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WikiLeaks' Daniel Schmitt Speaks
Lars Sobiraj submitted an interview with Daniel Schmitt of WikiLeaks. "He encourages all readers and warns his opponents — WikiLeaks has the means to make our society better, to create a world which stands united and strong against abuse — locally and nationally as well as globally. Modern, fast, world-wide technology makes it possible. In the interview, Daniel explains in detail how this will be done, with the help of WikiLeaks and all its supporters."
that SonicWall blocks the article site from the current hotspot where I'm enjoying a cup of coffee and a bagel before work.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
I don't think the Slashdot crowd should need convincing that Wikileaks is a force for good. However, passive support won't be enough for such a contentious organisation, so do what I did and show them some love.
(Hmm, I just noticed that PayPal donation is currently down, which is rather awkward...)
Surely he wont mind if we leak his personal information to the site. Since he is a person of note (after all wikileaks is worldwide) he's fair game, right? While were at it we can leak personal detail of Jimmy Wales, after all the world has the right to know anybodies personal and secret details. Who are you to dare attempt to have privacy, to not want your life exposed and open to the world for it's amusement?
Site like wikileaks are the parasites of the technology world, their entire existence is based solely based on publishing private information and breaking trust. These values are otherwise held in contempt by most people in the IT and geek communities, so why on earth does wikileaks get the time of day on a site like slashdot? Just remember that because you may not like whatever evil corp / country has something published today, it could well be an organization or individual you like tomorrow.
I fail to see how the site is any better than any number of carders sites where credit cards are sold wholesale. I really have to ask, where do they draw the line? What is to heinous for wikileaks to publish? How about detailed descriptions of the making and distribution of nerve gas in a military manner? After all that's been government domain information since at least world war one. What would they do if Iran or North Korea in a spate of indignation decided to post their detail nuclear weapon secrets on wikileaks?
Quote Schmitt:
In the context of the latest developments in a complex context and the necessary political support for a certain cause, we are considering marking certain Tweets with a hashtag for emergencies which signifies that it has to do with something very important which needs the world's attention. #EMERGENCY or something like that. We have to try and make sure that dramatic developments in the world get the necessary attention.
Honestly, when did the humble RSS feed or - heaven forfend - an actual webpage become an unacceptable way of disseminating information?
More importantly - why?
OMG!!! Ponies!!!
The U.S. has set up over the last two centuries a means by which information that should be kept secret is kept secret and information that should be public is public. By and large, this works, despite some well publicized failures. Legislation such as the Freedom of Information Act, etc. has proved to be a means to uncover unsavory facts that would see the light of day despite the wishes of unsavory politicians. All of this takes place in the well defined arena of law and politics.
Wikileaks would throw all of this out and make themselves (the collective leakers) the sole arbiter of what is in the national interest and what is not with respect to keeping secrets. They do this without realizing the potential impact to national security or potential diplomatic damage that, while the leaker may think is justified and deserved, is more damaging to the U.S. (or other country subject to a wikileak) than the leaker realizes. They can't know the potential impact because they do not have access to the entire picture.
So what wikileaks does is to substitute the judgment of a system, made of up of untold knowledgeable individuals, with the judgment of one or two cranks with an ax to grind. The cranks may be right sometimes, but I think more often that not they will be wrong.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I noticed they had the question and answer keys to the Red Hat Certified Engineer's exam, so I asked what the justification for this was. The answer was that Red Hat was being "unfair" by keeping the test closed. For political matters, Wikileaks can be useful, but for being a place where cheaters gather, it's pretty damned lame.
He encourages all readers and warns his opponents
Huh... looks like we got ourselves a reader.
I wonder where the Novas Scarman report has gone. If it's run like most of these charity rackets, it'll be one huge gravy train.
davecb5620@gmail.com
"The U.S. has set up over the last two centuries a means by which information that should be kept secret is kept secret and information that should be public is public. By and large, this works .. Wikileaks would throw all of this out"
The people have a right to know what its government is doing on their behalf. Generally, if it can't stand the cold light of day, then they shouldn't be doing it. The ACTA secret agreement being a case in point.
davecb5620@gmail.com
Since I'm sure this posting will be flooded with a lot of love for Wikileaks, I feel I have to try to post possible negatives.
We must never forget this. We have the means to make our society better, to form a world in which there is a strong and united opposition against abuse. Locally, nationally, globally.
One problem I've often seen in the past with regards to certain activist groups is their unintentional imposition of values on the people they claim to support. A very common example in places like Europe and occasionally Canada is feminist groups speaking on behalf of oppressed Muslim women who have to wear certain kinds of clothing. Some of these women are oppressed, but usually the solution those groups present is as undesirable to them as is the original problem. Additionally, most of the Muslim women seriously dispute the notion that they are oppressed, only to be dismissively told that they don't see it because they're not yet free. In other words, the activist groups have this attitude of "We know what's right and the rest of the world is wrong." If any of you have spent a lot of times with activists, I think you'll find this is a trap often fallen into.
I've seen similar issues with some human rights organizations, labor oriented organizations, etc. They often fail to realize that while a problem may exist, the solution in their own society may be a poor solution in other societies.
The real question is: Can Wikileaks avoid such a path? Or will they ultimately take on certain philosophies with the belief that they hold for all humanity, while possibly having little experience with most of the world's major cultures. So far they seem to have done well, but I suspect that this is something they'll need to actively guard against.
Beetle B.
People who argue how damaging things can be if they were made public completely forget that if certain things were known earlier... things like this wouldn't NEED to be kept hidden.
This huge cloud of people who just don't want to know and go on with their happy day lives is exactly what allows events to build up where releasing the information COULD be damaging.
But lets be honest. How worse off do you think the United States could be right now in the eyes of the world?
You will always have followers who don't want to know things and want the *smart* people to deal with it. The problem is, often enough those smart people aren't smart... or are greedy, power hungry... or otherwise influenced. Public eye on what they do is the ONLY thing stopping them. Watchdogs so to speak. Most of them in jobs just like you and me who happen to be there when something happens.
The fear is that people will overreact to the sheer amount of hidden crap and revolt, or some religious nutjob will start calling the end of days and 50,000 idiots will believe him. But if you start slowly... revealing the truth bit by bit people will gradually become adjusted to it.
The reason this will never happen is those in power will suddenly lose the ability to do things that might have been the "easy" way. It also will prevent us from doing things for "the good" that would be seen as "the bad". But that's a tradeoff I want to see simply because... the person making that decision does not have to answer to anyone if they were wrong. That should always be part of leadership.
You make the call... you take the fall.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Almost all of the leaders of the planet Earth act like mobsters and criminals that are above the law because they are wealthy and above the law. The US is no exception. It is very very rare in the history of any country in any part of the world to find a leader that was not a monster. No matter who it was in any given time in any given place.
This is why Wikileaks is necessary. Try and imagine a world where every secret of every government in every part of the world was known by every citizen. Governments should be accountable by the citizens that allow them to be there and thats not the case today. The world is full of unaccountable Tyrants.
The parent post was a none-too-insensitive discussions on the potential darker sides of Wikileaks, and certainly didn't deserve to be modded troll.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
Technoli
You do know that twitter provides both a website and an RSS feeed, right?
In order to run an RSS feed, you either need bandwidth and a server, pay for a hosted server, or a twitter account. The bonus with twitter is that it automatically receives updates view twitterfox or SMS.
I like twitter is a handy way to disseminate information so that people can add and remove it from their newsreader themselves.
Changa hates change.
They do this without realizing the potential impact to national security or potential diplomatic damage
Would you prefer that none learns of human rights abuses, executions or torture and therefore everyone believes your country is "good", or that the world knows and your country is forces to become "better" in order to improve its public image?
Since Danial Ellsburg did the country a favor and released the Pentagon Papers, now everybody thinks that EVERY secret is just the government trying to cover its misdeeds.
The problem with that is that I've seen secret tech docs on hardware in the field of battle in Iraq and Afghanistan show up on this Wikileaks site, so therefore the enemy undoubtedly has too.
Going to Afghanistan? Iraq? Have a Father / Mother / Son / Daughter / Sister / Brother / Friend in one of those places? Thanks to Wikileaks, you or they might just come back in a box, rather than walking down the concourse of your favorite local airport, because the enemy may now know some places our counter-IED equipment does not operate within the RF spectrum. Just lovely.
For publishing so irresponsibly, I would personally like to see these Wikileak perpetrators tried, convicted, and sentenced for murder. I'd take great pleasure in firing the shot / pulling the trapdoor / throwing the switch / pushing the plunger on whatever method of execution they might have available to them and choose.
There's just no excuse for endangering the troops... none.
Gulli is a known malware host. They exploit people's interest in cracking and filesharing to spread their shit.
How does publishing fraternity manuals make society better?
Geez, don't you know anything!? You don't need launch codes. All you have to do is hack into the DOD WOPPER computer and launch the Global Thermonuclear War game, and then trash your PC. The game will run to completion. Unless you can get it to play itsellf in a game of Tic-Tac-Toe.
Sheesh, NOOBs.!
There's just no excuse for endangering the troops... none.
Damn right! Why were they sent over there in the first place anyway?
These phrases "national security" and "national interest," they do not mean what you think they mean (with apologies to Senor Montoya).
With a little (or better yet a lot) of research (e.g. Pentagon Papers, or more recently cell phone reception studies and the new counterfeiting treaty), you'll find national security|interests are typically actions the government takes to help (frequently redacted) large corporation(s) at the expense of some country's public (including the U.S.; see also blowback). Rarely, if the records are any indication, is it used to protect the innocent.
Wikileaks is but one place for individuals to research what their governments are doing, rather than what the governments say they are doing. Form your own opinion though, don't just trust what I'm saying. Do some original research, but likewise don't just regurgitate corporate media phrases.
This is due entirely to the US government (amongst others, I wont argue about who is the worst, almost all western governments have earned our suspicions) actually lying and being caught out. People have no reason to trust that secrets are being made for their beinift. This is a hole the US govt dug for itself, if they want trust back then they have to earn it.
Military secrets act in the UK and Australia specifies that military secrets can be revealed after 50 years. The problem here is that the plans were leaked out of a secure facility, the fact wikileaks is publishing them is not an issue. Censoring wikileaks or the entire US population will not stop the fact that the plans were leaked/reverse engineered/fabricated in the first place.
When people die in war it is traditional and still prudent to blame the leader. For ultimately the responsibility is there. The US has been appointing political leaders to run the military so the blame lies there. Once again, if the information is available to Wikileaks it will be available to someone else. Wikileaks is the transmission medium not the source.
Ask that of the ones who sent them to war in the first place, and more importantly of those who were to scared/gutless to speak out against the war.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.