Slashdot Mirror
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 [...]
How can you tell this works? For who does it work?
When the policeman of the tie, rule you violate, hello punishment of the kitty?
"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
I must disagree. Your statement that FOIA requests are a good method of getting information out of the US Government falls down in multiple ways.
1) Duration. I've seen FOIA requests take years to fulfill.
2) Redaction. The FOIA answers often have sections blacked out in them. Sometimes large sections. What you're left with is a document that is essentially unreadable.
3) Scope. FOIA only works where we're interfacing with the US Government agencies. It does not work with private corporations nor does it work with other nations.
Much like free speech, Wikileaks should be covered under "freedom of press." There needs to be some place where this information can be distributed and the person doing the leak is not put at risk. There are too many groups/agencies around the world who solve problems by burning the bodies.
The problem is one of trust. These days, I don't trust my government (UK) enough to let them make decisions about what I don't get to see. If they wanted to keep this trust, all they had to do was not oppose the release of their expenses quite so vigorously.
Man, I definitely can't think of anything in recent American history where a leak was the only thing that brought unsavory conduct to light...
Oh wait. Maybe one or two cases. Y'know, nothing important.
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.
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.
Wikileaks is not the "sole arbiter" and they do not paint themselves as such. Publicizing leaked information has been a staple of investigative journalism for a long, long time. And it is generally acknowledged that this is one of the most beneficial things that journalism does for a democratic society: publicize the failures and corruptions of "the system"... particularly in those cases where "the system" is gaming itself to keep that information hidden.
Wikileaks is thus an extension of tried-and-true techniques of leaking scandal, applied to a digital age. It fits in nicely with journalistic infrastructure, providing a way to get information out to the public in cases where entrenched powers would like to hide it.
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.
I disagree. The "leaked information journalism" network (of which Wikileaks is a part) is another system made up of untold individuals, using their judgment to decide what to leak and publicize, and what not to. You say the system doesn't work on average. Can you point to a large number of things that were leaked and were damaging to National Security, without having a significant benefit with respect to democracy and stamping-out corruption? How does the number of such 'mistakes' compare to the number of 'legitimate leaks,' where the information really had no right to be suppressed?
Another point to consider is that we don't know how many bits of leaked information were not publicized. The people who get hold of the secret data have choices to make. They can publicize it or not (this goes for someone considering uploading to Wikileaks, a journalist, etc.). Actually the fact that very few National-Security-compromising secrets have seen the light of day (troop movements, launch codes, etc.) suggests people are using appropriate discretion in leaking. Most of the things leaked are damaging to some individuals and organizations... but not a matter of security (military or economic or other). In short, they mostly deserve to be leaked.
Again, I think you're going to have to defend your "more often [than] not they will be wrong" claim with specifics. As far as I can tell, information leaking has always been, and will continue to be, a vital portion of maintaining a democracy. Things like FOIA are also good, mind you. But to maintain a democracy we, the individual people making up the nation, must do our part in terms of oversight... which will occasionally mean breaking one set of rules in order to uphold a much more important set of ideals.
The problem is one of trust. These days, I don't trust my government (UK) enough to let them make decisions about what I don't get to see. If they wanted to keep this trust, all they had to do was not oppose the release of their expenses quite so vigorously.
You would trust wikileaks though? You would trust the judgment of a few individuals with their own agenda? If you don't trust your government and the individuals who run it with their own agenda why would you trust wikileaks any more? They aren't some super moral group of people. They are as human and corruptible as your government, or you or I am for that matter.
It's very popular to bash governments for their many mistakes and foibles, but the problem is none of us have come up with an better solution for managing our society. It is so easy to point a finger, but it is our responsibility, as much as those of our leaders, to ensure a sound government. Even when I don't like my currently elected officials, their policies, and their crap, at least I have a voice in it no matter how small that might be. With wikileaks I have no voice, no say, nothing. Wikileaks is going to be better than what we have now? In what way? If the FOIA or any other accountability measure isn't up to snuff fix it, but don't allow some third party app to hijack the OS. Get it?
Don't think of it as a flame, more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage.
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.
If someone decided to leak any of the information you described, they wouldn't need WikiLeaks to do it. WikiLeaks does not make it any easier for people to leak information, it just makes said information available to the public for no charge. Financial troubles is one of the largest reasons for information leaks, which is why individuals with access to classified government information have to go through regular credit checks. As there is no money to be made by leaking info to WikiLeaks, this is not a factor here. Honestly, it would be safer for critical information to be leaked through WikiLeaks, where the government can see it and know that it's out there, than for it to be leaked under-the-table.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
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.
Actually, I think the answer is "yes" on both counts.
The entire security process around both of those entities should assume that the "attacker" has
- the complete resources of a modern government at its disposal
- the experience and wherewithal to murder anyone necessary to obtain secrets
- the ability to plant multiple human spies inside the organizations in each scheme
As such, any process should be resistant to attackers who know all of the information in excruciating detail.
Certainly security through obscurity can help, but it is not sufficient. I expect my government to spend the resources necessary to build a process (a human and information machine) that is resistent to tampering, infiltration, and information disclosure, in the sense that it doesn't guarantee that these never happen, it instead guarantees that the system/process continues to function properly while sustaining a certan amount of all of these defects.
IOW: understand the threats; have mitigations for each.
I'd be a lot more concerned if wikileaks was posting the home address, SSN, and home alarm de-arming instructions of doctors that performed abortions, or people who had bad things to say about the prophet muhammed. Those people typically do _not_ have the experience, time, money, or sanity to protect themselves from even 1 agitated nutcase.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.