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."

Comments

I donated money

[sakdoctor]

but then I reverted it.

Re:I donated money

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh, would you care to explain why?

Re:I donated money

[ScrewMaster]

He's probably native American.

Re:I donated money

[ScrewMaster]

He's probably native American.

Spare me from stupid mods that can't get a JOKE.

Re:I donated money

[228e2]

Theres nothing funny about racist jokes. Leave that junk on 4chan and Digg.

Re:I donated money

[Anonymous Coward]

lots of racist jokes are funny. asians are good at math, africans run fast.

Re:I donated money

[selven]

Jokes based on racial stereotypes can be funny, but the GGP's comment wasn't a joke at all, it was just a nonsensical statement with something about Native Americans.

Re:I donated money

[Anonymous Coward]

it was just a nonsensical statement with something about Native Americans.

Ever heard of the term "indian giver"?

It's even on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_giver

Re:I donated money

[ScrewMaster]

it was just a nonsensical statement with something about Native Americans.

Ever heard of the term "indian giver"?

It's even on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_giver

Thank you. I was starting to think that Slashdot's collective IQ had suddenly dropped while I was away, but you've restored my faith.

Re:I donated money

[ScrewMaster]

Theres nothing funny about racist jokes. Leave that junk on 4chan and Digg.

Ever heard the term "Indian giver"? I guess your subtlety threshold is cranked way too high this evening. Instead, I get lectures on racism and have to explain a simple joke that was apparently over your head.

Re:I donated money

[selven]

So IQ is measured by the number of obscure insults you know? Why don't you explain your ideas to the psychologists, I'm sure they'll be glad to finally have a precise definition for intelligence.

Re:I donated money

[Nathrael]

It's really funny though. If you make a joke about the mean, bad, imperialist pigdog Americans you get a +5 Funny - but woe on those who dare to play jokes on other racial or cultural stereotypes...

Re:I donated money

[sopssa]

What does it have to do with anything if its a term? It's still a racist term. Even the wikipedia article says its offensive.

Re:I donated money

[sopssa]

Do you need an explanation of this in kindergarten level?

There is 30 people in your class;
Out of those, 29 of them make a joke about 1 of them.

vs

That 1 boy makes a joke out of those 29 people.

Is it a same situation?

Re:I donated money

[ScrewMaster]

So IQ is measured by the number of obscure insults you know?

To most people in my country (you know, where we have Native Americans, who at one point were known as "Indians") the term "Indian Giver" is not remotely obscure. And yes, it is a minor insult but one which was perfectly in line with the original poster's remark (he gave in good faith and then took the gift back.) Nor do I feel the need to concern myself as to whether those who are not familiar with colloquialisms common to American English understand those references. Besides, I'd have been happy to explain it to you if you'd bothered to ask. Instead, you chose to be an ass.

Fortunately most Slashdotters have more understanding of basic etiquette or this place would be intolerable.

Re:I donated money

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off and die, faggot.

Re:I donated money

[selven]

Making a potentially offensive joke and then complaining about the moderators not getting the humor in it is also being an ass. So is continuing to post when the mass of "offtopic" moderators would prefer you to leave quietly.

BTW, I quite honestly had no idea that your "probably Native American" post was supposed to be funny.

Re:I donated money

[Anonymous Coward]

the joke was in poor taste, wasn't over anyone's head and you just keep digging. It's sad, in a guilty politician kind of way. Merry christmas :) sometimes people say stupid things, you'll get over it.

Re:I donated money

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. The comment is either right or wrong. Just because you are one lone voice does not exempt you from good taste or manners.

Re:I donated money

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's more like there is 1 of those 29 making a joke about the other 1, but whatever. Apparently when one person makes a joke, everybody in his group is making that joke.

Re:I donated money

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

It's really funny though. If you make a joke about the mean, bad, imperialist pigdog Americans you get a +5 Funny - but woe on those who dare to play jokes on other racial or cultural stereotypes...

When you are an 800lbs gorilla, you have to watch where you sit.
When you are a gnat, it doesn't matter.

Re:I donated money

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe it was playing on the idiom "Indian giver." Unfunny, but hardly nonsensical.

Re:I donated money

[Shakrai]

That 1 boy makes a joke out of those 29 people.

Do you need an adult explanation of this?

That one boy is a hypocrite who wants special treatment

Re:I donated money

[daveime]

I bet your the same kind of person that finds the word blackboard "racist".

Grow up and get a life please. The words black and white are colours, it's only if you choose to attach a racial connotation to it does it become something else.

Please stop trying to see racism everywhere, sometimes a spade is just a spade.

Re:I donated money

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought "Indian Giving" related to the subcontinent, not Native Americans. The more you know!

Re:I donated money

[h4rm0ny]

Both missing the point. A racist joke is a bad thing because it neglects who someone is in favour of a false generalisation. It may be worse when a majority make it about a minority, because unlike the other way around it suggests there will be an accompanying abuse of power which is even worse than just insults. The poster that says that the acceptability of such comments is dependent on whether its a minority member making jokes about the majority (acceptable) or a majority member making jokes about a minority (unacceptable) is presenting a false view. It's not okay by most of us whichever way the racism goes. Why is that? Because if one is not racist, then one does not see it as a case of one ethnicity making jokes about another ethnicity, because people are not defined by their race. What makes it okay for individual A to make insulting comments about individual B? They are individuals. The actions or positions or numbers of the ethnicities they belong to have no effect because A does not gain any special privilege to insult people based on their ethnicity, and B should not be unwillingly appointed a suitable target for your opinions about an entire ethnic group that he happens to belong to. People are people. Treating them as representatives of people they aren't (the rest of their ethnic group) is prejudice.

The very notion of applying different standards to an individual because of their race is inherently racist. Saying someone gets less right to be offended by an insult because you think their race is privileged is racist - you're treating them, against their volition, as a component of an arbitrary race, rather than as the individual they are.

Re:I donated money

[Nathrael]

It makes no difference, Mister Mature. Numbers do not make right. A joke playing on a racial stereotype is exactly that, regardless of the race in question (it would actually be racist to suggest anything else - racism, after all, is treating people differently because of their race, but wait, you can't be racist or sexist to white males). You can deal with "racist" jokes the same as you deal with other jokes, or you can oppose them all, or you can prefer "racist" jokes about one race over others, in which case you are a racist hypocrite yourself.

Re:I donated money

[Anonymous Coward]

Fo shizzle my nizzle !

Re:I donated money

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, jokes about the mean, bad, imperialist pigdog Americans are only funny because they're true.

Re:I donated money

[Anonymous Coward]

. . . sometimes a spade is just a spade.

I LOLd.

Re:I donated money

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys are crazy. "Indian Giver" is a hilarious irony in itself, since it is the natives who were treated this way and subsequently accused of it.

Re:I donated money

[Anonymous Coward]

You got it the wrong way round.

When you are an 800lb gorilla it doesn't matter where you sit.

When you are a gnat you should worry.

Now, that doesn't seem fair to the gnat, so ok, let the 800lb gorilla take care anyway, just to be kind of the gnat. In those circumstances the needless provocation from the gnat would seem a bit counter productive to me.

If we're going to think about what we do and what we say to avoid offending others then let the rule apply to everyone, no exceptions. The gnat and the gorilla should stop, think and consider the other before they speak. Only a racist would argue otherwise.

Re:I donated money

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

You got it the wrong way round.

No, I got it precisely correct.
Read up on what happened to Lemuel Gulliver when he didn't pay attention to where he sat.

Re:I donated money

[ScrewMaster]

Theres nothing funny about racist jokes. Leave that junk on 4chan and Digg.

I disagree. And let me point out that, as someone of Greek extraction, I personally have been the butt of many jokes over the years ("... so the Jew bent over, and the Greek disappeared", yeah I know, that's an oldie, but it manages to slam Jews, Italians and Greeks simultaneously.) I'm also part Irish, and if you have any awareness of ethnic humor at all you'd know how much ribbing I've taken from that part of my typically American polycultural background. "What do Irish do on their first date? Get drunk and have sex. What do the Irish do on their second date? Get drunk and have sex", etc., etc. Etc. Still, I accept them with good humor and in the spirit in which they were told. That's because I've found that people with high horses often fall off of them.

The way I look at this, if you're so goddamn proud of your heritage that you just can't stand to see anyone poke fun at it, well, you are the one with issues. In fact, maybe you aren't so proud of your background as you want other people to believe. Yes, it's true sometimes such "jokes" are told with mean-spirited intent: the best response then is to laugh uproariously and say to the teller, "Good one!", and file it away for future use. I've picked up quite a few that way.

Heck, I've got a fine collection of Greek and Irish jokes somewhere on my network here, and some of them are truly hysterical. My family and friends have all told them and laughed at them (and each other.) I'm also part German and if any of you have some good German jokes I'd appreciate your passing them along.

So it simply is not true that "racist" jokes are never funny. They're just not funny to certain people, and I feel sorry for them, because if you can't laugh at yourself then you have something wrong with you. Humor, racist or otherwise, is a powerful binding force that crosses racial boundaries like nothing else, if we let it.

Also, it's worth pointing out that the bulk of what human beings find "funny" is at someone else's expense, whether race is involved or not. That's just the way it is. Don't believe me? Just ask Moe, Larry or Curly (or Shemp, if you prefer.) Maybe the whole human race is mentally ill at some level, but trying to pretend that we don't find the discomfiture of others humorous at times is just denying what is. Such denial makes some individuals feel superior, I've noticed, but in reality they're just insecure and uptight.

The world is, and always will be, full of things that will offend us all at different times and different places. Learning to handle such affronts with grace and dignity is a major part of growing up.

HTTP gateway timed out

[sopssa]

For once, the article submitter isn't lying!

Re:HTTP gateway timed out

[cntThnkofAname]

I could be because everyone and his grandma, who reads /. is trying to check wikiLeaks out so they can post a witty comment.

Re:HTTP gateway timed out

[sopssa]

It was down before story too

Re:HTTP gateway timed out

[buchner.johannes]

Yeah, but using Mediawiki for read-only content is not the smartest thing to do, it prohibits caching.
If Mediawiki would allow proxies to cache their content (maybe there is a plugin, but Wikipedia doesn't allow it either), a lot of trouble would go away. And does Wikileaks need uncached requests? No.

I am not talking about (web) server-side improvements, I am talking about the problematic 'Cache-Control: private, s-maxage=0, max-age=0, must-revalidate' HTTP header. HTTP caching is so misunderstood. http://www.mnot.net/cache_docs/#WHY

Re:HTTP gateway timed out

[Anonymous Coward]

MediaWiki doesn't allow caching? That'll be news to the MediaWiki developers, who specifically make sure MW caches as much as possible. When your site is has dynamic content, you'll start having scaling problems. The best way to solve them is to stop having dynamic content. They do a pretty good job of it too!

Torrents

[Anonymous Coward]

Publish via torrents.

Win.

Re:Torrents

[ickleberry]

good idea but unfortunately the 'unwashed masses' only support HTTP, and if the unwashed masses don't have any access to this information then it loses credibility and becomes more of a geek conspiracy theory group. As we all know its very hard to get something done if the unwashed masses don't realise the problem and are therefore unwilling to support you.

You know, the people who think that the only way to get an iPhone is to buy it locked (if they even understand the concept of a SIM-lock) and on a long contract with a huge telco.

Re:Torrents

[ThePhilips]

I'm surprised nobody yet thought up a BitTorrent analogue for HTTP - to offload/share traffic from busy sites.

I guess latencies are the problem, but faced with information being not available at all, higher latencies are probably a good compromise.

Sites like Wikipedia or WikiLeaks could definitely benefit from such technology.

Re:Torrents

[michaelhood]

I'm surprised nobody yet thought up a BitTorrent analogue for HTTP - to offload/share traffic from busy sites.

It wouldn't be difficult to put a torrent backend on HTTP, wherein the URLs would actually just be trackers for the peers, but dynamic content obviously couldn't be served in any practical manner this way. And usually serving static content is just a solved problem - bandwidth is cheap (until someone DoS's S3, anyways).

Re:Torrents

[dkf]

It wouldn't be difficult to put a torrent backend on HTTP, wherein the URLs would actually just be trackers for the peers, but dynamic content obviously couldn't be served in any practical manner this way. And usually serving static content is just a solved problem - bandwidth is cheap (until someone DoS's S3, anyways).

It's called a Content Delivery Network, and they have been in use transparently for over a decade. If you didn't notice, that's good. A full P2P CDN could be made to work, but has many awkward deployment issues (e.g., most of the downloading endpoints really don't have a lot of upstream bandwidth) so the traditional model is likely to persist since it's a proven model at both technical and business levels.

Re:Torrents

[ThePhilips]

It's called a Content Delivery Network

... most of the downloading endpoints really don't have a lot of upstream bandwidth ...

Who cares. The point is that whether free web can be user support or it has to rely on large businesses (which operate backbones).

Problem of CDNs in the context is obvious: WikiLeaks can't use them for political reasons and CDNs likely to refuse serve WikiLeaks for the vary same political reasons.

The difference P2P (or "user-supported cloud") makes is that the CDN is fully user supported thus can be apolitical.

... has many awkward deployment issues ...

Yeah. I figured it. The problem in the case with BitTorrent is that it doesn't have decentralized search like eMule's Kademlia. I do not think they support file modification timestamps, but that is trivial technicality. Otherwise, as long as a P2P network supports decentralized search and clients can do automatic content expiration, it can be used as a simple mirror service for web pages.

Re:Torrents

[Anonymous Coward]

torrents torrents bleedin' torrents.

bittorrent is GREAT for helping distribute some official file.. but for anything 'underground' it's awful - even with the trackerless torrent hack.

Why has everyone moved to torrents when something like gnutella would be far more appropriate?

Re:Torrents

[ThePhilips]

bittorrent is GREAT for helping distribute some official file.. but for anything 'underground' it's awful - even with the trackerless torrent hack .

Nobodies talking about something underground. There is nothing 'underground' about how WikiLeaks operates - it is just way to political meaning that it might become a target .

Why has everyone moved to torrents when something like gnutella would be far more appropriate?

Gnutella is good for small stuff, but even at MB sizes, lack of proper check-summing oftentimes results in a corrupt download. Also it is susceptible to poisoning attacks most of all P2P networks. And depends on central specilized servers to do searches.

It's like eDonkey/eMule/Kad and BitTorrent learned from Gnutella how NOT to do P2P.

Re:Torrents

[Anonymous Coward]

I just used gnutella as an example, and I don't know much about other p2p technologies, so I can't comment on that.

However, I don't know how it used to be, but I can tell you that today at least, it doesn't use specialized servers to do searches, nor do you get problems with large downloads, and THEX (Tree Hash Exchange Format) is used for partial file verification.

It also allows uploads of partially downloaded files (ala bittorrent) and support DHT

Re:Torrents

[ZachPruckowski]

Latency would be an issue, but coherence and caching would be bigger issues. For almost anything beyond Web 0.5, you'll have the pages updating semi-frequently (blogs getting comments, forums getting posts, widgets receiving tweets, people editing content), so it'd be hard to have someone "seeding" one of the pages they just visited, since their version will be out of date in short order. Then you throw in the unique content problem - you can't seed me my Facebook page, because you and I see totally different things when we look at our friends lists - and that's the ballgame. Even normal wikipedia pages have to show different things depending on whether I'm anonymous, a logged-in editor, or an administrator.

BitTorrent also would suck for webpages because most people don't leave them open long. What're we gonna do, have them seed it after they closed the page? Also people's upstreams are usually really limited relative to their downstreams, so it would take major network-level changes to accommodate such a protocol on a mass-market scale.

It'd work great for rarely-changed, fairly small, totally static HTML content, but that's not the content that's expensive to serve in the first place.

Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

Where did you get this info?? :O

Freenet

[Sanity]

It seems that Wikileaks should operate over Freenet. Leaks could be submitted anonymously that way, and also distributed anonymously. The advantage would be that it would be entirely decentralized, so there would be no organization vulnerable to legal action.

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.

Re:Freenet

[causality]

It seems that Wikileaks should operate over Freenet. Leaks could be submitted anonymously that way, and also distributed anonymously. The advantage would be that it would be entirely decentralized, so there would be no organization vulnerable to legal action.

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.

I wish a comprehensive group of security experts with varying backgrounds and specialties would get together and try to compromise both Freenet and Tor to see just how secure and anonymous they really are. By this I mean in an open, public, collaborative sort of way. This could only be a good thing, as any vulnerabilities or weaknesses could potentially be addressed. Then we could be a bit more confident about the confidentiality of those who contribute documents to sites like Wikileaks. I am sure that many such folks are doing so at great risk to themselves, especially when they live under repressive regimes, yet they believe in our right to know and are willing to take that risk. It really would be nice to know they are a bit safer doing it.

Re:Freenet

[David Gerard]

The problem with Freenet is that no-one uses it. Wikileaks kicks real-world arse because it's on the World Wide Web, where everyone else is.

Re:Freenet

[Splab]

TOR is already proven to be pretty unreliable since the exit node can sniff all the traffic, have enough exit nodes and you can track your target.

Re:Freenet

[gparent]

No one uses Freenet. It's too slow for regular usage, and the last thing I want to do is to wait 30 mins to find out a leak didn't interest me anyway.

Setting up a torrent tracker would be a much better idea.

Re:Freenet

[Anonymous Coward]

That was probably the point to begin with. All of the hidden services (.onion links) I've been to seem like honeypots for LEA or contain nothing of interest (so why are they up?).

Tor is a giant filter through which suspect traffic may pass and the powers that be laughing over the whole inhumane rodent-glue trap.

PS: If you use Tor, block the 149.* domains by exluding them in your torrc file, along with the "bloxor" nodes (search through your cached-descriptors file for them, they are a plague!)

Re:Freenet

[0100010001010011]

Why not that of which we do not speak?
It's distributed world wide, mirrored about everywhere, everyone has access to it, it's fast as hell (maxes out my connection), you can post massive binaries to it, text files. Most places have up to 400 day retention now. It would be trivial to setup a script to repost stuff every 100 days. Put everything in a 7za and it shouldn't take up too much space.

If the RIAA/MPAA hasn't figured out how to touch it, I doubt many will.

Re:Freenet

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why there should be some sort of direct gateway between them, sorta like some portal to hell, but not as painful. (for us)
There has already been systems built for this in Tor, such as e-mail systems interacting between Tornet and Internet.

To be entirely honest, the entire thing could be pulled off entirely via loads of free hosts and some smart scripting to load balance.
Even those free forums that allow JavaScript, write a wrapper, bham.

It's not like legality will be a problem... people provide free tools, you use free tools as they were intended, using all their features, no guilt there at all.
If they do anything, well, you have a case against them. Yeah you'll probably not win, but you can always expose any methods they used against you on their own services... again.

Re:Freenet

[calmofthestorm]

Put it on Freenet, and few people will read it because it's hard. The Powers That Be then win, and probably don't try to stop it.
Might be a good idea for dual-deployment, however, if it would take any load off the http.

Re:Freenet

[Anonymous Coward]

The only reason to use Freenet, ever, is if you are a massive fucking paedophile. Are you a massive fucking paedophile? No? Then why the fuck are you on Freenet? Stop trying to legitimize your massive mirrored preteen stash and fuck off. Wikileaks my ass, that shit provides a service, Freenet just rapes childhoods. Honestly, you might as well be tearing little kids' asses every time you open that shit up. Fuck you.

Re:Freenet

[Jugalator]

Put it on Freenet, and few people will read it because it's hard. The Powers That Be then win, and probably don't try to stop it.

How do they win if journalists are among the few that read it?

Sure, I may think too highly of journalists in general, but I think that's a problem with journalists, and not a Wikileaks on Freenet.

Re:Freenet

[Jugalator]

Setting up a torrent tracker would be a much better idea.

Heck, skip the centralized tracker there and use Magnet links instead. :)

Sites would only need to serve the latest news stories (to let people know if there's anything new and/or interesting), and then a zip with a Magnet link pointing to it. :)

Re:Freenet

[lorenlal]

If "that" is what I think it is, it's not exactly a place where common folk go. Now, there are http caches... But it can also be a great jumbled mess. How do we verify authenticity of posts? Cause lets face it, that frontier is a place where everyone can contribute... Everyone...

Re:Freenet

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly is this done, from my knowledge of Tor even the exit node will only be able to see the last node to pass the data, seeing as a chain uses more then one hop I don't see how you could directly target a user.

That said I am aware that you can use flash and if my memory serves me, a gif (?) to track the original IP by having the flash object phone home, but I thought this only worked if the user had Tor in a non-standard configuration? As the exit node I assume this would be injected in the page returned, but what if you tunnel SSH over tor to a privatly owned VPN, that would prevent the Tor node from screwing with the traffic.

Unless it uses some form of renegotiation ;)

Re:Freenet

[AlgorithMan]

Wikileaks in TOR and Freenet

Re:Freenet

[ThePhilips]

... Freenet ...

From the site:

For best performance, Freenet will run continually. It should not interfere with your computer usage, as it requires around 200MB of RAM and 10% of one CPU core, plus some disk access.

And no wonder considering that it is written in Java...

Not all PCs have Java installed. First. Second. With that kind of resource utilization, I do not see Freenet catching with average consumers.

Probably they should invest into a lightweight C/C++ client. That even I would let run on my systems.

Re:Freenet

[ThePhilips]

Oops. Was a reply to GP.

Re:Freenet

[AHuxley]

Re Tor: written a few years ago, but gives most readers an idea of how Tor works and can be tracked
"High-Traffic Colluding Tor Routers in Washington, D.C., and the Ugly Truth About Online Anonymity"
http://cryptogon.com/?p=624
As for tracking scripts see this post :) :
http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-12691-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=31021&messageID=574848&start=-1

Re:Freenet

[LWATCDR]

What has Wikileaks done so big? I ask because I have not seen anything earth shattering on it and a lot that is nothing but tabloid press level junk. Just some examples would be nice.

Re:Freenet

[jhol13]

Yeah, it really should be rewritten in Python (or what is the cool language today).

Seriously, I much rather pay the memory penalty of Java than fight against the numerous security bugs C/C++ program would give.

Re:Freenet

[Anonymous Coward]

WIKILEAKS PRESS RELEASE
"Kenya's Killing Fields"

Fri Nov 7 00:06:40 GMT 2008

PRINTED PRESS EMBARGO UNTIL
MONDAY NOV 10 00:00:00 GMT

Contact:

wl-kenya@wikileaks.org

Tel (KNCHR): +254-020-2717900/00/28/32 +254-020-2712664/2717256

Mobile: +254-726-610159 +254-724-256448 +254-733-78000 +254-736-780000

Fax: +254-020-2716160

http://wikileaks.org/SD

STAFF

On Thursday Kenya declared a national holiday for the victory of its favorite son, Barack Obama. But hundreds of other Kenyan sons won't be celebrating Obama's victory. They're dead.

Since mid-2007 the Kenyan Police have engaged in an orgy of extra-judicial killings and disappearances. In the last year and a half, with the connivance of the country's political leadership, over 500 young men have been killed or disappeared.

The revelations come from an extensive Kenya National Commission on Human Rights report obtained by Wikileaks. The report, "The Cry of Blood: Extra-Judicial Killings and Disappearances", details each murder and calls for the United Nations to intervene. But while the report can now be found on Wikileaks, you won't find it in Kenya.

Despite being submitted to the authorities in Kenya and to the United Nations Committee Against Torture, the Report has not been made publicly available.

The Report contains evidence of a high-level policy to assassinate troublesome Kenyan citizens with impunity. This policy is still in effect, hence the urgency of getting this report to a global and Kenyan audience

Since mid-2007 the Kenyan Police have engaged in an orgy of extra-judicial killings and disappearances. In the last year and a half, with the connivance of the country's political leadership, over 500 young men have been killed or disappeared. This Sep 2008 Kenya National Commission on Human Rights report, The Cry of Blood, is an account of these crimes and a call for the United Nations to intervene.

Despite being submitted to the authorities in Kenya and to the United Nations Committee Against Torture, the Report is not publicly available in Kenya, even on the official website of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.

The Report contains evidence of a high-level policy to assassinate Kenyan citizens with impunity. This policy is still in effect, hence the urgency of getting this report to a global and Kenyan audience via Wikileaks.

The Report contains annexes which detail the names of the men executed by the Kenya Police and those who have been disappeared. It also contains medical forensic evidence implicating the Kenyan Police, morgue records and post mortem examination reports.

Some of the key findings drawn from the KNCHRs investigations are:

a) That the evidence gathered by the KNCHR establishes patterns of conduct by the Kenya Police that may constitute crimes against humanity.

b) That extra-judicial executions and other brutal acts of extreme cruelty have been perpetrated by the Police against so-called Mungiki adherents and that these acts may have been committed pursuant to official policy sanctioned by the political leadership, the Police Commissioner and top police commanders.

c) That whereas initially the police mainly used firearms to execute the suspects, they subsequently changed their modus operandi and have since been using such methods as strangulation, drowning, mutilation and bludgeoning. The change of strategy was to make members of the public believe that rival Mungiki gangs are responsible for the killings. As such, the cause of death for majority of the latest victims has been blunt trauma, strangulation, drowning or mutilation using sharp objects as illustrated by post-mortem reports attached hereinafter (Refer to Annex 4). Several witnesses told the KNCHR that the killer squads carry machetes, iron bars, ropes and other crude weapons in their vehicles.

d) That the police spokesperson Mr. Eric Kiraithe has on several occasions attributed the wave of killings to rival Mungiki gangs.

Re:Freenet

[eyv]

Leaked documents do not need a low-latency anonymous channel (Tor) to be leaked. Potential leakers should use something like Mixminion (http://mixminion.net/) for high-latency, highly anonymous submissions. Downloads, however, are a bit more tricky, since they DO need to be low-latency.

Re:Freenet

[michaelhood]

TOR is already proven to be pretty unreliable since the exit node can sniff all the traffic, have enough exit nodes and you can track your target.

Even without compromising or joining up exit nodes, deanonymizing (see: 1 2) is a problem for the uninformed users of onion routing and proxies.

Re:Freenet

[michaelhood]

If "that" is what I think it is, it's not exactly a place where common folk go. Now, there are http caches... But it can also be a great jumbled mess. How do we verify authenticity of posts? Cause lets face it, that frontier is a place where everyone can contribute... Everyone...

There are moderated ****groups.

Re:Freenet

[eyv]

If you're submitting to Wikileaks, you're using SSL right? You should be. Exit node sniffing is not a large problem. Furthermore, Wikileaks can just run a number of dedicated local exit nodes.

Re:Freenet

[Anonymous Coward]

Ruby on Rails! Wait... that was last year, sorry.

Re:Freenet

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because mixminion is much faster, has a much higher anonymity set than Freenet and is a more widely known media for data distribution... not.

Re:Freenet

[Anonymous Coward]

Lisp! Wait no, that was 50 years ago.

Re:Freenet

[Anonymous Coward]

but what if you tunnel SSH over tor to a privatly owned VPN, that would prevent the Tor node from screwing with the traffic

Uh, what is the point exactly of using TOR if you're just going to force all your traffic to route through there? Trying to set the record for the slowest connection to the Internet?

Re:Freenet

[eyv]

Quite. However, if security is what you're after, you may not want to use the most POPULAR one, but rather the better one. Like I said, downloaders, who perhaps care more about easy access (popularity) than anonymity, are a different matter.

Re:Freenet

[JackieBrown]

Can you mention a good one to use (or email me the name of one? I don't hide my email address.)

I have looked into this but find it difficult to know where to start.

I know each server has different groups or rooms that have different content. Do servers mostly have the same content (just different group names?) If I was interested in scifi information, would one be better than another?

Re:Freenet

[LWATCDR]

Except that this story from the BBC from months earlier already documented the police killing people.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7194744.stm
Yes it is good that they reported this but the fact that Kenya police where killing people was already documented by the BBC so it isn't exactly some big leak that they broke.
Still it is a good thing but not earth shattering or even really new but a continuation of an already published story.

(plus one InformatiVe)

[Anonymous Coward]

for a momen7 and [anti-slash.org] used to. SHIT ON wasn't on Steve's

Mathematical properties, confidence

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Irresponsible

[Anonymous Coward]

Bunch of irresponsible cunts. Some things have no business being leaked or their leaking can lead to unintended consequences. I'd laugh my ass off if someone could prove a connection between Wikileaks and a bunch of refuges being slaughtered. It might teach the fucking hypocrites a lesson. 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. Thanks for giving me a laugh in advance.

Re:Irresponsible

[ScrewMaster]

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.

Re:Irresponsible

[PopeRatzo]

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.

Who would waste a mod point on an Anonymous Coward?

Re:Irresponsible

[causality]

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.

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...)

Re:Irresponsible

[value_added]

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.

Re:Irresponsible

[ScrewMaster]

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.

So feel free to disagree ... but don't make shit up. That's just irritating.

Re:Irresponsible

[NeutronCowboy]

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.

Re:Irresponsible

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Irresponsible

[NeutronCowboy]

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.

Re:Irresponsible

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a school teacher who enjoy safe and clean bdsm can teach to little children , do you propose that we ruin her career ?

Re:Irresponsible

[chdig]

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.

Re:Irresponsible

[Anonymous Coward]

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 ?

Re:Irresponsible

[NeutronCowboy]

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.

Re:Irresponsible

[Anonymous Coward]

If all politicians' sexual escapades were public, perhaps they wouldn't be considered so scandalous anymore.

Re:Irresponsible

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Wiki admins are fucking bastards

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you petersymonds and leinad. Also D, Entlinkt, Thogo and S1.

Politics and sausage are alike

[Anonymous Coward]

In that no one should ever see either being made....

Bad times

[damburger]

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.

Re:Bad times

[ZorinLynx]

Not necessarily; even though people are struggling there are always people who are doing very well. Just a few of those pitching in can help considerably.

It never hurts to ask, the worst that can happen is "no".

Re:Bad times

[lorenlal]

They're also one of the few places where I feel we can see the facts behind some of the reasons so many people are struggling right now.

Seriously - We get fed all sorts of BS from the news agencies... WikiLeaks posts the stuff that can often verify or debunk much of that BS.

Re:Bad times

[Dragonslicer]

Not necessarily; even though people are struggling there are always people who are doing very well. Just a few of those pitching in can help considerably.

I have the feeling that most of the people that are doing "very well" these days are not particularly interested in supporting a project that reveals secrets.

Re:Bad times

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not rich, but I've got a good stable job and I donated because I support what they are doing. I'm sure many out there feel the same way as me.

Re:Bad times

[TooMuchToDo]

But some of us who are doing well *are* particularly interested in supporting Wikileaks. I've already emailed offering dedicated servers and rackspace at several major POPs in the US, Asia, and Europe.

Re:Bad times

[b4dc0d3r]

What's with the negativity? Even if most = 99.9%, there's still enough potential support to make asking for help a worthy effort, especially since it didn't cost anything. So just read gp post again, and ggp, and see if there's anything new in your comment.

In fact, since the entire purpose of the site is to protect most people from those few who try to keep secrets, times like these are when help is needed the most.

The Cloud ...

[zummit]

Wouldn't "The Cloud" solve all of WikiLeaks problems?

I'll donate bandwidth

[ickleberry]

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

Mirrors for popular files

[MichaelSmith]

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.

Re:Mirrors for popular files

[Magic5Ball]

Change the files to install malware to collect a list of potential troublemakers?

Re:Mirrors for popular files

[Anonymous Coward]

Magnet links seem perfect for this. It would also give us a more legitimate use for bittorrent.

Do not visit Wikileaks!

[paxcoder]

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

wikileaks huh?

[Mystra007]

In before the "I submitted something secret to wikileak---NO CARRIER---" jokes

XDOLL

[Anonymous Coward]

encountered while We nned to address

More than Money

[VGPowerlord]

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.
Homer Simpson: Awww ... 20 dollars!? I wanted a peanut.
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?

I'm at the point in my life...

[pongo000]

...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.

Re:I'm at the point in my life...

[noidentity]

Obviously they just need to get a few of the people on board whom they leak damning information about! Those guys always end up immune to legal action.

Re:I'm at the point in my life...

[michaelhood]

simply cannot be expected to do so without some form of legal immunity

Anyone volunteering to pitch this to AT&T?

Re:I'm at the point in my life...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm at the point in my life that I can't afford to stand for what I believe.

There, fixed it for you. Enjoy your "safe" life.

Re:I'm at the point in my life...

[bill_mcgonigle]

Wow, an AC criticizing somebody for not standing proud for his beliefs.

Bwahahaha!

Not racist. Wiki joke. Woosh?

[Magic5Ball]

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?

Re:Not racist. Wiki joke. Woosh?

[Dilpo]

They're not talking about that joke, they're talking about this joke.

Couldn't we just avoid reading Wikileaks?

[Roblimo]

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?

An Anarcho-Capitalist Perspective

[AlexLibman]

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!

Re:An Anarcho-Capitalist Perspective

[malkavian]

The day Wikileaks decided to publish private members addresses of political parties, they stopped (in my eyes) being part of the 'Freedom of Speech' movement, and part of the system that prevents speech they don't approve of.
When they became unethical, I stopped being interested in supporting them..

For the rest of your post, it'll give me some fun reading to follow up on! Looks interesting..

Re:An Anarcho-Capitalist Perspective

[AlexLibman]

There's no such thing as a Natural Right to privacy and security - that's something you have to pay for.

If you engage in political activity, that is using the guns of the state to force your opinion down other people's throats - expect consequences.

Distributed Hosting

[RAMMS EIN]

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!

Watch out, the Nazis are about!

[Anonymous Coward]

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 is not what it claims to be

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Who are you trying to convince?

[Anonymous Coward]

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..."

A minoirty racist is still a racist

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Remailers

[Anonymous Coward]

Could using the remailer system work in submitting articles? It is still quite active.