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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."
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...)
gulli.com is a known hacking/warez site. Back in the day they were one of the places you could reliably get programs like Serialz 2000. They also have rootkits and other malware available for download.
My blog
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.
Do you have trouble with some particular action on wikileaks' part, or do you borrow your attitude toward secrecy from la cosa nostra?
When people and organizations are in positions of power and public trust, secrecy is, as often as not, a means of breaking trust. Wikileaks has had a valuable role in exposing some of these instances.
"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
"How about detailed descriptions of the making and distribution of nerve gas in a military manner?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VX_gas#Synthesis
Seriously, why are people so paranoid about the formula for these things? Most nerve gases are very similar to industrial pesticides (in fact, VX gas was originally intended to be a pesticide), and if we kept the knowledge of how to synthesize nerve agents top secret then we could not educate chemists or chemical engineers.
The fact of the matter is that in a free society, information should flow freely. Wikileaks is not posting the personal information of the average citizen, they are posting information about the misconduct of governments, government officials, and corporations -- information which the average citizen has a right to know. There is a huge difference between a defense contractor conspiring with a national government to start a war and some guy who is having an affair with his neighbor's wife.
Palm trees and 8
The difference is we're not funding him with our tax money. We fund wikileaks with money, so I expect transparency. As another poster has mentioned, wikileaks financials have been leaked - and they weren't removed. When people are paying for a public organization, they have a right to know where their money is going and what the actions of that organization are. Further, knowledge that information will be brought to light will hopefully end a lot of clandestine things that go on outside of public view. Things like the Contra scandal and General Oliver North's secret wars. US imperialism in Panama and the Philippines. The US's habit of gaining funding from "unsubsidized government revenue streams." When governments are allowed to use dirty business and treat the rest of the world like shit with no accountability, that tends to backfire. Then who gets blown up when a terrorist bomb goes off in retaliation from whoever we've pissed off? 99% of the time, its not government officials - its civilians.
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.
Strange, with a cursory glance at wikileaks I could not find an instance of any private company R&D proposals. Everything on there is something which is in some way public. The closest was Cisco marketing material for the US Government. I pay for the government, so why shouldn't I be able to see what cisco is claiming to sell to the goverment I am paying for? Similarly, people pay for scientology, and its a church. It receives special tax status. So I have a right to see what goes on inside of it. All other items are government based, or otherwise censored. Hell, about the only thing you could even remotely argue from the looks of it would be the leaked rituals of fraternities - and if you really can compare leaking a fraternity's initiation ritual to losing millions on R&D, I think you fail at teh maths. Again, this was a cursory look, but your example seems to be completely off base and unfounded. Unless your R&D proposal is for a government, and remember that we the people ARE the government and therefore have a right to see it, I don't think it will be showing up on wikileaks.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
Technoli
Actually, I think you mean the number of hypothetical scenarios are endless. Examples would be things that have actually occurred. Do you have any of those?
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you're stupid, I'm saying your hypothetical coworker is stupid.
If this R&D is worth millions, then the coworker could sell it to a Chinese company for a tidy profit and nobody would know. (They might strongly suspect, but it could be convergent research.) At least with Wikileaks, the company could confirm that it's been leaked and try to take action against the coworker. So given the choice between the hypothetical coworker seeking only revenge via Wikileaks and seeking both revenge and money via selling it directly to the hypothetical Chinese company...well, I think you can see my point.
Disclaimer: Selling R&D to the Chinese is bad and leads to jail time, mmmkay.
True. That's the same logic that we had attacking Iraq: "Just because no one has found WMDs yet doesn't mean we won't find them!" I expect your line of thinking to work out as well as it has in other places where it has been employed. I think you utterly miss the point of wikileaks, and am thinking you really need to read the bill of rights (if you're an American) so you can see what many people fought and died to give you, before you pish it away in the name of cited corporate profits that don't even exist. We will have to agree to disagree.
wikileaks goes against any IT best practice
Quite the opposite is true: It aims to ensure the anonymity of its sources to the best. It aims for maximum uptime, distributes its server locations strategically to ensure operations even against wide-spread censorship and disruption and aims to verify the integrity of the information it provides. (Not its authenticity, mind you. That is someone else's job.) That's more than you could ask for from most web hosting providers.
it certainly goes against any geek value
Quite the opposite is true, again: Openness of information, transparency of official bodies and procedures, exposure of censorship and malicious activities, using technology to promote a social good - and most importantly: the irresistible lust for anything fancy and exciting. All they lack is Nerf Guns.
While private R&D might end up on WikiLeaks, there is none of it there so far as far as I can tell. The rather obvious reason for this is that it simply is not really interesting to most people, and those who want it usually pay well enough for it that your hypothetical co-worker would have to be a total and utter moron to turn to WikiLeaks with their information.
Regarding the military: Considering the (usually leaked) budget of espionage and counter-espionage outfits around the world I would wager a bet that any really sensitive information that ends up on WikiLeaks is already common knowledge among most parties involved. And if you find your nation's secrets there you at least know it has been burned.
WikiLeaks really is a tool for distributing information to the public at large. Interested parties in a specific field usually will already have their sources and means of acquiring whatever information they need. It's us, the Great Unwashed, who are its target audience, because we are kept out of most circles - even if we ought to know what they are up to because their doings directly or indirectly affect our lives.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
Actually they answered that the reason they posted the tests were to level the playing field as a number of people already had copies of the tests and thus an unfair advantage. When Redhat came after them, they argued that the onus was on Redhat to change the test since the cat had already been out of the bag.
Which, you will note, Redhat did.
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.