer enough to keep some of those colonies from revolting, and changing the global sphere of power.

The impression I took away from Fromkin was that, among other things, the French and British were too culturally exhausted after WWI to do much beyond bumble the handoff. A quibble.

instead of water cooled reactors...

My efforts to go to Nuclear Power School in the Navy failed in amusing ways, so I'll take your word for it.

successful split in the civil war

If the South could have jumped forward about three decades for a peek at Mahan's "Influence of Seapower...", but we'll leave that to Harry Turtledove.

i expect the future to be bleak, and revert to a world where the 'rich' live off the backs of the 'poor' in the third world nations. as such, technology that exists today may well be lost, due to the insanely high cost.

Is that a bug or a feature? I've got Amish across the river. Transitioning back to simple farming is one way to escape the MicroSoft monopoly.
Seriously, I just don't share much of the dystopian view. The single-world government is kind of a bother, but eschatology never held my attention long after I realized Hal Lindsay was farce.

Tubes

[Peaker]

The internet also includes the nodes between these tubes, but why do people keep quoting that, as if it points to idiocy?

It is an acceptable description of the essence of the internet, in layman's terms, which is what it was meant to be.

A car is also a seat-box that moves.

Documents

[superm401]

The bank documents are up at http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~mflaschen3/banned/julius-baer-stalking.zip . Enjoy (or at least piss JB off).

Re:But why? No - they understand

[Ralph Spoilsport]

No, they understand VERY VERY well what they are doing.

It's called fascism. It's happened before, and it's happening again, only this time it's all dressed up in a trendy suit, and listens to "cool" music, and it will take our site down in a split second if it wants to. Why? Because it can. That's the essential MO of fascism.

RS

Do you see, Slashdot?

[Nirvelli]

This is why we can't have nice things.

Re:Doesn't necessarily have to be big business/ go

[smittyoneeach]

One of those developers responds here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRyk5QyYGU8

Thank you Julius Baer...

[MrOion]

...if it haven't been for you, I would not have noticed Wikileaks and it's mirror sites. Much interesting stuff there. I've also sent them my appreciation via this link:

http://www.juliusbaer.com/global/en/contact/contactform/Pages/default.aspx

Wayback when

[Jimekai]

http://web.archive.org/web/20070810175129rn_2/wikileaks.org/mirror/static/w/i/k/Wikileaks.html

Pledge your support!

[dbreeze]

Copied from the website:
"If you support Wikileaks, back our defense fund by emailing supporters@sunshinepress.org with your pledge!"
I've already Paypaled?(grammar nazi help needed) my pittance but we might wait to be sure they can accept those type of payments.

Re:Doesn't necessarily have to be big business/ go

[Anonymous Coward]

There are also a number of "citizen groups" out there that want to shut down wikileaks because they think it is anti-democratic.

Exposing the truth anti-democratic? Wouldn't that be more like "anti-republican", or "anti-bush" or something?