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Wikileaks Needs Help, and Not Just Money
st1d writes to tell us that Wikileaks has put out a call for help. However, instead of just asking for money, they have also suggested technical and legal avenues for support. In the site's short life, Wikileaks has been at the center of many breaking scandals and investigations. "Wikileaks is currently overloaded by readers. This is a regular difficulty that can only be resolved by deploying additional resources. If you support our mission, you can help us by integrating new hardware into our project infrastructure or developing software for the project. Become patron of a WikiLeaks server or other parts of our technology, adding more pillars to the stability and balance of the WikiLeaks platform. Servers come trouble-free and legally fortified, software is uniquely challenging. If you can provide rackspace, power and an uplink, or a dedicated server or storage space, for at least 12 months, or software development work for WikiLeaks, please write to wl-supporters@sunshinepress.org."
but then I reverted it.
For once, the article submitter isn't lying!
Publish via torrents.
Win.
Where did you get this info?? :O
Freenet has been slow and hard to use in the past, but its improved quite a bit. It is the obvious platform for something like Wikileaks. Of course, there is nothing to prevent people from mirroring content on the web (since installing Freenet, like any piece of software, is a hassle). But at least there will be an unimpeachable backup of all data on Freenet.
Three questions about freenet:
Are there mathematically sound measures of the degree of anonymity that freenet provides an end-user?
Is there a threshold number of collaborating operators of compromised nodes above which it is possible to deduce information about, or the identities of, files being served or downloaded? Is the threshold hard or soft?
How does the anonymity of freenet vary as a function of the proportion of nodes that are compromised increases?
Some things have no business being leaked or their leaking can lead to unintended consequences.
Perhaps. On the other hand, stuff that should get leaked but doesn't can also have negative consequences. It cuts both ways, my friend, and the problem is that government, for one, too often uses the mantra of "national security" to hide its nastier activities. The private sector is rarely any better, mainly because in both cases they know the odds are they'll get away with it. Me, I think it's better to err on the side of caution, and let a little fresh air in now and then. If those whose deeds need covering-up know that a very public exposure is just a mouse-click away ... maybe they'll be less inclined to perform those deeds in the future. Maybe that qualifies as an unintended consequence, but if so, I'm all for it.
I post this in the expectation group-think will mark the comment down as a "troll"
Yep.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Who would waste a mod point on an Anonymous Coward?
You are welcome on my lawn.
In that no one should ever see either being made....
Who would waste a mod point on an Anonymous Coward?
The editors?
(they have infinite points, and per the FAQ they are not shy about using them...)
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Wikileaks are asking for help at a time when people are financially struggling. If the aspects of the internet that enhance personal freedom depend on people committing their time and resources, this is a dangerous time.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Wouldn't "The Cloud" solve all of WikiLeaks problems?
I'll host one image for them, no larger than 128x128px off my own web server on a DSL line. I know it's not much but it's all I can offer in today's recessionary times
I downloaded ba-038-air-traffic-control-tape.wmv from wikileaks and distributed it to a few co-workers and friends. I don't have the resources to run a full mirror but I would be happy to mirror that file. If wikileaks had the ability to point to mirrors for specific files and verify the MD5s of the files on an ongoing basis then some load could be taken off their servers.
I suppose a sneaky mirror host could serve different files to different IP addresses though but I can't immediately see a reason for that.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Me, I think it's better to err on the side of caution, and let a little fresh air in now and then. If those whose deeds need covering-up know that a very public exposure is just a mouse-click away ... maybe they'll be less inclined to perform those deeds in the future. Maybe that qualifies as an unintended consequence, but if so, I'm all for it.
Does the "fresh air" resulting from my publishing that you like to wear women's clothing and are having an affair with a male cubicle mate make you less inclined to indulge that behaviour? Organisations, just like people, have dirty laundry. Airing it doesn't necessarily mean that any good will come out of doing so, save for those enjoy dirt and profit from it.
My definition of "erring on the side of caution" involves discretion and reasonableness. Yours takes the form of a zero-tolerance policy that, by definition, precludes any such requirements, or any thinking generally.
Unless to make a donation. Otherwise, they will only feel the bad side of Slashdotting.
This is what probably provides the info you'd want anyway: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikileaks
Does the "fresh air" resulting from my publishing that you like to wear women's clothing and are having an affair with a male cubicle mate make you less inclined to indulge that behaviour?
Yes, actually, it probably would. But I agree: for the average citizen that information should remain private. However, public figures have to play by different rules, at least under U.S. law, and if those public figures happen to be people who make decisions that affect me ... you're damn right I want to know about it. I may want to vote against them next time.
Yours takes the form of a zero-tolerance policy that, by definition, precludes any such requirements, or any thinking generally.
The only zero-tolerance around here I see is yours. I made no such statement, and quite deliberately limited my remarks to governments and corporations that do bad things to people. And yes, if a corporation has dirty laundry it should be aired: they have way too much power in most societies as it is, and coverups rarely do any long-term good. The more the business world gets away with murder (in many cases, literally) the more comfortable they're going to feel in continuing their bad behavior. And as for government ... well, that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish but the same arguments apply. The disease of unaccountability is infecting more and more levels of government and corporate leadership, and there's only one way to put a stop to that.
... but don't make shit up. That's just irritating.
So feel free to disagree
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
In before the "I submitted something secret to wikileak---NO CARRIER---" jokes
I post this in the expectation group-think will mark the comment down as a "troll" and it will come back and bite you bunch of bastards down the line.
Ah yes. The old "if you mod me down, I'll become stronger than you can ever imagine!" ploy. In this case though, you're just crazy.
As for your refugees comment, why would someone want to post the refugee information online where everyone can see it, rather than just send it to whoever is doing the slaughtering? Plausible deniability? Right. Because when sending troops to slaughter refugees, you will care about an email that says "refugees be here".
Face it: the only thing that is useful to be distributed online is something that someone has, but can't do anything with it. Instead, it is distributed for the world to see so that someone, somewhere, can pick it up in full view of everyone watching, and run with it. And that's just not the mode of operation of someone committing a crime.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Crazy? There's plenty of media stories showing stuff that would've been better kept behind closed doors. It does lead to ruined careers, lost trade, and a big waste of money. Also, it takes your mind off asking the important question about what should be out there and what shouldn't. The lack of discrimination Wikileaks suffers from just pours petrol on an already unstable situation. And the bit you're missing about unintended consequences is the flow of events from a leak on Wikipedia to events elsewhere that may not be directly connected. A political or corporate embarrassment can upset a deal, which leads to another more murky entity taking a leading role, and collateral damage. How do you know a Wikileak isn't planted to destabilise something like, say, something as important as the Copenhagen conference on climate change? Leak and be damned? You probably are.
I'm suddenly reminded of a scene an early Simpsons season. It goes something like this.
Homer searches through the couch, while looking for a dropped peanut. He finds a bunch of stuff including a $20 bill. ... 20 dollars!? I wanted a peanut.
Homer Simpson: Awww
Homer's brain: 20 dollars can buy many peanuts!
Homer Simpson: Explain how!
Homer's brain: Money can be exchanged for goods and services.
Homer Simpson: Woo hoo!
So... why not exchange those donations for goods and services?
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
...that I can't afford to be the legal test case for running a Tor exit node or a Wikileaks server, much as I believe in both of these projects. And I would imagine there are many who, while they possess the desire and the technical know-how to engage in such activities, simply cannot be expected to do so without some form of legal immunity (or at least a guarantee of unlimited legal representation). Until that time comes, I simply don't see many people stepping forward with offers of hosting assistance.
Perhaps an effort should be made to secure guaranteed legal representation from the EFF, FSF, and other groups for those who volunteer to run exit nodes, servers, etc.
The joke is about wikis, which anyone can edit. Reverting is a common action of contention on Wikipedia, hence revert wars, 3RR and all that jazz.
Why is the default reaction to assume racist intent?
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
A career that was ruined because something became publicly available is a career that should be ruined. After all, I'm pretty sure you're not talking about esoteric cases where a worker with a grudge would out an undercover CIA agent.
And your Copenhagen example is retarded. The only possible thing that would destabilize that is either a faked document or a pre-release document. The first will be dealt with best in the open and the second has already happened without wiki-leaks. And guess what - nothing happened.
Yes, I know your type. The type that thinks the plebs should not bother with the real world stuff of back-room deals and black ops and secret sniffing. The type that thinks that the world would be so much better off if everyone would just stop interfering and meddling in their affairs.
Get your grubby hands off of wikileaks and let the rest of the world have the same freedom that those with power and connections have: to communicate without risk.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
If Wikileaks' biggest problem is that it's overwhelmed with readers, wouldn't our simplest and most direct way to help solve the problem be to simply not read Wikileaks?
Imagine a school teacher who enjoy safe and clean bdsm can teach to little children , do you propose that we ruin her career ?
A career that was ruined because something became publicly available is a career that should be ruined
What if the "something" that became publicly available had absolutely no direct bearing on the career of the person (ie sex scandal)? Could this not be a reason for why the U.S has so many seemingly perfect, dull, boring politicians that are good at playing the game, but bring no dynamicism to the political arena?
I'm the type that understands that sometimes backroom deals are best left in the backroom, and that people should stop interfering and meddling in personal affairs. Context is everything, and your black vs white argument might be right in some situations, but very wrong in others.
I agree that wikileaks needs to exist, and it gives freedom to those of us with less power and connections. Still, the power it has can be wielded wrongly, turning people like you into those that you're railing against. Your argument makes it sound like you would like power more than you would fairness.
Any teacher who is teaching bdsm to little children needs her career ruined.
And what exactly is "safe and clean" bdsm ... fluffy chains and feather whips ? Interrogation with soft cushions ?
I'm a big fan of Wikileaks. I run a local caching proxy (sorta like a mirror) that I and others access it through, and I certainly would encourage everyone to send a few bucks their way whenever possible (and I do try to follow that advice myself).
However, what comes to my mind when I read about the legal troubles of sites like that is a paraphrasing of a famous Alexander Haig quote: "Let them march all they want, as long as they pay their taxes." Winning back your right to march (or to Wikileak) is commendable, but it is not an end in of itself.
Free speech is only a small part of the battle for liberty, because dissent through speech alone is largely useless in the face of an all-powerful government that has near-total influence over public opinion. Dissenting opinions can not only be hijacked, marginalized, and ignored by the government-licensed media, but individuals can be preprogrammed to ignore them from their early childhood education onward! Tyranny 2.0 finds it more profitable to keep its slaves on longer chains, thus we can have things like the Internet, but those chains are nonetheless there lest you ever venture too far!
The best hope for resistance against such massive concentration of power comes in movements like the Free State Project (google it), which can make further tax resistance and secession movements possible in the future. Partisan democracy is a sham - only through intergovernmental competition can governments be forced to stop treating their citizens as subjects, and start treating them as consumers of their services who actually have a choice!
Here is how it works if there's a sex scandal: you go to a tabloid, dish the dirt, and presto - instant sex scandal. No need for wikileaks. If you want to ruin someone's career because of what they do in their private lives, it's already trivial - you go to the people in their social circle, and drop some not so subtle hints. In the case of the teacher, email the parents some compromising photos, browser history, etc. It's easy, and absolutely requires no Wikileaks.
What do you actually need Wikileaks for? Stuff that a) will get you in trouble with people in power, AND b) that you don't know exactly who would be interested in and who would be able to make use of the document. I.e. stuff that has nothing to do with what porn you browse.
You're right on one topic: Wikileaks is not an arbiter of truth, justice or good taste. But it's not supposed to be. That's up to the rest of the world.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
If all politicians' sexual escapades were public, perhaps they wouldn't be considered so scandalous anymore.
I've often wondered if it is possible to involve the community in hosting websites like Wikileaks and Wikipedia. A large part of the cost these organizations have is the hardware and bandwidth required to serve the content. However, this content is mostly static. It seems to me it ought to be easy to set up an extensive mirroring system for such content. It also seems to me that it ought to be able to set up a system where people can contribute a bit of disk space and other computer resources and form part of a sort of distributed hosting system. I think Freenet does something like this, and even optimizes things by moving frequently requested content closer to where it is being requested.
Can we set up such a system for the worldwide web? Is there any existing software package that makes this possible? Can we write one? Or can we perhaps modify open source web browsers so that distributed hosting can really work?
I think I speak for many others when I say that I have plenty of disk space, bandwidth, and CPU cycles available, but my capacity to support worthy causes financially is rather limited. So if I could contribute my computer resources, I think I could help out a lot more then I can by making donations. So if we have the technology to make that possible, let's start using it! And if we don't have the technology, let's build it!
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Let him make his off colour joke (no pun intended). What's the big deal. So it offends someone. I'm offended by your sarcasm and simplistic attitude but I wouldn't want to ban you.
How I despair; The right want to silence the left, the left want to ban the right. Neither has any understanding of what freedom of speech entails.
I want to hear what everyone has to say and decide for myself whether it is useful, funny, worthy - or not. I don't want you or some other apparatchik Nazi to decide on my behalf.
Wikileaks happily hosted the leaked membership list of the BNP (a right wing British political party), though I doubt they would just as happily host the membership list of, say, the Animal Liberation Front, or some random left wing group.
While they pick and choose which document they will publish and which they will suppress, I won't support them.
If they agree to publish any document which had previously been kept secret then I would be all for it, but they won't do that. They are selective about what they publish, just like any other media organisation. Theirs happens to be left/liberal.
These comments might play well to your friends and associates but they convince nobody who would not otherwise have been convinced. Cut out the sarcasm and the insults and you might win a few people over to your point of view. People remember the insults and fighting long after they have forgotten what the argument was about. You aren't helping.
"...you're just crazy."
"Yes, I know your type..."
"...your Copenhagen example is retarded"
"Get your grubby hands off of wikileaks..."
How about I correct your example.
There are 30 *racists* in a class. 29 of them make a racist comment about the other. The other makes racist comments about the 29.
The majority will have their way, and it doesn't seem fair, but that doesn't mean that the single racist is any better than the others.
If you want to cut out racism the rule has to apply to everyone, with no exceptions. Allowing one group to carry on making racist comments is fundamentally racist in itself and guaranteed to be self defeating in the long term.
You still don't get it. As another comment suggested you're not interested in what's right or fair. You have no sense of what's achievable or working with people. You just want to swap "their stick" for "your stick". How will this change anything? You're not part of the solution you're part of the problem. Unless Wikileaks gets this they're just cruising for a bruising. As I said right at the top, don't come whining to me when the shit hits the fan.
Could using the remailer system work in submitting articles? It is still quite active.