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WikiLeaks Under Denial of Service Attack
wiredmikey writes "WikiLeaks has reported that its Web site is currently under a mass distributed denial of service attack. The attack comes around the time of an expected release of classified State Department documents, which the Obama administration says will put 'countless' lives at risk, threaten global counterterrorism operations and jeopardize US relations with its allies."
So who OTHER than the US government could be responsible for the attack?
I thought US Government was more capable than 4chan.
US embassy cables leak sparks global diplomacy crisis
"lives at risk" "threaten global counterterrorism operations" and "jeopardize us relations" all sounds like politicianese for "we really fucked up and don't want anybody to know about it"
Whatever happened to justice against people who commit (war) crimes?
They said the Iraq war documents would put people at risk, too. They didn't, though, and the administration was forced to admit that after the release. Seems to me that Wikileaks, whatever their other merits or lack thereof, have been pretty responsible about how they handle this stuff thus far.
I'm less concerned with these leaks than I am with the day to day constitutional trampling the feds do, using all three branches of the government to leverage their oath-breaking.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
the Obama administration says will put 'countless' lives at risk
Who would have guessed the US military has aleph-one people working for it?
NID / NWO others
One self proclaimed "Hacktivist for good" claims responsibility for the DoS-Attack: http://twitter.com/th3j35t3r
He threatened before that he would do that when Wikileaks releases, see last comment on http://th3j35t3r.wordpress.com/2010/09/17/wikileaks-insurance-policy-expired/
"and jeopardize US relations with its allies"
Wiki leaks is just releasing information.. sounds like to me they're doing things the other countries wouldn't approve of; thus ruining relations. So they don't want anyone to know about what they ( the U.S. ) does in secret.. BUT If someone is willing to expose such information, they blame it on the site. lol~
It's like a kid stealing from a store and his brother that was with him tells on him, then the kid who stole blames it on his brother for telling everyone what he did. /laugh
I have glanced at a few of the documents on The Guardian, and I can categorically say that these documents should not have been released. This should a huge level of irresponsibility on the part of WikiLeaks for releasing the entire database rather than incriminating files. The files are all SECRET rather than TOP SECRET, but there are very sensitive official files in here that have no business seeing the light of day within their classification timeframe, such as HUMINT documents.
Several years ago I supported WikiLeaks and what they stood for, even donating, but after this latest continuation of their anti-American campaign I cannot support them any longer. These documents are far too strategically damaging to the U.S. and its public/not-so-public allies to have been revealed in bulk.
Keep in mind that the only source of information regarding the alleged DDOS is the Wikileaks Twitter page. Wikileaks also went down the last times they released this information.
It seems highly unlikely that the US government would do something like this. A DoS attack is temporary, and only calls attention to Wikileaks. It seems to me that two other options are more plausible:
1) Self-proclaimed patriots doing a little wannabe-vigilantiasm.
2) Mr. "Personality" Assange has arranged for a publicity stunt. After all, if he can make it look like the big bad US is trying to stop him, and he still manages to leak the data, he can further his self-promotion as a hero.
I guess time will tell, though.
I mean, how is Wilikeaks going to post these data now hey?!
I mean, there's absolutely no way for them to do it now, no sir
A perfect plan, foiled!
*rolleyes*
how long until
DavidWaldock David Waldock
Dear government: as you keep telling us, if you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to fear #wikileaks
Thought it was worth sharing.
Is a mass distributed denial of service like a distributed denial of service of distributed denial of services?
Drop the fucking paranoia. It's old. It's boring. It's see through. Stuff like this:
the Obama administration says will put 'countless' lives at risk, threaten global counterterrorism operations and jeopardize US relations with its allies
doesn't win sympathy. It merely shows your inability to come up with relevant points to put in a press release. Who on earth do you think believes it?
Sorry for rant but I've seen this from US politicians, from UK politicians and from European politicians; I'm sick of this crap.
"Welcome to our world. We are the wasted youth. And we are the future too." Yes, I know these are stupid lyrics.
The leaks are not the problem. The root of the problem is the hypocritical policies and unsavory conduct that the leaks are exposing. The best way to keep your dirty laundry from being aired is to not engage in dirty conduct in the first place.
When all else fails, run.
IMHO Wikileak is taking the easy way. Taking secrets of the US is like shooting fish in a barrel. You get their secrets easier than with other countries and you run lower risks: you don't have to check your tea for Polonium every day.
If what they release is to highlight illegal activity. However I draw the line at releasing documents that are the politicians equivalent of a drunken conversation at a frat party.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
I think that everyone and their dog wants to see what's been put there, and their web infrastructure can't handle every world government and agency attempting to see what the Americans have said about them.
Aside from the Arabs pressing for the attack of Iran, nothing there was of any news to me.
Everyone knows that embassies are used for espionage, the Royal family is up to shenanigans? No, really?!? The Russian gov has links to organized crime?! *Gasp!*
Oh, please, This leak is going to be one big let down.
If anyone finds most of the leak a surprise, I would suggest you stop getting all of your news from US sources.
I've read some of the 'damning' documents.
None of them has anything new. They just confirm what was known since long ago.
Quoth the BBC:
The UK Ministry of Defence has urged newspaper editors to "bear in mind" the national security implications of publishing the information.
You can make a plausible case that the leaks will put lives at risk. But warning the media about publishing excerpts after the stuff is already made public? That's got fuck all to do with national security, that's politicians worrying about public relations.
I think most of that is released is in raw "petty gossip" format. It's like reading emails of your boss about employees, most of which is irrelevant and shouldn't be made public. People need to be able to talk shit without turning it into a shitfest.. we do it, they do it, what's the big deal?
did you forget to take your meds?
As of just a few minutes ago the leaked documents have been released by five international news outlets. Now the fun begins.....
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Where can we get the data?
Guardian links down...
Blogging because I can...
It was released at 05.00 Hours.
i even submitted its article on wikileaks site. All the info regarding the US Afghan war logs were up in a SEARCHABLE and browseable directory. (A good implementation i might add).
Yet, the news of the release, by me or by any other submitter, were not published in slashdot, but, the ddos for the 'release' that was 'anticipated' has been.
The train has long left the station.
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The documents are already released. it has been approx 10 hours or more.
ddosing RIGHT at the time news is fresh, would eliminate a lot of casual readers interested in the material only temporarily.
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When the US State Department classifies a cable as secret, it's usually because of some situation that will embarrass the pants off of someone there.
Let' look at a typical situation that results in a 'classified secret' set of missives:
The US undersecretary of African Affairs refers to the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of the People's Democratic Republic of Bongo as a 'retarded monkey' because he stole half of the $150 million NGO grant for an egg farm and deposited it directly into his Swiss bank account without first wiring it through the Cayman Islands like the undersecretary told him to do. Now the transaction is transparent and the undersecretary won't get his $155,000 consultancy fee from the hedge fund firm that his Yale frat brother runs down there that was supposed to handle the transaction in the first place.
The situation is compounded by the fact that the US undersecretary and the Bongoian Deputy Minister are sharing a mistress who is a top fashion model. The undersecretary made the remark about the DM to his mistress in bed and she texted it to her sister in Paris. The communication was intercepted by the NSA/CIA and put into an official memo to the State Department. Now the DM will be pissed as hell and will make all sorts of accusations of 'USA imperialism' and 'racist corporate profiteering' at the United Nations. The undersecretary will have to buy the DM a new Mercedes to cool him down and get passed over for promotion until a new Secretary of the State Dept is appointed after the next election.
The only person who might be killed is the mistress/fashion model if she makes the mistake of going back to Bongo before the Deputy Minister gets his new Mercedes. Even then, she better allow the DM to indulge his special inclinations lest she find herself floating down the Bongo river, trying to catch up with her head.
-------- This is how diplomacy works and why all these cables have to be kept secret. Let's hope that the WikiLeaks people had the sense to make multiple copies and distributing them widely before announcing that they were going to post all this stuff!
I wasn't sure what to expect - but it sure seems like the sole purpose of this release was to embarrass the United States. I don't see anything that is particularly beneficial to the public here - and isn't that purportedly why WikiLeaks exists? This seems more along the lines of Paris Hilton's ex-boyfriend publicizing his sex tapes.
Maybe it's not a vendetta, even if it looks like one though. WikiLeaks hasn't really lived up to its promise, all in all. I suspect this may be no more than Assange trying to fend off irrelevancy.
#DeleteChrome
Is it an actual attack, or have they just given the entire world a heads-up that they're going to release some sensational information and so have far more traffic than their servers can handle?
If you announce some scandalous documents are going to be posted on your website and the news is broadcasting to the world that these documents are going to be posted on your website why oh why would you think that when you suddenly get clobbered with web traffic that you think someone has launched a distributed denial of service against your little web server?
Why couldn't it be people all trying to get to your website to see if those scandalous documents have been posted yet?
It's like K-Mart advertising extra-low price special deals in newspapers and TV that will be in effect the day after Thanksgiving and then get all pouty when a crowd of people, OBVIOUSLY sent by the competition, show up before the stores open to block your front doors and preventing people from shopping at your stores.
Idiots.
I'm reminded of an exchange from the TV series "yes, minister" (from memory):
politician: The people are infuriated by these policies!
aide: Not at all. They are only infuriated by finding out about it.
politician: I'm not so sure about that.
aide: Until the secret broke, there were no complaints.
politician: Oh, I see.
In such a situation perhaps the problem is the conduct that was exposed rather than the fact of it having been exposed. Though yes, it does depend on the nature of the material. Still, it's hard to think that Wikileaks is more capable of obtaining such information than the main enemies of the US are. So the people getting informed by an event such as this is not the enemies of the US but rather the US and world population. If every politician knows that his secrets may be exposed at any time, perhaps that is not so bad. Privacy is for the private sphere, it is not for what goes on when power is wielded, even if the people in power by definition have both the interest and power to make it the other way around. So all else equal, government leaks are good and illegal wiretaps are bad.
which the Obama administration says will put 'countless' lives at risk, threaten global counterterrorism operations and jeopardize US relations with its allies.
IOW, it will embarrass powerful people, and we can't have that under any circumstances.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
its no problem while a war is being started under false pretenses and millions dying as a result, but, informants' names getting out, while exposing ALL that shit, is beyond reprehensible.
... OFF.
i have two words for you, as elaborate, eloquent and intellectual as words can be :
FUCK
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Fletcher: Your honor, I object!
Judge: Why?
Fletcher: Because it's devastating to my case!
Judge: Overruled.
Fletcher: Good call!
so, its ok with saudi and other gulf states calling the us to erase iranian nuclear weapons threat at ANY cost.
but its not ok, when this information is released. because, it will 'destabilize' the area.
yeah. other countries pressurizing others to start a goddamn war, will not destabilize the area. lets just allow them to do that, behind an easy curtain of secrecy.
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If you think the government has to use something as clumsy as a DDOS attack then you're an idiot.
Wikileaks are a bunch of publicity whores.
I think the current status quo, Pax Americana, is the least disruptive and most beneficial to all parties involved.
it only is because fools like you dont know whats going on :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html
tell that 'peace' to the people whose families were murdered in genocides by 12+ puppet dictators that u.s. installed to propagate that 'pax americana'
moron.
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terms like "mirror" don't really apply to torrenting
What's the latest in avoiding this sort of DDoS, if you suspect something like this is coming, are there solutions for distributing websites over p2p while still verifying the source, something involving torrents and public key cryptography?
there are idiots who acquire mod points, and go to the people who they disagree with and modbomb their posts down. this guy probably had a lot of idiots doing that to him.
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http://documents.nytimes.com/letters-between-wikileaks-and-gov
WikiLeaks provided ample opportunity for the US to state which documents are "putting lives at risk". They instead responded with threats. If there really are lives at stake here, this is incredible irresponsible of the US, especially since it was very likely that WikiLeaks would release the information no matter what.
My UID is prime. Hah!
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." The quote applies to this because if the good guys arbitrarily limit themselves to only using "fair fight" morality, the bad guys start with a clear advantage. I'm sorry it impinges on some of you folks' rose-colored worldview but sometimes, bad people need to be dealt with using their own tactics. It sucks. And we'd all love it if we could just sit down at the table and talk things over. Unfortunately, the world is a dangerous place because self-interest works differently for people depending on their culture.
A question: if the best defense is a good offense, and there is never a good excuse for violence, what then?
Life is pain. Anyone who says different is selling something.
Nor waterboarding, warrantless wiretapping of US citizens, "black" prisons/detention facilities, Abu Ghraib, drone targeting of a US citizen, Cheney's still largely hidden secret activities, etc, etc.
Lots of stuff shouldn't have happened. The more we find out about how our government is behaving itself, the better WE THE PEOPLE can have a chance at reigning in our governments behavior. Way too much really bad stuff has gone down in the name of national security, and I for one am sick and tired of the ruling elite using the cry of national security to get away with everythign from civil rights trampling to outright war crimes. The mroe is released the merrier, the US government has very little credibility left in almost any arena.
(That was a joke.)
Not everything Wikileaks posts is necessarily the truth. By taking the stance of "revealing secret" documents, they are able to post anything they want and people will just immediately believe it for some reason. The authenticity of the documents is unlikely to be verifiable and even if the US gov't said "The Afghanistan Documents are completely fabricated." no one would believe them... it's absolutely ridiculous. People love controversy and they are giving Wikileaks free-reign to make up whatever they want.
two wrongs dont make right. so, since exposing wrongdoing, is, well, wrong, lets just allow them to continue as they did. because THERE IS NO OTHER WAY TO FIX THIS EXCEPT BY EXPOSING IT.
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there hasnt been any case of such journalism since the watergate incident. i think, the grasp of private interests on mass media since 70s, finally got ahold of all journalism in the press.
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1867262&cid=34218862
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thank you for preparing the summary of my actions in the gp post. great to see your observation and documentation skills are top notch. must be handy while reporting to your superiors.
it is also only natural that you have conveniently missed reading the contents the search has brought. but its only natural loyalty to your employer. understandable.
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The document are out, and The New York Times is already reporting on the good stuff.
One of the more embarrassing items is this: American officials sharply warned Germany in 2007 not to enforce arrest warrants for Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in a bungled operation in which an innocent German citizen with the same name as a suspected militant was mistakenly kidnapped and held for months in Afghanistan. A senior American diplomat told a German official "that our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S."
This latest leak is probably the reason the US has been debating about having some kind of "internet kill switch."
Don't be a cock head. It is the lying, two faced, double talking, clique of the powerful from all countries who have created this daft situation where nobody dare say what they think in public.
We'd all be better off if we knew what the two faced lying crooks, we have allowed to obtain power over us, really think. Then we could back them up if we agreed with it, or sack the lot of them if their particular brand of bigotry didn't quite coincide with our own.
Secrecy in government is only every used to hide wrongdoing. ... of course, you have to reveal everyone's secrets, not just those of the US.
Anyway, they're all liars. Just watch as the world's leaders fall over each other in an attempt to pretend it never happened. Life will carry on. They've got too much in common to let this stop their games.
Isn't it funny how Julian Assange is so quiet about his own personal life and background, eh?
One rule for Julian Assange. One rule for the rest of us.
I think it's "one rule for private individuals, another rule for governments". Of course the US government feels exactly the same way, only they have a different idea about what rule is for whom.
``US ambassadors in other capitals were instructed to brief their hosts in advance of the release of unflattering pen-portraits or nakedly frank accounts of transactions with the US which they had thought would be kept quiet. Washington now faces a difficult task in convincing contacts around the world that any future conversations will remain confidential.''
And here I thought that last sentence would end "that any future conversations will be more civil". At least, I have always thought that saying "unflattering" things behind people's backs isn't the way to behave. If the conversations between the US and its contacts are of such "unflattering" nature that they give rise to diplomatic crises when uncovered, then perhaps the US should have trained their employees and contact to not behave that way.
I understand the anger at WikiLeaks, and I understand that it is not just about the unflattering communications. But still, on this one point, I think that if you don't want to take the heat for your missteps, the best way would be not to make them. So, rather than assuring contacts that, in future, this stuff will stay confidential, I would think that the right response would be to convince your contacts that, in future, you will work to keep things civil and decent.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
how are employment opportunities and benefits in cia, nsa, or whichever agency you work for, these days ?
Wow. You seem to have to assign a position to someone who hasn't taken that position (i.e., opposing the leaks somehow means someone doesn't see a problem with U.S. policies), call someone a moron, tell someone to fuck off, or state with no proof that someone works for a federal agency. Is it all possible for you to argue a position without making shit up about people who disagree with you? I've seen no evidence of that in this topic.
Digital battlefield indeed.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
What is stopping you from doing this? Why do you denigrate them for no fulfilling your personal wish? It isn't wikileaks responsibility to be everything to everyone, but they are setting a good example of what anyone can do. Follow the example, don't whine that your needs aren't being met. Thats what Fox is for, except they just make stuff up.
i didnt do it. some other poster did. and it was quite fitting.
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Hey, homeboy:
It does no good to treat this forum like your own running street battle when the conversation is about real life and death.
More people will hear you if you take it down a notch; when you don't appear via form to misunderstand the severity of current affairs.
Regards,
ratio_c d ushering.
Well, maybe they should have thought of that before they ever said or did what those documents mention. It's no different than talking behind someones back and thinking they'd NEVER find out, and then telling another friend who's going to speak about it in front of a group, and THEN telling them don't, it could hurt my relationship with so and so. You know what, it's not the person who's releasing the information that's going to hurt the relationship, it's YOU that already hurt the relationship by saying or doing what you did, and then pretending everything is fine between you and that person. It's a load of shit and it SHOULD be said.
No different than knowing your friend's wife is cheating on him. If you tell him, it's not YOU that hurt the relationship (which I would say because that just isn't right) but the wife who was cheating. That relationship was already done for.
You're using a "blame the victim" type of argument here.
I would argue, that like nearly all "blame the victim" arguments it is misplaced. You are probably right that the military should have tighter security protocols in-place. However, that isn't the question at hand. Whether or not the US should have tighter security in-place doesn't address the issue of Wikileaks' moral culpability.
The typical "blame the victim" scenario can be aptly applied here: a rape victim deserved to be raped because of her dress choices. In the same way the rapist is *wrong* and morally culpable, Wikileaks is also wrong and culpable.
If I leave my door unlocked that does not entitle you to ransack my home and rob me at gun point in the middle of the night. The argument, "you should have locked your door" is simply insufficient.
So, let's bring the issue back to the uncomfortable nature of what wikileaks actually did. What wikileaks did was damaging to American interests, to the interests of free Western democracies, and to the interests of anyone living under a government where they have the freedom to engage in this online discussion. Let's be clear: what wikileaks did is traitorous and does not advance the ideal of an open, free, accountable society/government. All it does is set us back and advance our enemies.
After considering that stark reality, no amount of victim blaming can provide consolation enough to offset the actions of Wikileaks.
As with the logic behind not releasing video documentation of US abuse of "enemy combatants," we must hide the truth because it will make people hate us. The worse the act, the more closely it must be guarded.
This whole WikiLeaks thing got me thinking: How do we know that things labelled "secret" by the government actually deserve to be so labelled? Who ought to have authority over such decisions? There's no way to discuss these things without spilling the beans. Even with guidelines, there will always be borderline cases, as well as decision makers ignoring the rules.
I can't see "everything should be public" as a sensible principle. Yet I can't see "let XYZ person/people decide on our behalf" as reasonable either.
Yes they should pick and choose. That is what responsible journalistic discretion is about.
Responsible newspapers don't publish every rumor or sensitive piece of information. They realize that that would have terrible consequences.
If you want to position yourself in the manner Wikileaks has, you need to accept the burden of journalistic integrity and discretion. It might not be the easiest deal, but no is forcing them to take this job.
at the start of this thing, he was trying to remain anonymous. apparently, when they realized that this would lead to his assassination on some roadside, he not only moved out from australia, but also moved into the spotlight. and had tried to keep the spotlight on himself, so that he would be in the mass media, internet, and remembered by people.
these are measures that makes it exceedingly difficult for private interests or governments to kill him.
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WikiLeaks? Never heard of them =P
yeah they should. despite they are not intelligence or military specialists. or, hey, since they are not specialists, why dont they take advice from those who are specialists ? like, department of defense, or, nsa, or cia ? they sure would know what to release, and what not.
had that logic worked we wouldnt be in this mess today.
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These files would be damaging if they were carefully analysed and reported.
But the reality is that the main stream media is by now utterly incapable of performing such a feat. Paying someone competent to sift through these files, pick out juicy pieces that will makes news, while still catching eyeballs and not pissing off friends in the military-industrial-political complex? And all while trying to keep up with their twitter and web 2.0 feeds?
Impossible. Just run another story about a celebrities baby or something. This leak will be handled the same way as all the others. 3-4 days of hysteria, then the media will completely lose interest once the prospect of having to do actual journalism rears its head.
May the Maths Be with you!
National security is fairly important. Frankly, I think he should not be posting things that don't do the public any good, like response plans, stuff like that. On the other hand, "damaging diplomatic relations" is like saying we did some really terrible things and don't want other people to know about it. Documents that show proof of terrible actions of our own government should absolutely be published without a second thought.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
I have eaten lambs brains at the U.N., marched for Peltier in NYC, raged over Chiapas, urged disclosure on Chile, offended the children of several international leaders to their faces, and held my ground on stage in front of hundreds of humans that disagreed with me on the meaning of sovereignty in times of ethnic cleansing.
I don't need Google to know how to rock. You, on the other hand, appear to be desperately in need of a clue.
The only thing that has me a little bothered is so far each release that is in some way startling and makes a headline actually benefits the USA and does not hinder it in any way.
Saudi King Wants Iran attacked as do others - er DUH! we all know this, but it being quoted like this makes the USA look like the poor pawn who was being pushed to war but managed to avoid it - go USA!
Spying on the UN, well no shit, the UN is one of the most corrupt International organisations in the world, if you are not spying on it and the method of decision making you are foolish.
Negative personal references to other leaders, again all of them help the USA and the prior apology will make no impact as the word is out.
Anti British comments related to military activities in Afghanistan, well lets just say that is a two way street and the argument is a lot louder when the doors as closed, it might be useful to the US to get this in the open as the UK will not fight their corner in public and it might help keep the Brits quiet about their actual military opinions.
Basically we need more hard information and we need to trust the sources and this is difficult in this day and age, the DDOS on wiki was the only surprise today as it would only make the information more attractive not less, in the words of that dead Serenity robot rapist "you can't stop the signal mal".
I'm assuming that this DoS can't continue indefinitely, so whatever is being covered up will be revealed as soon as the attack ends, right?
Could this be the contents of the huge 'SHA' encrypted file that was released a few months ago? If so, then the only release needed will be the key. Good luck stopping that!
V for Vendetta: People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
curiously this hasnt happened since watergate. the below may have had an effect in that being so :
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1867262&cid=34218862
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I think it's "one rule for Julian Assange and wikileaks, another rule for governments and organizations that don't allow Julian to have sex with them without using a condom, e.g. women, sororities, religions, clubs, and any sports team."
In these discussions some fucking idiot always says "War is Hell" as a justification for atrocities. It isn't one. We should be BETTER than the fucking terrorists, or else what the hell are we fighting for? Your war-porn masturbatory position or "War is Hell" is a pathetic sham, a cover for committing crimes that should be punished.
Should the Germans have massacred their communists because they burned the Reichstag? After all, it was an act of terror, they hid among the population, and "War is Hell". Should the British have blown up residential areas of Ireland when they were hit by the IRA? Or parts of Boston for funding through Noraid? Should the US armed forces have blown up apartment blocks in DC when the sniper was there? Should Israel turn the Palestinian territories into glass with nukes? Or the Russians send tanks into Chechnya? These all are terrorists hiding among civilians and, as you point out "War is Hell". Should the US have nuked Vietnam? France have sent armed divisions into Egypt during the Suez crisis?
So, in short, FUCK YOU. You either stand for being better than the terrorists, or you're just as bad. And if you're just as bad, what the fuck am I fighting to protect? Your attitude brings shame to all of us in the armed forces who want to protect the USA as a state of freedom.
This may have been a Slowloris DoS attack by some patriotic 2600 guy, not necessarily a massive coordinated multinational assault. That perl script is effective on threading web servers including Apache. I just tested it out, took down my badass 100mbps server (just the web server stalling up until the script is aborted) with a dinky server on a DSL line just by opening up a bunch of TCP sockets really really slowly, using less than 20KB/s. That's Tor friendly.
Then I installed mod_qos, tried to attack myself again, no slowdown, problem solved.
If this attack gets the right amount of attention it could turn a lot of people on (4channers mainly who are yapping up Slowlaris as their replacement for LOIC) to DoSing with this software. So for those of you using Apache, you may want to fire up mod_qos (Apache2 instructions). Actually you may want it regardless for general performance purposes.
Calling out bogus battery capacity claims.
And things are starting to come out that are somewhat interesting but what's really fascinating to me is that this is sort of like an archive of the correspondence in World War 2 being opened to the public, only it's for right now, or close to now, a snapshot of the history of the present if you will.
It lets the world see a reflection of itself (though the state-trooper authority sunglasses of US diplomats) and where the path we're on might be leading.
So it might be a historical moment and it might just be that a bunch of people will get pissed off and and it'll blow over.
And I should probably get some sleep because I'm babbling.
n/t
in both countries basically giving the other side a list of whom to kill. So why would anyone want to cooperate with a government whose important documents are being leaked?
Sorry, this guy is only pursuing the US documents because he know the US cannot afford to take him out. Anything happens to him, real or not, gets blamed on the US. Which becomes, take him out because the US gets blamed anyway.
He is doing more damage than good, he went past doing good for others when he indiscriminately releases documents which endanger the lives of others all so he can appear holier than thou.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
After all, we've already heard that Richard Armitage threatened to bomb Pakistan "back to the Stone Age". It's hard for a nuclear power to get any more irresponsible and that is why everyone hates North Korea for speaking in exactly the same way (along with a million other things of course).
The anger is because people will be exposed for what they have done instead of the image they try to project and some may have to face consequences for their actions. I wonder if there is some juicy stuff about embezzlement and bribery in there, with some in the previous administration (eg. Wolfowitz paying his mistress more than Condi Rice) it would come as no suprise.
It's not going to do that since the allied governments know exactly how the USA acts. Even if they didn't, let's consider the example of Israel. The fascists currently running the place had a death squad use fake passports from allied countries as report in all the worlds media and those allies still talk to them. Then there was the incident of piracy on the high seas. Everybody still talks to Israel because they know there is more to the place than one temporary bunch of fascists. In the same way I can't see much changing with relations between the USA and others no matter what turns up. Blind trust of others in diplomacy disappeared after US diplomats found out that Stalin really was as bad as the UK had told them before Yalta.
The US government is at war with the entire world. They are also at war with its own citizens.
They have been fabricating wars for 100 years in order to shape the political landscape as they want, to keep the Lockheed Martin's of the world profitable, to guarantee the permanent supply of expendable puppet third world countries, and to perpetuate the US role as the world's police. A police force that is as corrupt as it gets.
You guys should all read this. It's old, and if you are a valuable human being you surely know perfectly the work of the greatest old fuck in history. But anyway, here it goes. Nobody could have said it better:
George Carlin on American Foreign Policy
ROCKETS AND PENISES IN THE PERSIAN GULF
History Lesson
I'd like to talk a little about the "war" in the Persian Gulf. Biiiiig doin's in
the Persian Gulf. You know my favorite part of that war? It was the first war we
had that was on every channel plus cable. And, the war got good ratings too,
didn't it? Got good ratings! Well, we like war!
We like war, we're a war-like people! We like war because we're good at it! You ... got no steel industry left, can't ... can't get health care to our old people ... but we
know why we're good at it? Because we get a lot of practice. This country's only
200 years old and already we've had ten major wars. We average a major war every
twenty years in this country, so we're good at it! And it's a good thing we
are, we're not very good at anything else anymore! Hah? Can't make a decent car,
can't make a TV set or a VCR worth a fuck
educate our young people
can bomb the shit out of your country
alright!
Especially if your country is full of brown people. Oh, we like that, don't we, ... or we'll goddamn bomb them!
that's our hobby? That's our new job in the world: bombing brown people! Iraq,
Panama, Grenada, Libya - you got some brown people in your country - tell 'em to
watch the fuck out
But when's the last white people you can remember that we bombed, can you
remember -- can you remember ANY white people we've ever bombed? The Germans!
They were the only ones, and that's only because they were trying to cut in on
our action! They wanted to dominate the world - bullshit, that's our fuckin'
job!
Now we only bomb brown people. Not because they're trying to cut in on our
action, just because they're *brown*!
Now you've probably noticed I don't feel about that "war," the way we were told ... the way we were ordered and ... ... my mind doesn't work that way ... I got this real moron
we were supposed to feel about that war
instructed to feel by the United States Government to feel about that war
you see, I tell ya
thing I do - it's called, "thinking," - and I'm not a very good American because
I like to form my own opinions. I don't just "roll over" when I'm told to.
Sad to say most Americans just "roll over" [tchock] on command. Not me - I have
certain rules I live by.
My first rule:
I don't believe anything the government tells me. Nothing. Zero. Nope.
And I don't take very seriously the media or the press in this country, who, in
the case of the Persian Gulf War were nothing more than unpaid employees of the
Department of Defense, and who, most of the time functioned as sort of an
unofficial public relations company for the United States Government.
So, I don't listen to them, I don't *really* believe in my country, and I gotta
tell ya folks, I don't get all choked up about yellow ribbons and American
flags. I consider them to be symbols, and I leave symbols to the symbol-minded.
Me? I look at war a little bit differently. To me war is a lot of prick waving,
ok? Simple thing, that's all it is, war is a whole lot of men standing out in a
field waving their pricks at one another. Men are
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
From TFA: Plans for the coup d'etat in Yanaon, then a small French colony in India, are also believed to have been hatched that on the evening of April 11 1954 but nothing actually happened that night.
Dadala Raphael Ramanayya: Gentlemen, prepare yourselves. This is a great Historical night!!
Dudes: HUZZZAH!
Unpopular post time...
To give an analogy, do you think the civilians on a US aircraft would permit a takeover after 911, given what happened when a takeover was allowed?
I think bombing is far more likely to result in the civilians shunning the insurgents, rather than allowing themselves to be used as cover/hostages.
I know if someone with a box cutter was on my aircraft attempting to take over, I'd rush him, even though I was unarmed, since even a 30% chance of living through it beats a 100% chance of dying from doing nothing as we all fly into the side of a building.
So you send the message: "Places where there are insurgents will be bombed". It may not be a perfect solution, but it's the best one the US has been able to come up with so far.
If you have better ideas, you should contact the Brookings Institute or another think tank whose games theorists are the ones setting US strategic policy via their advice.
Remember, though, that those are the guys who got us through the cold war without everything going up in mushroom clouds, so you'd better be sure you are smarter than they are first.
-- Terry
How about this, wikileaks goes through every page of the report with the help of multiple well established news organizations redacting names of informants.
This will not work.
The economics of news papers these days is such that they can do very little fact checking/redacting/processing of the news information they are handed by wire services and other sources (such as Wikileaks) due to the reduction in budgets which has arisen as dead-tree subscribers have dwindled and their margins have shrunk to near-nothing.
Online subscribers don't tend to work in that economy either, since, at a minimum, it's become a lowest-bid arena, and aggregators who accept advertising (e.g. google, yahoo, msnbc, etc.) will typically put wire services releases up for free.
Wkileaks very much resembles "yet another wire service" to the industry these days.
-- Terry
I thought it was called "being slashdotted".
I rarely respond to comments. Also, don't ask for clarifications: a brain and Google are faster, believe me!
While I personally have the feeling that Wikileaks has more to do with Julian Assange's ego than with freedom of information, I find myself stuck in a paradox with respect to Wikileaks. On the one hand I find it highly offensive and wrong that wikileaks seems to only publish secret information on the US, given to Assange by disgruntled individuals in the US. On the other, I find it great that finally, someone is screwing over the governments like they screwed us over.
However, for Wikileaks to maintain its credibility, it'll need to find someone to give it North Korean state secrets on Kim Jong Il's bong collection, info on Osama Bin Laden's guilty pleasures and Chinese plans for the invasion of Taiwan.
Thing is, there is "unflattering" as in "he is such a douche and his breath stinks", and there is unflattering such as "while he will agree to the terms, I am sure that this will not cause him to halt the executions performed by the secret death-squads we know he backs."
Remember that in political terms, as opposed to normal human interactions, "unflattering" is a weasel-word.
"I just got out of negotiations with Junta Bob and he does not seem trustworthy."
"I am sure that we are being stalled by the crown prince, he cannot possibly be unaware of the recent police action since the police chief reports to him directly."
"Abdulla is a figurehead propped up by the sole will of the Tribunal for Religious Purity, and has no actual ability to act in this situation."
All of these and countless other kinds of vital truths are quite "unflattering" to the persons these truths name, and yet the _are_ vital truths that must be communicated for related issues to be addressed.
Political situations are almost universally outside the "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" rule, because politics, human rights, and brokering are completely unnecessary when people on all sides are already being "nice". Nice People(TM) don't _have_ death squads, so saying someone has death-squads is not nice, but if they in fact _do_ have death squads it would be unutterably wrong for that information to be held private by some single political officer in the field in the name of being nice to Junta Bob.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Too damn bad for the US government. If they were truly acting in a respectable and honest manner, this "leak" wouldn't be such a big deal. If you act in such a way that you have to keep secrets - even from your own citizens which you are representing then, and these "leaks" will ruin relationships with fellow countries, that that to me says that this is a government not worth supporting or being in power.
if something is abused THAT much, it means that it doesnt work.
Read radical news here
Instead of putting up the actual news, the editors just went straight to the news on the ensuing /. effect.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
and it doesn't matter what another country uses to attempt to defeat that secrecy,
noone is 'attempting' to defeat any secrecy. since 1970s, all kinds of secrets, including hourly rotation schedules of border guards, came out, thanks to increasing electronic surveillance methods and spy satellites. not to mention the spy networks and private interest networks becoming a lot more entangled worldwide.
now everyone knows what everyone else is doing, EXCEPT citizens.
Read radical news here