WikiLeaks Starts Mass Mirroring Effort

A beautiful mind writes "WikiLeaks is asking for hosting space on Unix-based servers. The replication is implemented by a rsync+ssh based push that copies static files to a known path, authenticated via the private half of this public key. The complete website is a few GB in size, making it feasible to replicate on a large scale. The mirror list will be published when the number of independent mirrors reaches 50." Note: wikileaks.ch seems to be down for the moment, but eventually the above links may require that instead of 213.251.145.96. See also this WikiLeaks address finder. And for even more news, try this Twitter search.

Comments

Make it static.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Lower the barrier of entry even further, and just throw up a torrent or ten of static files which can be hosted anywhere, without fear of compromising your own server.

Re:Make it static.

[geminidomino]

If they're just mirroring what's currently on the site then most of the cables stuff is not there

Are you high, or just engaged in the most inept disinformation campaign since the Iraqi WMDs? It took me all of 30 seconds to go to the site and pull up the list of the cables. 10 more seconds let me pull up 5 of them to verify that the links work.

Re:Make it static.

[Dan East]

Exactly. I do not like what Wikileaks has done, but even so I can be the devil's advocate, and say that EVERYONE should be pissed at Assange. Those that want the information to be free should be very concerned that Assange wants to release it piece meal, ramp up the drama and attention to him and his site as much as possible, and provide commentary (aka judgment) regarding the information. All this is doing is giving time for him and his site to be taken down. The US may move rather slowly and clumsily over these sorts of affairs, having to check the legality of this and that and get allies involved, etc, but given enough time, there's a good chance they will be able to get Assange on something.

The files should ALL be placed online, in a distributed manner, and be done with. Not be Assange's little plaything to manipulate and play around with. Really, this guy has a major ego / power complex, and it will cost him eventually.

Re:Make it static.

[causality]

Exactly. I do not like what Wikileaks has done, but even so I can be the devil's advocate, and say that EVERYONE should be pissed at Assange. Those that want the information to be free should be very concerned that Assange wants to release it piece meal, ramp up the drama and attention to him and his site as much as possible, and provide commentary (aka judgment) regarding the information. All this is doing is giving time for him and his site to be taken down. The US may move rather slowly and clumsily over these sorts of affairs, having to check the legality of this and that and get allies involved, etc, but given enough time, there's a good chance they will be able to get Assange on something.

The files should ALL be placed online, in a distributed manner, and be done with. Not be Assange's little plaything to manipulate and play around with. Really, this guy has a major ego / power complex, and it will cost him eventually.

I was going to make a post saying it's rather poor planning to only just now realize the necessity of a de-centralized distribution model... but I think your explanation gets closer to the heart of it. Unfortunately people with the very best of intentions can exhibit the kind of ego you're describing. It doesn't even have to be a deliberate act of self-glorification; it's more like a default state one can overcome.

Re:Make it static.

[Sir_Lewk]

Wikileak's stated intention is to release these cables all over a period of several months because "doing them all at once would not do justice to them" (paraphrased).

Now what they could (and supposedly have) do is release all the cables in an encrypted format, continue to release them in batches as they are currently doing, and leak the key if there is ever a problem. Supposedly this is what their "insurance" file from a while ago is for.

Re:Make it static.

[Charliemopps]

He has to release it a bit at a time. The fact of the matter is, they have many many huge stories. If they release several bombshell issues at once, they are likely to have some of them ignored by the media because they'll just go after the most sensational stuff. They are playing the media like they should play the media.

Re:Make it static.

[icebraining]

What you can attention seeking, I would call covering his ass. He's much protected if he's a "personality" than unknown.

Also, the info has been coming out anyway, regardless of attacks and pressures, so I'm not sure what's the problem with the slow release. It's not like they can't release it faster if the need comes. For all we know, it may only need a couple KBs to all be released: the key to Insurance.aes256.

Re:Make it static.

[icebraining]

Next, I'd spam the torrent sites with dozens of "Wikileaks" torrents, all containing my disinformation. When you download one of these torrents, how do you know it's real?

Sign the files and tell the key publicly?

Re:Make it static.

[Sir_Lewk]

non-paraphrased:

Why not release everything now?

The embassy cables will be released in stages over the next few months. The subject matter of these cables is of such importance, and the geographical spread so broad, that to do otherwise would not do this material justice.

We owe it to the people who entrusted us with the documents to ensure that there is time for them to be written about, commented on and discussed widely in public, something that is impossible if hundreds of thousands of documents are released at once. We will therefore be releasing the documents gradually over the coming weeks and months.

Re:Make it static.

[RAMMS EIN]

Another point of view is that WikiLeaks had best inspect what they release, and do their best to prevent putting lives at risk, especially those of innocent bystanders and those who are working for the greater good. They're damned if they do and damned if they don't: if they take their time to filter and redact, they are delaying and possibly twisting the truth, but if they don't do that, they are irresponsible.

Re:Make it static.

[copponex]

Assange has done more for Democracy, as in the right of people to direct the actions of their government, than the entire Western world has done since WWII. That's why the United States government is so pissed off: it despises the right of people to know what their government is up to with their tax dollars. It didn't want Pakistanis to know of their government's complicity in the drone strikes. It didn't want to admit that the puppet government in Afghanistan was riddled with corruption, even though the State Department has been aware of this fact since the beginning. Just like it didn't want it getting out that we have been systematically destroying democratic institutions, from Iran to Vietnam to Argentina to Palestine, because reality might upset some of it's electorate.

Sure, Assange is kind of a douchebag. You don't think Patrick Henry was? Churchill? However, the marketing ploy of providing this narrative and stringing along the releases has kept this in the news far longer than the previous leaks. It's unfortunate that the mass media, which is owned by corporations, has no self-interest in the truth anymore. But the last hole that can be exploited is the desire to keep their ratings up, and he has done well to exploit this weakness in the system.

If COINTEL PRO had been leaked in the same dramatic fashion, perhaps more people would remember it. The fourth estate is broken. It's going to take soap opera narratives with entertainment value targeted at the masses in order to fix it, which is a hell of a lot better than another war.

The stage is now set to hopefully expose Bank of America or some other major institution for fraud and corruption. Personally, Assange is the only douchebag I would trust with that information. Everyone else in the media are compromised. They are fools, cowards, and intellectual prostitutes.

Re:Make it static.

[Sir_Lewk]

Correction: By releasing them in small batches, they are ensuring that each story gets the attention it deserves .

Any shitstorm that results from this isn't at the hands of wikileaks, but at the hands of those who actually caused the shitstorm. The people the cables are about.

Re:Make it static.

[leehwtsohg]

Just to remind you - these latest cables are just the last and probably most significant of a huge list of things that wikileaks released. Look at the "all leaks archived" link on the wikileaks site for an incredible list of torrents of all the leaks that wikileaks already did, some of which already had great influence in some countries/companies (iceland, peru, australia...). It is not all about the US.

I think that they are releasing the data so slowly, because there are many parts in it that have to be digested slowly - see for example the media flare up going on in spain because of the released documents, the clusterbombs issues in the UK, the anger in germany over the 15% overhead taken by the US army, etc. If it was all released in a day, such issues would be buried among hundreds of others of similar importance.

Re:Make it static.

[The Living Fractal]

The US may then benefit from attempting to crack the encrypted cables and releasing them all at once -- since they certainly can't eliminate them all now that they have been decentralized.

Or, simply put, the US may not care very much. I haven't seen anything released that is a big surprise.

Re:Make it static.

[JWSmythe]

    It'd be easy enough to throw a VM like VirtualBox on your machine, assuming you have full control over it. I do it for something that simply wouldn't install on a couple machines I have. You could give him access, and all he/they would have access to is that virtual machine.

    There are larger risks though. How long until the feds come knocking on your door. That's not just US based, you could likely have your nations law enforcement seizing all of your equipment. Even if they didn't, I'm sure the DDoS attacks will come back. They may be by some kid in a country you've never heard of, some militant group, or by governments around the world trying to suppress the information. A DDoS from seemingly random locations is a lot easier to pull off and a lot more anonymous than a court order to seize property.

    I thought about mirroring his stuff. I actually did, but it's not available to anyone else yet. I can't weigh the continuity of my own sites and freedom, versus the need to get his information of dubious sources out to the general public.

    I do believe in free speech, and I believe he should be allowed to run with it. Hell, there are plenty of conspiracy nuts out there, that put up all kinds of anti-government propaganda. The pressures being put against him are only serving to make it clear that there is some truth to what he's putting out there.

Re:Make it static.

[Sir_Lewk]

he's not the dictatorial leader of wikileaks that everyone imagines. I wish there was both a way to verify this and a way to disseminate the info so that everybody else would realise

While true, it is not in wikileaks interest for this to become commonly known. Assange's job is to be the shit-shield for wikileaks, while everybody wastes their time hurling smear campaigns and arrest warrants against him, wikileaks is able to continue it's mission as before.

Do you notice the dozens and dozens of replies to every wikileaks article that follow the general form: "I wouldn't be opposed to wikileaks, but Assange is a [tool/jerk/douche/rapist/spy/...]"? That is wikileaks strategy in action. Since you are in on the truth, feel free to laugh at them :)

Re:Make it static.

[Skal Tura]

Thank god i live and was born in Finland. Freedom of speech seems to still be somewhat appreciated around here - and people know that i host Wikileaks mirrors. If i disappear mysticiously, several hundred people will know really fast, and they will tell their friends and so on - a full blown media frenzy fast, if anything happens. Operating a rather large hosting company for our niche has it's benefits too ;)

So i'm not afraid, and i trust that if there was life endangering information Assange and his team have censored that bit. In the earlier leaks there was huge concern of such, but i saw articles that there was nothing which endangered lives directly.

But i do know this: What the US banks are doing *NEEDS* and *HAS TO* be released publicly. It seems so likely they are doing quite a fraud, apart from what's already visible (tax payers bailing them out).

Yes, i am quite a bit feeling like checking the "Post Anonymously" box, but that only goes to show that governments are not serving citizens anymore! Governments should be afraid of citizens, not vice-versa. and drawing to the comfort that i do happen to live in Finland, a neutral country, and for the most part our government wants to do the right thing. Let alone that our president isn't afraid to be aggressive to voice her and our governments opinion if she sees wrong doing, even if it hasn't anything to do directly with us. Yes, Finland is a weird tiny big country.

Re:Make it static.

[martin-boundary]

Without privacy there is no diplomacy and without diplomacy there are wars.

No. Diplomacy requires communication between states, not privacy. It's far easier to communicate in private, but it's categorically not necessary.

Moreover, it's hyperbolic to imply that wars are caused whenever a few diplomats get to be embarrassed. Remember the proverb for want of a nail...? The chain of causality you're proposing in this instance is as naive as that song.

In a democracy, the government's business is public and transparent. That's the social contract, and the constraint that diplomats should be expected to abide by it. If they can't, then maybe it's time they retire.

Re:Make it static.

[copponex]

You really think we didn't know there is complicity with Pakistan on the drones

The United States and Pakistan denied that. Specifically, they denied earlier reports that a private military force from Blackwater/Xe was operating in that country without the knowledge of many people in the American and Pakistani governments, and certainly their citizens. This proves that they were both lying to their constituents. At what point on the road to fascism would you like to stop?

How about this? Did Assange provide leaks...

I'm not chasing any red herrings today, thanks.

Everyone has their own agenda, and diplomacy is the art of navigating those agendas without the consent of your citizenry, and often in direct opposition to their interests.

Fixed that for you.

Without privacy there is no diplomacy and without diplomacy there are wars.

The only thing preventing me from believing that is the entirety of modern history. If diplomacy wasn't built on lies, it wouldn't break down and cause war all of the time. If everyone knew that that Saddam Hussein was a US henchman, there would be no public support for the Iraq War in 2003. (Support had to be manufactured from forged documents obtained diplomatically from Britain.) If everyone knew that Saudi Arabia was the leading funder of Al Qaeda, we wouldn't be in Afghanistan. We wouldn't have just sold Saudi Arabia sixty billion dollars in advanced weaponry.

Lets tape all your private conversations...

Let's establish first that my private conversations and intimate relationships are responsible for death, destruction, and the soiling of Constitutional principles. They are called public servants for a fucking reason.

I have no problem with Assange and what he is trying to do in the name of openness. His approach seems to be lets shoot for idealism no matter who it fucks. I am not saying the approach is bad, but it is naive to blindly believe it will have positive results.

Right now the world is shooting for greed no matter who it fucks. I'd rather be committed to ideals.

This fucking realpolitik is astounding from the mouths of Americans. You have no reason to plead fealty to power, but you choose to do it out of sheer cowardice and apathy. Apparently your civil liberties will have to be entirely destroyed before you value them again.

Re:Make it static.

[grcumb]

The US may then benefit from attempting to crack the encrypted cables and releasing them all at once....

I suspect that the US already has them in unencrypted form. 8^)

Re:Make it static.

[the eric conspiracy]

Assange has done more for Democracy, as in the right of people to direct the actions of their government, than the entire Western world has done since WWII.

So you think this is more important than say the Berlin Airlift, the Korean Police Action, the US involvement in the Greek Civil War, the Brussels Pact, the establishment of NATO, SEATO and the UN, the strategic arms limitation treaties, the opening of China/US diplomatic relations, the founding of the Solidarity Union, and the fall of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany. Combined.

Poppycock.

Re:Make it static.

[Jafafa Hots]

The response to Wikileaks demonstrates that governments ARE afraid of citizens. That's why they've done everything possible to keep us from having access to any information or tools to do anything about what we learn.

Re:Make it static.

[PopeRatzo]

I was going to make a post saying it's rather poor planning to only just now realize the necessity of a de-centralized distribution model.

I think the most important part of wikileaks is not so much the content of the leaks, but the reaction of people in power to them.

We have learned more about the connection between corporation and the power in the past week than we have in the past several years.

While the content of the Citibank leaks will be most interesting, the all-out scramble to stop Wikileaks and jail Assange that started the day after it was announced that the next document dump would be from Citibank tells us a whole lot about where the power really lies in this world, and who's really in charge. It also shows just how much of what passes for "government" and "sovereign nation" is nothing but theater to keep us entertained while those that really rule the world execute their agenda. The way they took down wikileaks, severed their connection to donations and continue to play whack-a-mole with a website shows just how meaningless our "rule of law" really is when they really want to get rid of something and cover up some information about their activities.

How fitting that Interpol should issue arrest warrants for Julian Assange and former Vice President Dick Cheney within 24 hours of each other. As I've said before, one of those two men was guilty of leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent and only one of those men has the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians on his hands. I wonder if Interpol will spend the same resources executing the arrest warrant on Cheney as they will on Assange. So an admitted traitor and war criminal can act with impunity but someone who simply publishes a web site of documents that other people provide is considered Public Enemy No 1.

The Wikileaks Saga is an amazing story, and its just starting. There is the possibility, however remote, that the world can be a changed place because of Wikileaks.

As Assange quoted Theodore Roosevelt: "“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people...To destroy this invisible government, to befoul this unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of statesmanship.”

Re:Make it static.

[Zancarius]

It's not so much that the US think little of some European leaders that's the "scandal". That was to be expected, ok? Duh, you could see it in the way they act.

The humorous thing to me, and I'm speaking as an American here, is that the paranoia of the TSA makes a great deal more sense when taken under the context of the WikiLeaks info. If our leadership is this insanely paranoid about other nations, it makes me wonder what they've been saying internally (within our border) about average Americans ("they're all terrorists!"). That's stuff we'll probably never find out, but if it's anything like what's been released...

Like many others, I really wasn't all that surprised with what the WikiLeaks data contained. The releases concerning Iraqi "abuse" were largely just a reflection of the Sunni/Shia split post hand-over and the US forces turning a blind eye (though, really, what could be done once you've officially handed something over?). The more significant abuses (think Abu Ghraib) were fairly well covered by the media and were leaked shortly after discovery; lesser ones, like what was in these leaks, weren't really as bad as some sources claimed. Though, the diplomatic wires were laughable and explain a great deal about what the idiot State Department seems to think of our own allies. Suffice it to say: The only thing that surprises me is how long we kept this under wraps.

Now, ultimately, there's only one person in this world who deserves the justice he'll soon face, and that's the guy who was entrusted with this information who leaked it to Assange. I'm afraid though that this entire effort to arrest Assange is essentially an elaborate witch hunt, because someone, somewhere really wants to shoot the messenger.

I've generally been quite supportive of the US (it's my home after all), but I think we deserve a bit of international embarrassment with the inane antics we've been playing. I can't say we didn't have it coming.

America: We fondle our citizens and make fun of your leaders.

Re:Make it static.

[Archangel Michael]

Well, so far, all the stories I've seen lately are *YAWN* boring. Stuff is mostly the same kind of stuff I used to assume existed, *YAWN* . Most of this stuff doesn't affect me much in any way shape or form, *YAWN*.

And I find all of this to be a big distraction as Obama and the TSA are increasing their Gestapo tactics at airports, trainstations and what not, which DOES affect more Americans every day.

And most of the info coming out doesn't hurt the US as much as Assange would like it to. Most of the Cables coming out don't play well elsewhere. About the only thing critical of the US is that now we're proven we can't keep secrets very well. But most of this info is probably not all that secret anyways (except to the public). The public doesn't really care much about them so ... *YAWN*.

Re:Make it static.

[PopeRatzo]

he's doing the release in a way to cause the most damage.

Whatever Assange's motivation, it seems to me that the way he's releasing them is doing the most good.

Our only hope at this point is to disrupt the race by corporatists to create a world feudal state. If you don't believe that the goal is to create a feudal state, just look at the change in US society since Ronald Reagan. Our corporatist puppet government is actually in the process of letting millions of American families fall into poverty so that people making more than $250,000.00 per year won't have to go back to paying the same taxes they paid during the 1990's, a decade that was so kind to the rich. We have a political party that has promised that nothing will be done, and the government may shut down unless the most prosperous get to keep the reduced tax rate that George W Bush gave them a decade ago, a reduction that increased the deficit by nearly a trillion dollars.

In 1979, the top 2 percent of the population owned 10% of the nation's wealth. Today, it's over 50%. Even more shocking is the fact that the bottom 40% (FORTY PERCENT) own exactly 0% of the nation's wealth. That's a feudal society. So maybe the US middle class won't have as much money to spend on consumer goods, so they just move on to China where they're just now starting to give out the credit cards. And the Chinese leaders are just pushing their population down the chute to the economic killing floor. The cycle of "middle class growth, middle class collapse, feudalism" that took the better part of a century in the US will take just a few decades in China.

Just think of the amazing story that got lost in the shuffle last week about the audit of the Fed and the huge sums that were given to companies like Verizon. Bailouts for companies that didn't need bailouts, just because. And they're going to pay for it with cuts in Social Security and health care for elderly.

It can't be disrupted fast enough.

Re:Make it static.

[Zancarius]

The only thing preventing me from believing that is the entirety of modern history. If diplomacy wasn't built on lies, it wouldn't break down and cause war all of the time. If everyone knew that that Saddam Hussein was a US henchman, there would be no public support for the Iraq War in 2003. (Support had to be manufactured from forged documents obtained diplomatically from Britain.) If everyone knew that Saudi Arabia was the leading funder of Al Qaeda, we wouldn't be in Afghanistan. We wouldn't have just sold Saudi Arabia sixty billion dollars in advanced weaponry.

I agree with your assertion of Saudi Arabia. I do, however, feel that you're greatly over simplifying the matter with Hussein. Remember: Many of these individuals were the result of US relations in the area largely due to the USSR and the Cold War. Yes, it came back to bite us, but sometimes such policies are generally short sighted at best. I realize that this is how it appears to be today, but it's often very important to take things into the context of history at the time in which they occurred.

Other than that, I generally agree.

You have no reason to plead fealty to power, but you choose to do it out of sheer cowardice and apathy. Apparently your civil liberties will have to be entirely destroyed before you value them again.

Two or three months ago, I would have dismissed you as mildly angsty. Two years ago, I would have dismissed you as insane.

Today, I feel that you're exactly correct. The biggest problem we have here in the US is that the majority of people don't give a damn about anything, so long as they get a pay check, can put food on the table, and can drive to work in the morning. I was sincerely hoping that the idiocy that occurred with the TSA would shock my fellow countrymen into realizing that our government is pushing us closer and closer toward tyranny. This Thanksgiving holiday proved my hope to be misplaced. No one cares.

We have a Constitution--it's the supreme law of the land--but we're ignoring it, our leaders are trampling it, and our judges are dismissing it as invalid. So yes, you're absolutely right. Americans are losing their civil rights every day. Worse, most people actively and openly express that they feel this is a good thing.

You know what really bugs me, though? I was reading the ACLU's response to the TSA stuff, and someone commented on there: "I don't care what they do as long as I'm safe."

I think that should tell you everything you need to know. This is why I feel the WikiLeaks situation is really quite entertaining. It humors me to watch my leadership squirm.

Re:Make it static.

[Kiuas]

Governments should be afraid of citizens, not vice-versa. and drawing to the comfort that i do happen to live in Finland, a neutral country, and for the most part our government wants to do the right thing. Let alone that our president isn't afraid to be aggressive to voice her and our governments opinion if she sees wrong doing, even if it hasn't anything to do directly with us. Yes, Finland is a weird tiny big country.

For the most part I agree, the goverment is trying its best. But right now, the current ministers, especialy our minister of information, are slowly forgetting or things like ignoring freedom of speech. The fact that some pages are still being censorerd in the make of "preventing the spreading of child pornography" (even though most of the pages censored do not actually contain child pornigraphy, or pornography of any kind) and that they allow things like the "lex nokia" (effectively allowing not only corporations, but also some private organisations such as housing companies to monitor the network usage and emails of ther members) - though it hasn't apparently been used since it passed - proves that many people in the current goverment have seemingly forgotten the importance of these fundamental rights. Also, Finland has been repeatedly fined for breaking the EU articles on freedom of press and speech (note: link in finnish).

And our president hasn't said a thing about these issues - nor for example the fact that Finland is one of the few remaining countries ehere one can still be fined for blasphemy (a law, which has been used a couple times even in the 21st century). And with the current presidential powers being what they are, it wouldn't make a one damn difference. The office of the president under the current constitution is akin to the king of the Swedes: a public figure. All the concrete power rests in the hands of the prime minister, who also has done or said nothing to defend a citizen's right to freedom of speech and expression.

In the upcoming elections next year, none of the major parties have so far informed that they would be focussing on these kind of issues. And why would the? Taxation, budget and immigration are the "hot topics" here like in most western countries so they are what's being used to entice voters. I like being a Finn living here, I think this is a great country and that our educatioon system for exmpale is probably one of the best if not the best in the world. And the political system is beyond repair yet - the major parties just really need a wake up call; a snap on their fingers to remind them that they cannot keep slowly chiselling away our personal freedoms while we're distacted. They need to be shown that this is not the US of A (no offense to any americans) and we won't swallow any "patriot acts" they try to push down our trhoats and that in the spirit of true democracy we will throw them out the door of the senate if they do.

That's why, if you're like me and are truly worried and care about thigns such as freedom of speech, I advice you to consider strongly about not voting any of the major parties in the next elections. Instead, I'd recommedn voting for the Finnish Pirate Party which is not by any means only a party concerned with torrenst and p2p like many unfortunately think - if you check their themes and core values from the site you will notice that personal liberties and freedoms are infact their key points along with de-criminalization of piracy for personal use. They have many candidates focussed primarily on the personal freedoms.

So yes, we're still a great nation. But by no means perfect. So please, for the sake of all of us, stop thinking that we're flawless and vote for somebody who doesn't think that it's a good idea to censor the net abd limit personal freedoms because child pornography is EVIL or because we don't want t

Re:Make it static.

[dysfunct]

Go look at the cables. It'll only be a problem if your name is xxxx xxxxxxx.

Re:Make it static.

[tycoex]

Since when were we supposed to consider the government and/or giant corporations our friend(s)?

Re:Make it static.

[copponex]

Let's go through your list:

1. Berlin Airlift - Saved 2 million residents from going hungry, which was fallout from the partitioning of Europe between WWII allies

2. Korean Police Action - Do you think North Koreans or Chinese have more freedoms today? Is there more suffering in rural China than in the DPRK?

3. Greek Civil War - How is foreign government intervention democratic when the result is a dictatorship?

4. Brussels Pact/NATO: currently the occupying force of Afghanistan.

5. SEATO? The one that didn't do shit about Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, East Timor...?

6. UN: Would be great if the United States would accept it's legitimacy. Right now it's just the chessboard upon which the Great Game is played.

7. The strategic arms limitation treaties: I don't think the West gets credit for cleaning up the mess it created by escalating nuclear proliferation, like secretly allowing Pakistan to develop nukes.

8. the opening of China/US diplomatic relations: which only really happened after Tiananmen Square, once China proved it had the will and the capability to kill it's own citizens to keep business going. Hardly the diamond of democratic progress you're looking for.

9. the founding of the Solidarity Union: Perhaps the only real success story of the Cold War. Too bad anything supportive of unions is out of vogue with US propaganda.

10. the fall of the Soviet Union and reunification: for every country liberated by the fall of the iron curtain, the west destroyed at least one trying to subvert the spread of communism through clandestine military action

Let's go through my list:
50s
- Coup of democratic governments in: Iran, Guatemala
- Attempted coups in Laos, Vietnam
- Support of Duvalier over democratic movements in Haiti

60s
- War in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos
- Coups and assassinations in: Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Greece, Congo, Brazil, Indonesia
- Attempted coup in Cuba

70s
- War in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, East Timor
- Coups and assassinations in Chile, Angola, El Salvador, Nicaragua
- Escalation of Afghan War

80s
- War in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama
- Coups and assassinations in: Columbia, Panama, Haiti, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador

90s
- Coups and assassinations in: Haiti
- War in Iraq

00s
- War in Iraq, Afghanistan
- Military strikes in Pakistan, Yemen

This is not the whole list, does not touch military and diplomatic support, and does not touch weapons sales.

Re:Make it static.

[dch24]

I suppose Wikileaks is already aware of the possibility they may dissapear, and knows exactly how to take advantage of decentralized distribution.

• http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/wikileaks-insurance-file/
• http://erictric.com/2010/12/04/what-does-the-wikileaks-history-insurance-file-contain/

Re:Make it static.

[Anonymous Coward]

If diplomacy wasn't built on lies, it wouldn't break down and cause war all of the time.

People lie.

It sucks, but it happens. Husbands lie to wives. Parents lie to children. Friends lie to friends. Strangers lie to people they've never met. And groups lie to other groups all the time.

That's part of how society works.

Open, complete honesty doesn't make everyone get along. If I tell someone right to their face that I think they are a complete scumbag, their reaction is not going to be peaceful. If I tell my boss that the project is delayed because I have to completely redo his sloppy work and everyone thinks he's a joke, I'm not getting a bonus next month. And if I tell the missus that yes, that dress does make her posterior seem enlarged, I'm not getting any. Sometimes lies are wicked, and sometimes they are just being polite. Yes, I'm lying when I tell the lady in question that she looks beautiful in that terrible dress, but the ends rather justify the means of that minor distortion of the truth.

Now, that's not exactly a fair comparison to national diplomacy in life or death circumstances, but consider this: if your option is to be completely and utterly honest, which will result in your embassy being thrown out of the country almost immediately, or to lie a little bit and retain your position and perhaps exert a little influence, which choice are you going to make? If you have the option to deceive the masses to stop a war, is that truth worth more than the hundreds or thousands of lives that would be lost in the conflict? If protecting your nation means covering something up, are you willing to throw the country you serve under a bus for token idealism?

It's far from perfect, but life is far from perfect. Sometimes, people simply can't afford to be honest. Diplomats fall right into that category, because all they have are words and influence. That means getting along with people, and they can't do that if they are brutally honest and shout every private conversation to the world.

Re:Make it static.

[sumdumass]

All you have to do is state some objective other then benefiting yourself and you can be a complete asshat and pretty much get away with it.

It's not about levels of harm or to whom the harm is directed, it's about token gestures to absolve your own guilt or complicity. It's why some politicians can just say "I'm sorry" and everything is all right while others have to quit public service altogether for relatively the same crap. It's kind of petty but it satisfies some people and allows them to reconcile their guilt pretty easily.

Re:Make it static.

[Ihmhi]

Honestly? I wouldn't worry too much about disappearing. You'd have to be a madman to fuck with Finland.

Re:Make it static.

[ljw1004]

That sounds like a US perspective. I think the cables have all reflected very well on the US, as expected, and confirmed that it's a responsible decent world power.

The scandals we're seeing is more about FOREIGN governments who have been lying to their people. Some of us suspected they lied some of the time, but I don't think we knew about how much, and I don't think we knew about all the instances of it.

I didn't know about Yemen government lying to its people. I didn't know about UK government lying to parliament about cluster bombs. The German news was enough to cause a resignation. Wikileak's Kenyan news a few years ago was enough to cause a revolution, basically -- rioting and protests that led the corrupt government to collapse.

Re:Make it static.

[oWj9*7!7dsggh7]

The humorous thing to me, and I'm speaking as an American here, is that the paranoia of the TSA makes a great deal more sense when taken under the context of the WikiLeaks info.

That reminds me of something Terry Gilliam said in his comments on the Criterion Collection edition of Brazil: that he had intended it as satire, but after September 11th, it had begun to look like reality.

Re:Make it static.

[budgenator]

Once the students left and the office door closed, the teacher would open her desk drawer and with a shaking hand give me horrifying photos of disinterred bodies. The Timorese resistance would dig up the fresh graves of torture victims, take photos for evidence, and pass them through their underground networks to this teacher, who would then get them out of the country through me and other diplomats. ... The third most common topic in the WikiLeaks cables is human rights, with American diplomats doing the same thing we were trying to do in Indonesia: Make the world a little better.

That’s hard to swallow for the cyber mob that is celebrating the embarrassment being inflicted on the U.S. government this week. But the damage done to Washington is nothing compared to the pain that is about to be inflicted on the confidential sources in Russia, China and Sudan.
WikiLeaks just made the world more repressive

Those informants are real people, many actually doing what wikileaks is supposed to be doing.

Re:Make it static.

[ljw1004]

"I think you look great in that dress".

"We the government think the best way to run a democracy is to systematically lie to the electorate".

It's ludicrous to compare the two. Also you missed the middle ground between "uncontrolled verbal diarrhea of opinions" and "deliberately tell outright factual lies".

Re:Make it static.

[DragonWriter]

"We owe it to the people who entrusted us with the documents"

So they're concerned about the people who leaked the documents, but not about the people who could be killed because of them?

Read in the full context from which you excerpted that quote, that is very clearly a part of an expression that is saying that the information itself is important enough that they don't want most of it getting ignored by the media because its all in one big dump, so in the short period in which the "dump" is news, no one actually gets to most of the material.

You may, of course, disagree with WikiLeaks evaluation of whether the information being released is that important for the public to know (so far, most of what has gotten covered in the media hasn't seemed that important to me, but I haven't gotten reviewed the raw data myself and I certainly wouldn't be surprised if the media was not focussing on the most important bits) but deliberately distorting the argument being made doesn't advance your case well, especially in a forum where the context is readily available.

Re:Make it static.

[tobiah]

"How fitting that Interpol should issue arrest warrants for Julian Assange and former Vice President Dick Cheney within 24 hours of each other."

Nigeria has just suggested they would request an arrest warrant through Interpol, in regards to an ongoing bribery investigation regarding oil and gas rights. Haliburton paid out about $600million in a settlement for this case, so there's something to it, but I really doubt there's going to be an arrest warrant.

Re:Make it static.

[cpricejones]

Unfortunately, sometimes "the most good" is not what is good for the U.S. (or so it's leaders would have you believe). More information is almost always a good thing provided that the earpiece can intelligibly sift through it. What Wikileaks has reemphasized is the power of the new technology in aiding information flow and the hilariously bad decision it was for the U.S. to information share post 9/11.

Re:Make it static.

[benjamindees]

I think the most important part of wikileaks is not so much the content of the leaks, but the reaction of people in power to them.

Exactly. If you didn't know 90% of the stuff in those leaks already, then you aren't going to learn anything from it being placed on some distributed servers somewhere and emanated via a thousand blogs and newspaper back-pages. You're going to learn it when there's a name and a face going around giving television interviews and provoking a backlash both from the established powers and from the ignorant public that maintains them. From what I have seen, Assange has done a deliberate and masterful job of attention-whoring for his cause.

Re:Make it static.

[IICV]

If that author had made a better case than "here's an emotional story; therefore Wikileaks is bad", then maybe you would have a point.

As it is, the bit about torture victims is a non-sequitor, and honestly I don't see how Wikileaks releasing these cables affects it. Let's just follow the chain of reasoning through, shall we?

1. The journalist meets with the school teacher and receives the torture photos
2. The journalist cables the torture photos back to Canada
3. Canada uses the torture photos as leverage to make the torture stop
4. Wikileaks releases the torture cables.
5. The journalist is kicked out of the country
7. The Canadian embassy is burned down
6. Canada uses the fact that the journalist was kicked out of the country and their embassy was burned down as more leverage, because now everyone knows what the country was doing.

I can't imagine how it would work out the way the author thinks it would - but then, he's used to doing things secretly, and not in the open. Do you think cockroaches understand the benefits of sunlight?

Re:Make it static.

[Max_W]

You do not understand. Julian Assange wants to show the real situation with the freedom of press. He, like Alexander Solzhenitsyn, decided "to live not by lies". He is not like you and me, he is taking a stand, fighting for the truth. Even if this truth is extremely unpleasant and even destructive.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn motto was: [Zhit ne po lzhi.] "Live not by lies.". He also broke some laws of that time, he had to go through horrors of GULAG, but such people, Like Alexander Solzhenitsyn or Julian Assange, cannot be frightened. They are the pillars of humanity.

Re:Make it static.

[Minix]

I think it's easy enough to understand *this*:

"It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them."

Re:Make it static.

[AGMW]

... And most of the info coming out doesn't hurt the US as much as Assange would like it to. ...

There seems to be a general assumption that Assange is Quixotically tilting at the US. That's not my perception at all.
WikiLeaks has been given some interesting documents for publication and they are making them public, as per the wishes of the donor! It just so happens some of them are about the US.

Now if people were to suggest that the donor of the US Specific documents was having a go at the US there may be a better case for it, but much like all the fuss in the UK over the MPs Expenses malarky, I could equally validly suggest that having seen the cancer of corruption within the government(corporation, whatever) it is the whistleblower's duty as a citizen(employee, whatever) to provide the sharpest knife to allow the corruption to be cut out!

Indeed, given the knowledge that there is something rotten in your government it could be considered treason if you didn't do something about it!

We, as the public, should stop focusing on Assange as a figurehead (who set himself up as such because of the effort being expended by those outed to discover the people behind WikiLeaks and he thought it better to provide a target than have them discover their own!) and rather concentrate on the information WikiLeaks provides.

Well done to WikiLeaks! In general, you are providing a valuable service to every nation affected because that dirty laundry needs airing and the longer it is allowed to fester the worse it will smell!

Re:Make it static.

[Xelios]

WikiLeaks also promises its sources that it will work to get "maximum impact" for whatever they provide. If you're risking life imprisonment for "treason" by giving WikiLeaks internal documents then this actually means a lot. Nobody wants to take that risk only to have their work forgotten by the media after a couple of days. WikiLeaks knows that by staggering the release like this and keeping the media interested they'll encourage others to take that risk too.

"The promise that we make to our sources is not only will we defend them through every means that we have available, technological and legally and politically," said Assange calmly, "but we will try and get the maximum possible political impact for the material that they give to us, and..." There, Colbert interrupted. "So 'collateral murder' is to get political impact?" Assange responded by saying, "Yes, Absolutely." Source

Re:Make it static.

[MRe_nl]

It's not called "the Prince", it's called "the Ruler" ("Il principe").

Re:Make it static.

[moonbender]

Dozens or hundreds of people are getting killed around the world every day either directly by or because of their association with Western forces. We're indirectly responsible for thousands of more deaths for various reasons. We'll sell guns to whoever the fuck wants them and don't give a shit when they shoot each other. And suddenly people discover their conscience because US human intelligence "assets" are involved? Yeah, right.

Re:Make it static.

[PopeRatzo]

You're right, the arrest warrant on Dick "Mr Burns" Cheney is pending. I want to see what excuse they will come up with to Nigeria for not issuing it.

Re:Make it static.

[johanw]

They shouldn't. I want to know who the traitors are who help US occupation forces. In my country, those who helped the Germans in WW2 had a problem too when they became known.

Other countries?

[steeleyeball]

They should do China, which is messing with the internet as much as anyone... China has more secrets. There should be no reason Governments should be afraid of the truth... unless they are selling their own people out.

Re:Other countries?

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody should leak information about China to them, then. Wikileaks aren't the ones actually leaking this, you know - they just act as a middle man to ensure anonymous leaking and widespread distribution.

Re:Other countries?

[Erikderzweite]

I have no information that they are withholding the leaks they have received about Chinese government, you?

No stopping the current information at least.

[Jugalator]

Since it's already released. It's already been revealed at least in Swedish news, that part of the encrypted "insurance" file that's been distributed via BT, is the *full* cablegate archive -- remember that by far most haven't been released yet, at least not to non-news organizations. And that's part of that file, and then some unknown stuff too. So if anything would happen to these guys that would piss them off enough, they'd just release the keys and boom, thousands of users would have this data.

Re:No stopping the current information at least.

[IonOtter]

So if anything would happen to these guys that would piss them off enough, they'd just release the keys and boom, thousands of users would have this data.

Assange: "If the unencrypted files are distributed, world governments will fall."

Uncle Sam: "Even if it is unencrypted, it would take a number beyond reckoning — thousands — to distribute them all."

Assange: "Tens of thousands."

Uncle Sam: "But my lord there is no such force."

[They walk to the balcony of the tower Wikileaks and Uncle Sam looks in awe at the sheer number of Pirate Bay downloaders. A horn sounds and the pirates cheer.]

Assange: "A new power is rising. Its victory is at hand. This night, the land will be cleansed with the light of truth! March to Washington DC! Leave none unimpeached! To war!"

Uncle Sam: [A tear rolls down his cheek.]

Assange: "There will be no dawn for lies."

Re:Out of curiosity...

[3seas]

Well the WikiLeak_insurance file is about 1.4GB https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5723136/WikiLeaks_insurance

but that is encripted and contains much more than their site, excluding the insurance file.

Re:give keys?

[Sir_Lewk]

You don't give them your keys, you simply allow them to authenticate with their private key by adding their pubic key to your authorized keys list.

You control your server, so if you're paranoid take some precautions. Set up an account (or better yet, an accout on a new VM) specifically for this with limited permissions and access. If you're really paranoid, you obviously won't be doing this at all.

Re:I'd host it if....

[Skal Tura]

We do, and we are hosting couple static mirrors for them...
Yeah, it might sound a bit risky but who knows.

We gave 2 static mirrors now... Who knows if we add say 60 more :)

FreeNet

[nurb432]

Once again ill say it. That is the perfect distribution method when you are being attacked by most of the free world.

Re:FreeNet

[DryGrian]

I'm active on the Freenet IRC channel (#freenet on freenode irc) and we've been discussing for a few days how much this a perfect opportunity to really demonstrate what Freenet is capable of.

Over the next month or so we will be implementing some network level changes as we roll out v0.8. There is an actively updated WikiLeaks mirror available over Freenet, which you can find on the index pages.

For those who don't know, Freenet is an anonymous, distributed file-sharing network. Many plugins are available for encrypted communication with trusted peers over this network, including Freemail, FMS (Freenet Message System), Frost/Thaw, jSite, and flip.

Meaningless Gesture

[Alcoholic Synonymous]

The current leaks are out. You cannot put the genie back in the bottle. Syncing around the world will do no good if the centralized source synced against keeps vanishing and eventually stays vanished.

My point is, that the current damage is done. Yanking WikiLeaks offline is about preventing further damage, and when it finally does go for good, people will be left with a stagnant, yesterday's news version. A million mirrors of previously disclosed documents wont help future leaks get distributed, while the people mirroring the current ones are literally just stepping into harms way.

They really should call this...

[owlnation]

Operation Streisand!

The first real battle of the internet?

[nurb432]

Could this be the first real battle waged mostly in the digital world? Every free country is out to get this guy and prevent him from getting his word out. The outcome of this will speak volumes for the future for the concept of being able to speak your mind.

( yes, i know there is questions about legality of the data, but that isn't the real issue here )

Re:Why not just release everything?

[js3]

Or buying time to make back-room deals with governments that may not want certain info to be published. You don't know Mr. Assange, just because you think he's on your side doesn't make it so.

As a US Citizen,

[Anonymous Coward]

So, being a US citizen here, and presently in the US, if I offer up a personal box, how much trouble am I in legally?

If I do get 'hauled in' what could I possibly be charged with?

Re:As a US Citizen,

[PsychoSlashDot]

So, being a US citizen here, and presently in the US, if I offer up a personal box, how much trouble am I in legally?

If I do get 'hauled in' what could I possibly be charged with?

As someone who isn't a US politician, I'm not equipped to fully answer your question. They're the ones with the power. They're the ones whose wrongdoings are being revealed. That's a really grim combination. I'm guessing that you're in exactly as much trouble as they decide and you'll be charged with whatever they feel like. Probably treason or some trumped up terrorism charge.

Understand this: patriotism in the US now means supporting the government, not the constitution.

The only thing you can do to protect yourself is educate as many fellow citizens as possible and vote for anyone who isn't in favor of the idiocy going on. If there are no non-idiot candidates left, frankly it's time to rebel. But that's just my opinion.

Re:As a US Citizen,

[GlassHeart]

Understand this: patriotism in the US now means supporting the government, not the constitution.

Which is why even Republicans, who just won the House of Representatives and can effective block action in the Senate, support the Obama government in most of its policies.

Re:As a US Citizen,

[Patch86]

I'm intrigued- I've got a question that's been bugging me ever since the Wikileaks drama started, and I'm interested if anyone can shed any light.

Wikileaks is basically filling the same role as a newspaper- someone has sent them classified documents, now they're publishing them. If a government wants to stop a newspaper publishing something, they usually apply for an injunction order in a civil court. Failure to comply with injunctions can result in criminal charges, such as contempt of court.

Why has the US government not applied for an injunction on Wikileaks? The site hasn't actually done anything wrong yet; disobeying an injunction would be something they could actually nail them with. Why on Earth have we gone straight from "we don't like it" to "murder him in his sleep" without any intermediate legal steps?

Injunctions would presumably be easier to get than trying to smear Assange with sexual offences or take the site down with DDOS attacks. If Wikileaks were a newspaper it would certainly have been the first move by the government, instead of trying to strong arm them with illegal and semi-legal attacks.

Consider it carefully -- Re:I'd host it if....

[siddesu]

While I am kinda rooting for wikileaks in this, I think anyone who is considering to sign up to think about this:

1. you give them shell access to your host
2. you grant access on the basis of a ssh public key, which you're getting from an unencrypted page. It could be anyone's and it could be coming from anywhere.

Consider the risks carefully before you sign up.

Wikileaks: please put some more thinking into your backup plans, even if you have to come up with them in emergency.

Re:Consider it carefully -- Re:I'd host it if....

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as the shell access thing goes, I think there are two valid choices:

1. Use chrootssh along with some security settings in ssh that limit the user to only using the rsync command. There used to be a really good tutorial on doing that but I can't find it at the moment. Try this one for now or google around. There may be some other methods of doing this (I'm thinking Apparmor or SElinix).

2. Use a virtual machine as the host. Take your pick, VMware, Xen, UML, VirtualBox, whatever. Then lock down the VM like crazy as you see fit since it only has to serve this one purpose.

Probably best would be to use a virtual machine running the chrootssh stuff with Apparmor or SElinux limiting the filesystem access. The best of all for the hyperparanoid.

Re:Consider it carefully -- Re:I'd host it if....

[gilgongo]

While I am kinda rooting for wikileaks in this, I think anyone who is considering to sign up to think about this:

1. you give them shell access to your host
2. you grant access on the basis of a ssh public key, which you're getting from an unencrypted page. It could be anyone's and it could be coming from anywhere.

Yeah, I thought about that to.

As to point 1., you don't have to give them shell access, just rsync over SSH. So, give the shell as /dev/null in /etc/passwd (and don't set the password, to be extra safe).

As to point 2., well, it's a question of trust alright. About the same level of trust I give to updating software via Debian apt repos, or any number of scenarios where the publisher says "here's my public key, please use it". Not foolproof by any means, but it's a chance I'm willing to take.

TMI

[mathimus1863]

Wikileaks behavior here is ridiculous, and I don't think we should be supporting them at this point. Trust me, I am all for exposing corruption and illegal behavior, but that's not what Wikileaks released. Every partnership, company, country, etc, must have the ability to have frank internal conversations about various relationship with others, that must be private. Examples:

Clinton instructing diplomats to spy on UN officials : RELEASE
Afghan corruption throughout military operations: RELEASE
Candid assessments about Karzai's leadership : DO NOT RELEASE
Name calling of the Prince of England : DO NOT RELEASE


These extra releases have done nothing but put many countries into very awkward diplomatic relationships, which does nothing to benefit "fighting corruption." Those kinds of releases are stupid and unecessary.

In this case, I think wikileaks went waaay too far. Assange just wanted to make history by releasing all of them, because nothing like this has ever become public before. On that note, despite my bitter disagreement with him, it is intensely interesting to see a complete cross-section of classified US diplomatic discussions and assessments, and related communications with otehr governments. Probably not worth the damage done to global "social" health, but I will read every word of it...

Re:TMI

[Gorobei]

Candid assessments about Karzai's leadership : DO NOT RELEASE

Why? We've been in Afganistan for longer than WW2. A bit of light here might help the US citizens understand this is a quagmire worth quitting now.

Name calling of the Prince of England : DO NOT RELEASE

Why? He's a douchebag.

If you don't want that fact noted as part of US diplomacy, that just don't say it. Or fire the idiot who felt the need to write the factoid in an official cable.

 

Re:TMI

[Doc Ruby]

That's your list. Other people have their lists, perhaps overlapping. You have no more standing than anyone else to claim yours is the correct list.

As for the value of the Karzai assessments and English prince quips, they are what has focused public attention on these leaks, including the ones you agree are worth releasing. Without the gossipy ones, the corporate mass media of the world would ignore all of it, except as headlines about Assange himself, which would be largely attacking him, and counterproductive to getting the public to look at the leaks.

Which is in fact the main problem, that's now exposed. The NY Times wasn't directly given copies of these leaks, because they spun the last leaks to make it harder to get leaks to the public, the opposite of their role as supposed journalists. Most US media was exposed as at least subservient to government messages, however false and even inane, attacking the releases, and in many cases actively collaborating with the government to protect it from public perception. That's the government's job, to protect itself, and mixing the two is the most seriously bad fact exposed by this leak. It should now be perfectly clear to a lot more people that in the normal course of events our journalists collaborate with government on propaganda, rather than inform the public about what's done supposedly in the service of the people. Probably the greatest defect in our society, directly protecting the two others: bribery and reckless debt at every level.

The other big problem is just the ridiculously broad sweep of secrecy in the US government. Secret "security letters" prohibiting people telling even their wives they've been indicted, let alone the public that is named as the complainant in the secret court cases. Secret wiretaps on everyone, web email and phone. "National security" excuses that kill lawsuits by people imprisoned and tortured for years without any evidence there's even a reason they were captured. All "secret", so immune to any due process, yet in reality available to something like three million people with "security clearance". At least one of whom wasn't reliable enough not to leak this stuff to Wikileaks. Securing so much info among so many authorized people is probably impossible, yet the government pretends that it's necessary and practical - a huge waste, as well as a severe security risk in the much smaller amount of info that really should remain secret, at least for a while.

Then there's the big problem in international diplomacy itself. That applecart is letting the Iraq War go into its 9th year, the Afghanistan War go into its 10th, military action spreading to many countries, Iran continuing towards a bomb, N Korea actually bombing S Korea, genocide continuing in Sudan, drug wars consuming Mexico without releasing Columbia or any other country already in it... That applecart needs to be upset. The amount of damage done by these mostly petty revelations mostly damages the counterproductive complacency that US diplomacy cruises under. Indeed, despite the government's various whiners about how damaging these leaks are, the State Department totally refused to help Wikileaks redact the leaks - proving they value whining about it more than whatever's damaged by it. More truth reported to the public along the way would make diplomacy better, more effective, more trustworthy instead of just an ocean of lies no one believes.

This leak was a purge. The actual damage was small and localized. The actual damage done by the systems it upset is much worse. There is no end in sight for that business as usual unless it's upset. This leak is a chance for that to be upset. And as we now enter the phase of actual recriminations against someone not in the club of domesticated "journalists", including arresting Assange for "rape" and terminating Wikileaks access to the Internet without any due process, and perhaps even assassinating him or someone close to him as people including the Canadian prime minister have called for in public, there will be more backlash. And a hell of a lot of backlash against this incompetent yet tyrannical security state is both earned and long overdue.

Re:TMI

[Sprouticus]

I used to think this. Upon further consideration I changed my mind. Just because this is how thing have been done in the past, why does it have to be done this way now? Why can't we have diplomacy without back room deals? Why cant peoples REAL opinions be exposed and known.

I think if there was more honesty in the world things would be better. Maybe not easier, but better.

Re:TMI

[giorgist]

Candid assessments about Karzai's leadership : DO NOT RELEASE

Why the heck not ... We are getting a different story o the truth, and that will blow into our face very quickly.
In fact I recon the US goverment has had enough and they sent these files to wikileaks them selves.

Name calling of the Prince of England : DO NOT RELEASE

Big deal, what does it mean that diplomats are embarased ?

Re:TMI

[Gorobei]

Um, the US military's "job" is to do what the politicians tell it to do.

Or maybe you think it's an independent branch of government that should just use all its toys to "win" one for the USA?

You are a moron.

People still use FTP?

[SanityInAnarchy]

I mean, giving Wikileaks an ssh account (as they're asking for) is pretty stupid, security-wise, but it's nowhere near as bad as giving _everyone_ your password by using FTP. You'd think Firesheep would've taught people something...

Re:People still use FTP?

[grcumb]

I mean, giving Wikileaks an ssh account (as they're asking for) is pretty stupid, security-wise.

Why? Provided you take reasonable security measures, there is nothing unusually insecure about this.

Just approach the problem the same way you would for any automated remote-access scenario (e.g. scripted backups):

• Make sure that you limit the number of hosts that are allowed to even talk to the port in question;
• Allow only the exact command to be executed, so they can't run arbitrary scripts;
• Un-set the execute bit on all files;
• Allow them access only via an entirely unprivileged and non-interactive account;
• Give them access to a carefully segregated file system (so they can't, for example over-write /bin/bash);
• Optionally, create a new virtual machine to host the data, one that is subject to strict firewall rules and has no network access to other infrastructure;
• Half a dozen other steps that aren't immediately springing to mind as I sit here on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Insurance file torrent

[Gla'funk]

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5723136/b9f0899e6537431b462ffcb16d9398ad

Admin Courage

[Dangerous_Minds]

A simple checklist for admins when considering this: Do I... 1. support government transparency and general democracy? 2. own a web server and know a fair bit about security? 3. have balls of steel? If yes to all of the above, you too can be a proud owner of a Wikileaks mirror!

This is fantastic

[frank_carmody]

I live in Thailand and WikiLeaks is blocked here for some ridiculous reason. The more the 'authorities' around the world try to squeeze the balloon, the more it bubbles out somewhere else. So this is golden for me. The more they are forced to host their site in a non-conventional highly-distributed way, the easier it becomes for the people of Thailand to access it.

If Assange is a douchebag,

[unity100]

He is MY douchebag. He is the way i would want any douchebag to be like. I would share a flat with such a douchebag, at any given point.

As far as douchebags go, there were a lot of douchebags among the people who have pioneered this age of democracy that the power elite has made null and void.

Benjamin franklin used to strip naked and sit on a chair in the middle of a long corridor in his mansion, after opening the windows from both sides and ensuring that the corridor had good breeze.

Thomas paine was SO aggressive in his crusade against religion that, he set up a church of reason, and started a new religion.

i can go on and on.

in the list that can be made out of quirkiness, oddness, douchebagness of those people who now we see as pioneers of freedom or fighters of democracy, assanges alleged 'douchebagness' wouldnt even qualify in the top 100.

and it is as another poster had just commented: assange has done more than any western government did for freedom and democracy, since world war II.

our governments do not want us to know things they have done. this was supposed to be a democracy, in which people were in power, as 'we the people'. we have become 'them the people', who are herded.

wake up. wikileaks is what we have. assange and his team, are the ones doing it. support them. for your future and your children's.

Re:If Assange is a douchebag,

[kimvette]

Barack Obama failed to keep his promise of delivering government transparency, just as he hasn't kept his other campaign promises. The way I see it, Wikileaks is holding the government accountable and is delivering on Obama's campaign promise. As a citizen of The united States of America I am glad to see someone run a site like Wikileaks because having this wealth of information available will help dissuade future would-be tyrants from trying to pull off what the douchebags in power have been doing as they pull the wool over our eyes.

Also, isn't the timing of the charges against Assange pretty suspect? A leak was announced, warrants were put out for his arrest. The charges disappeared as the storm subsided. Another major leak was announced, and coincidentally newly released warrants were released. Please; I do not believe in coincidence.

We need whistle blowers and we need this information out in the open so people will open their eyes and consider throwing out ALL of our elected officials, and choose candidates who believe that the Constitution means what it says, and that it's important for ALL to be held accountable - even^H^H^H^Hespecially the "elite" politicians and the corporate execs they're in bed with.

Bravo

[Slutticus]

Never have mod points when I really need them. I've never seen people so terrified of the truth since.....well....hmmm.... I'd REALLY like to get a look at those Cheney Energy Task Force documents that they've been hiding from us for 10 years. I can hope that these will be leaked eventually.

Re:Bravo

[Zancarius]

Never have mod points when I really need them. I've never seen people so terrified of the truth since.....well....hmmm.... I'd REALLY like to get a look at those Cheney Energy Task Force documents that they've been hiding from us for 10 years. I can hope that these will be leaked eventually.

What I find funny is that a lot of Americans find this leak to be quite a relief. The only people who seem so pissed off about it are those in positions of power. They don't want us to know the truth, and at this point, I'd expect next year to see increasing pressure on things like the COICA and/or other measures to grant the Federal government the ability to censor information. Can't have the people finding out what their leadership is up to! Even some people on the right of the political spectrum here in the US (*raises hand*) are in favor of what WikiLeaks is doing; although, as I see it, you can't pick and choose your battles in pursuit of liberty, transparency, and fairness. That's why I see this as both hilariously entertaining and, generally, a good thing.

It is comedic to me that the Obama administration has only managed to live up to their promise of offering the most transparent administration in history by way of an Australian foreign national leaking secretive wires that were handed over to him.

Coincidence? I think not!

[Mysteray]

http://lieberman.senate.gov/index.cfm/news-events/news/2010/12/amazon-severs-ties-with-wikileaks

"I call on any other company or organization that is hosting Wikileaks to immediately terminate its relationship with them. Wikileaks' illegal, outrageous, and reckless acts have compromised our national security and put lives at risk around the world."

C.f. "There are times when we must all endure adjustment to the Constitution in the name of security."

Coincidence? I think not!

Re:Coincidence? I think not!

[Mysteray]

I hinted about this in a blog post last night http://extendedsubset.com/?p=40

I've been around a few years now and seen a few political battles play out. My gut feeling is that Lieberman's aides are madly trying to figure out how they're going to explain him out of this screwup. We might even see politicians calling for an investigating Amazon for conspiring with him. Tomorrow's talk shows are going to be interesting.

See for yourself. Check out Twitter #imwikileaks and #wikileaks tags right now.

I donated dec 3rd via paypal, now pay pal has it

[wallydallas]

I donated money via pay pal on Dec 3rd, the day wikileaks had their account cut off. Pay pal accounts are often put on a 180 day hold. I called paypal to verify my money is no longer held in paypal. They said they can say nothing about the issue. They would not even send that to me in writing. They would not give me a dispute number or any other tracking number for my unanswered question. The only comment they had was to contact the better business bureau. Anyone know a good laywer willing to call the pay pal legal department and find out where my donation is sitting?

This is why the need to use ssh/push

[ugen]

I think it is fairly obvious why wikileaks wants to use ssh/push method to mirror their data. They can't use polling because, frankly, with the way they are being pushed around and shut down all the time there is just no way to guarantee that any host, domain name or IP address they provide would be available for an extended period of time.

Push method with a specific public/private key would allow them to push content from anywhere, as they are being chased and forced to change servers and providers.

I thought it was obvious but may be worth clarifying.

Btw, the main site seems to be down again.

Re:This is why the need to use ssh/push

[Menkhaf]

Install openssh-server
Install rsync -- well, it's probably already installed
Install a webserver of a kind, e.g. lighttpd (that's what I normally use).

If you use lighttpd, just follow these steps:

• create a wikileaks user
• add the public key to /home/wikileaks/.ssh/authorized_keys (get it from http://213.251.145.96/id_rsa.pub )
• mkdir /home/wikileaks/public_html
• enable simple-vhost (sudo lighty-enable-mod simple-vhost)
• edit /etc/conf-enabled/10-simple-vhost.conf :
  • simple-vhost.server-root = "/var/www/servers"
• mkdir /var/www/servers
• /etc/init.d/lighttpd restart
• ln -s /home/wikileaks/public_html /var/www/servers/wikileaks.yourdomain.tld
• Add DNS record. Use a low TTL (eg. 30 mins == 1800 seconds) and change the entry to point at 127.0.0.1 or similar if you get DoS'ed
• Submit information to Wikileaks.

You might want to secure your server more, firewall etc. Check out fail2ban.

Throwing water on a grease fire

[mykos]

Nice try, United States Government.

Obi-Wan's last words apply here.

Re:Everyone else in the media are compromised.

[misexistentialist]

The only way he could be compromised would be if he released fabricated documents. He is being accused of a lot of things, but no one has dared question his honesty.

I2P can anonymously handle large volumes

[Burz]

...much better than FreeNet and Tor can. http://geti2p.net/

Many of the Wikileaks releases (including video files) have already been posted to I2P bittorrent trackers.

Unix doesn't have Nth-power malware going after it

[Burz]

Unix (the free variants) can be fully audited down to the last bit if necessary (unusual/bar behavior can be much more easily explained and fixed with some investigative effort).

Windows is simply NOT up to dealing with high security needs.

Also, Microsoft is an American corporation

[Burz]

And the actions of Amazon and many other corps play dirty with their customers when the State Dept or Pentagon tell them to. I don't think MS is any exception to that corporatist dynamic.

Direct link to new I2P anonymous mirror

[Burz]

Unofficial Wikileaks mirror on I2P
Yes, the full link really is that long. That is because I2P does not fully rely on domain names... that b64 string is the site's public key which is also it's address.

* You need the I2P software (a FOSS project and free download) to use both of the above address. *

The announce thread for the I2P mirror is here.

Once the info for the new site propagates through the network, you can even access the I2P mirror *without* the I2P software using this URL. Of course, using this method you won't be anonymous.

A word about I2P: It's a network that provides anonymized IP-like communication using methods similar to Tor, but designed to handle torrents and other large loads efficiently. It is also less centralized than Tor, and taking down even 90% of the nodes (incl original ones) should still leave it running and accessible. It also has facilities for automatically mirroring files and sites. One downside is that configuring your browser to use the I2P Web is a manual process that must be done carefully. Overall though it seems to be pretty impressive.

Re:I donated dec 3rd via paypal, now pay pal has i

[RegTooLate]

Not picking on you specifically, but pay pal is so shady they are like the godaddy of internet paying. The freeze was bound to happen.

Re:Journalists, WikiLeaks run by cowards

[Mysteray]

Had you ever looked at their site before cablegate? They do, in fact, take stuff from all over the world as you suggest.

They just got a huge bolus from the US all at once. People are starting to sit up and take notice. It's easy to get the impression that its all about this one thing.

Re:I donated dec 3rd via paypal, now pay pal has i

[Anonymous Coward]

Sue them in small claims court. They either need to make good on your deal with them to give money to who you asked to give it to, or give it back to you.

I'd add 500 bucks in for your time and frustration in dealing with their deliberate breach of contract.

Re:Why arent they using a darknet in the first pla

[Burz]

Because they thought Tor was good enough.

Julian Assangenitsyn

[Max_W]

So you thought Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn , Andrei Sakharov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Sakharov and other Samizdat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat authors were a joke. Gave them Nobel prizes. Now, when you have got your first real samizdat author, you know how it feels.

WikiLeaks virus next?

[naasking]

I expect a WikiLeaks download worm any day now. Some hacker somewhere is going to get so pissed off at the government's response to this, I expect a worm which downloads and seeds the WikiLeaks to every computer it can spread to. Any downloads on a computer can be claimed as having been downloaded by the virus. Perfect plausible deniability, and the WikiLeaks data will never die.

Re: Feudalism, etc

[benjamindees]

I think you're doing yourself a disservice to dismiss feudalism as necessarily leading to inequality or inherently unjust, especially considering the state of modern production technologies and their impact on the working class. For all it's faults, feudalism provides an individualistic economic system realistically capable of providing for all members of a society even in the absence of large-scale trade and finance.

While I agree with your sentiment, and most of your analysis, I'm not sure that we agree on root causes, ie. conspiracy of the elite. A democracy dominated by a working middle class is such an historical aberration that it's important to recognize alternate, more fundamental, explanations for it's decline.

Human work can be separated into two types: productive work and make-work. These should need no definition. Productive work is that which produces capital. Make-work is that which limits the destruction of capital. For most of human civilization, make-work has dominated. In fact, make-work could historically be considered to be the "sine qua non" of human civilization. There has nearly always been a glut of worthless people in all societies who need busy-work to keep them from destroying the tiny bit of progress eeked-out by the rest.

Make-workers gravitate towards low-skilled government-subsidized work such as construction and social services, security and government industries. They built the pyramids. They conquered Europe several times over. They built thousands of miles of transportation infrastructure, mostly by hand. But they consumed many times more resources than they ever saved or produced. They are paid more than they would in a productive position relative to their skills, yet cost less to society than they would if left to their own devices.

The important distinction is that make-workers have very little real political power, aside from their willingness to stop doing busy-work and start destroying things instead. To counter this, societies have developed simple mechanisms for eliminating make-workers who cannot be controlled: wars and prisons. Those who display a tendency to cause destruction are sent to prison. When the prisons fill up or become burdensome, prisoners are sent to war. If they come back with more resources than they left with, they are greeted as heroes. If not, they are ridiculed and minimalized.

In my view, middle-class democratic worker's paradises arise only for a short time, as the consumption of newly discovered resources enables make-workers to become productive workers temporarily. They then gain a modicum of political influence, proportional to the value of their work in exploiting the resource as quickly as possible. When the resource is consumed, work loses value, make-work again dominates, and democracy subsides.

The United States arose to exploit the natural resources of the Americas. Workers here had an extremely good deal, and lots of political power, up until the exact moment at which those resources were economically depleted. That was probably more than 20 years ago. It's time to recognize this fact, move on, and establish more efficient modes of production, rather than trying to re-erect a democratic worker's paradise without the resources to support one.

Re:I love this mayham and shitstorm

[zakeria]

and I just sent you $1,000,000

oh well ;(

Re:I donated dec 3rd via paypal, now pay pal has i

[Anonymous Coward]

I just cancelled my PayPal account, in future my money will go elsewhere.

I have been disgusted by PayPal's actions with respect to WikiLeaks and your post reminded me that I have a PayPal account.

The reason given was Other: WikiLeaks.

The problem with corporations (and why corporate citizenship is a frightening concept) is that corporations, by their very nature, have not sense of citizenship or loyalty. Corporations will never stand in support of such important things as our bill of rights, freedom of speech, etc. unless they feel it helps their bottom line.

If attacking a company's bottom line is the only way to make them behave as good citizens, then so be it.

Re:Why arent they using a darknet in the first pla

[jjohnson]

Part of having a public front is credibility. If a bunch of bloggers said "Hey, we just got this dump of documents that looks like 20 years of diplomatic cables", it wouldn't get nearly as much attention in the media. WL has spent years building up its cred as an outlet of actually leaked documents. If those same bloggers approached Der Spiegel, they might not even get in the door. At this point, Assange can probably get their chief editor on the phone to discuss the next dump (which is apparently from a major American bank).

As a secondary effect, I imagine that the high profile of WL now serves to draw more attention from leakers, rather than less, so a high public profile actually fosters "business" for them. Cryptome has been going for more than a decade, but WL is who Brad Manning approached.

So yes, being this public causes problems, but it also opens up other doors. If Assange is killed tomorrow, everyone will think the U.S. did it. At this point, being visibly public is probably safer for Assange.

Re:Journalists, WikiLeaks run by cowards

[shutdown -p now]

Let me tell you this, as someone hailing from a not-so-free country: these kinds of leaks would have much less effect in non-free societies than they do now in the free West. For a very simple reason: in the West, the freedom of press may be imperfect, but by and large it still exists. You can disseminate that information far and wide. Just look at the list of newspapers which published the stories based on the leaks!

From there we come to another important point: in democratic countries, the people care, and that translates into votes. Since elections are (again, by and large) free and fair, the politicians have to mind that. Even aside from elections, there are some expectations of courteous behavior from politicians - and we already saw some resignations stemming from all those leaks.

In a country like China or Russia? Puh-lease. For starters, no major newspaper would even publish it, so most people wouldn't know. The Net? If you publish within the country, it would be classified as "extremist material" and servers taken down quickly. Even outside the country, they can simply block you - yeah, you can use proxies etc, but vast majority of people simply won't know it's out there.

And even if they do, then what? Elections are rigged anyway. Candidates are hand-picked by those in power, so there is no real choice.

There is already heaps and heaps of information on various people in positions of power and importance in Russia, up to and including the president, that are enough to earn them several life sentences each if they were properly pursued by police and courts. That information is out there today, and has been out there for a while. And it's much more direct than what's in those leaked cables - we aren't talking about lying to electorate. We're talking about stuff such as important politicians running over someone with their car - a manslaughter! - and getting away with it unscathed. We're talking about massive financial fraud, which reflects on every single citizen. We're talking about direct connections to organized crime, and in some cases directly to violent crimes such as murders.

And yet no-one has done anything about it so far.

So, no. If you want to further democracy via transparency, you got to have democracy to begin with. Wikileaks works great in the West, and I'm glad that they are focusing their efforts where they can actually be useful. For other places, you need something else.

Re:Cryptonomicon

[Sir_Lewk]

Bitcoins is an attempt at that, and seems to actually be getting off the ground.

What we need is for it to be embraced and adopted.

Re: Feudalism, etc

[Klinky]

Nice prose full of fluff that let's you try to blame the lower classes for their circumstances. The people who built the Pyramids were not paid, build them or die. Conscripted soldiers were not paid, fight or die. Infrastructure and paying the people cost us more money than that infrastructure produced? Even though citizens and businesses rely on this infrastructure every single day? How about all the "make-workers" in middle or upper management? How about whole companies setup just to stifle competition and leech(patent trolls). How about people in corporations/government to lobby & be buddy buddy with each other to lock out competition? How about an entire industry that was setup to make imaginary financial derivatives that had absolutely no value to them and plummeting the economy into the worst recession/depression since The Great Depression? There is a lot of spinning tires going on at all levels. Usually the people on the bottom are the ones who are actually physically doing the labor and "being productive", those above are usually whipping boys making sure the cattle is getting more productive each year. Rarely are the people at the bottom there because they have tenancies to want to blow people up overseas or stealing from people, more likely it's to survive and they do not have many resources around them to succeed.

Those who go to war & those who do crime usually have something in common: they're poor. The military & crime may offer them the quickest way out of their circumstances. Usually going to war means doing the bidding of rich men. Also I am not sure when was that last time we released our prisoners to go to war? I am not aware of us emptying any of our prisons to send inmates over to Iraq...

Usually middle-class workers "paradise" goes away because "the elite"/Corporatocracy sees that people are getting a bigger piece of the pie and devises ways to extract that piece to make their own piece bigger. This is partially a folly of "growth based" economies where nothing is ever enough. Find, exploit, consume, move on. Or what's been more popular as of late "Fraud, exploit, consume, move on". Most companies in positions are power are not there because they got there honestly. Exploitation, fraud, bribes, wars..etc... It's dirty power and nothing worth looking up to.

Please do define, what resources the middle-class exploited & depleted in the US that caused the downfall of the US middle class? I would suggest the move towards globalism has done more to harm the middle-class, but then again Globalism has brought us cheap plastic stuff from china, that was cheap because it's exploiting the Chinese people. Thought it's been bigger for corporations who can legally pay people slave wages.

How would you suggest we change our modes of production to be more efficient? Can you give some examples? Is that a euphemism for something else? Pointless fluff? Can you give some hard examples where the US can reinvent itself with "modern more efficient modes of production", yeesh sounds like I read that off a PowerPoint presentation.

The new age.

[hebertrich]

Well well .. like every day now , we hear new idiocies coming out the US government.
While everyone takes a look at the cables , the USG , is saying , still classified and their employes and
people that want a job with the USG can't read them .. LOL
That was the funny part of the post.

The multiplication by the hundreds of mirrors ( list at cryptome is unbeleivably extensive ) the downloading of insurance
files and the mirroring of the old site with 11000 or so document is going on strong. I know , i got them all.
In fact if anything good is coming out of this is the involvement of the population in politics.It's waking up .
We were used to as citizens to see through a mesh fence , where we the casual observers see only through one small
square totally unaware of the bigger picture. Now we're getting sights of more and more of those squares and can see a way
better image. The more we see , the more we want to see. It's normal . We are thirsty for understanding and definitely want to see actions being taken or want to take action by ourselves. We dont need big government to tell us " you dont need to know what we do on your behalf " that's bullshit. The Government must be accountable to the people.Otherwise there is no democracy.
Just disguised dictatorship.What we see , what we hear is changing people. We're for the publication or we're against. But i don't know of anyone who is well educated that says otherwise than it's a good thing.Cause frankly , it can't be.
If there hadn't been leaks , the photos of torture that we saw from Irak and Guantanamo Bay and other places , the USA would still be torturing detainees. If there hadn't been leaks and the system would be air tight , a lot of criminal activity would still go on in the USG and it's arms. Oh granted , it still goes on, but as the public gets better and better informed , those activities are becoming less and less likely to happen. Accountability saved a many detainee from being tortured , against conventions the US signed btw.

Like i saw on twitter a short while ago :
  " It's not wrong to lie, cheat, steal, corrupt, and torture. It's wrong to let people know about it."

Go multiply the mirrors the sites and start some of your own in your countries . Go on and multiply.
Read what they dont want you to.Seek knowledge and enlightenment. Information and ideas need to be free.
Let the information be free so that we may one day , in a distant future , live in peace.
Let those who try to convince you that the right thing to be is an ignorant make their calls without echos.
Let their voices die down in the void of mediocrity of cheats and liars.
They want to cheat you of your right to know.Cheat you of the accountability the government has to be kept under.
Leave them shout in anger without replies. Remember : Never argue with an imbecile , they bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.

Long live free information.This is the guiding light. This is the new age. Jump on the bandwagon or stay behind .
It's your choice.

For those that can't mirror, you can still help!

[chipwich]

I know I'm preaching to the choir, here, but human-nature says that most people (even Slashdotters) are watching this unfold without realizing they can be a part of it.

The WL episode is showing us that our own politicians would readily abandon core values of democracy in order to avoid embarrassment. It also clearly demonstrates that we live in a world where our personal communications can readily be disrupted at the whim of private corporations under pressure from these same politicians.

Democracy can only thrive with the uninhibited exchange of communications between individuals. If you want to help ensure democracy, do any of the following:


1) Run a TOR server ( http://www.torproject.org/ ). This is software that helps provide freedom and privacy by encrypting and distributing network communications. If you don't want to run TOR on your machine, rent a Virtual Private Server (VPS) and do it on someone else's box.


2) Support the EFF ( http://www.eff.org/ ). This organization understands technology and knows that in the digital age, information is power.


3) Support open-source distributed alternatives to web-based software-as-a-service. EveryDNS, Paypal, Twitter, Amazon's EC2, and even our beloved Google are points of vulnerability in democracy since their fundamental obligation is to shareholders instead of to an innate code of ethics. How would you find information if Google bowed to Government pressure? The only thing that will ensure corporations stay in line is the existence of alternatives such as a distributed search engine (http://yacy.de/ ).


4) Support open-source software by using it, contributing time or money to its development, and requesting that our Governments make policies to use it. The world would be a very different place if the power of public-key-encryption was kept solely in Government and Corporate hands. Only Free and Open Source Software ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open_source_software ) ensures that all members of society who use information technology are on the same footing.


5) Let others know what is at stake, spread the word. Democracy takes active participation, and this takes patience and explanation so that nontechnical Constituents have the understanding that you possess.


Our communications technology is only a tool and can be used to both facilitate democracy and better the world, or to enslave humankind. We are witnessing the first infowar of the digital age, and the powers that be will use it to push hard for bans on encryption, crackdown on peer-to-peer communication, and other information tools.

Will you watch silently and let information technology turn into a tool of repression, or will you take a stand while you still can? The race is on, do something!

Re:For those that can't mirror, you can still help

[chipwich]

btw, if you agree with the sentiments I expressed, please spread them beyond our geek-realm to the rest of the Interwebs...

For example, you can upvote it here on reddit

or copy it wholesale, edit into oblivion, and post somewhere else. Let everyone realize that they can play a role in spreading digital Democracy.

Re: Feudalism, etc

[benjamindees]

Usually the people on the bottom are the ones who are actually physically doing the labor and "being productive"

Doing physical labor has fuck-all to do with being productive. That's the entire point. But, yes, make-work is endemic to the US managerial class as well. In fact, they appear to be specially selected for their ability to do, and create, the most make-work possible.

I am not aware of us emptying any of our prisons to send inmates over to Iraq...

Then you haven't been paying attention. It's fairly common in the US for petty criminals to be told "join the military or go to jail" during times of war. But, nowadays, prisoners cost less than soldiers, so it isn't as common as it once was.

Please do define, what resources the middle-class exploited & depleted in the US that caused the downfall of the US middle class? I would suggest the move towards globalism has done more to harm the middle-class

It's nearly every resource: topsoil, metal ores, forests, oil. We're rapidly working on depleting the coal, fresh water, phosphates, fisheries. It doesn't matter whether you want to call it "globalism" or not, but the fact remains that workers in other countries can now exploit their natural resources more effectively than we can, so they have more work opportunities than we do.

Can you give some hard examples where the US can reinvent itself

Sure, here are some ways to make the US economy less of a total joke, in no particular order:

• Instate moderate across-the-board import tariffs.
• Eliminate the FED. Peg the dollar to some amount of hydrogen or electricity.
• Create a global dollar-based electronic micropayment system.
• Eliminate the IRS. Tax consumption, not production or innovation.
• Stop subsidizing the auto manufacturers. No one needs any more of their hideous over-priced junk.
• Same goes for banks or any other business that fails.
• Stop subsidizing loans for higher-ed.
• Subsidize exercise and healthy eating instead of prescription drugs and healthcare.
• Reduce the maximum workweek until unemployment is at frictional levels. Task the Dept. of Labor with managing this, or create a new independent agency.
• Tax fossil fuel usage, heavily. Use the proceeds to subsidize nuclear power plant construction.
• Tax nuclear power (on an energy basis). Distribute half the proceeds as basic income. Use the rest to subsidize the production of renewable energy tech.
• Mandate telecommuting as an option for any job that doesn't have to be performed on-site.
• Tax reproduction as a negative externality. Heavily tax or outlaw reproduction beyond replacement.
• Severely limit permanent immigration. Expel illegal immigrants. Automate the fruit-picking jobs.
• Give every household a reprap or open-design CNC machine that can make consumer goods and parts from recycled scrap. Mandate recycling.
• Put energy production in every house/backyard: solar thermal, photovoltaic, wind, geothermal, biodiesel, biogas, co-generation; it doesn't matter what. Mandate efficiency and renewability.
• Put an aquaponic greenhouse in every backyard.

Depends which side of the news you're on.

[delire]

I think the cables have all reflected very well on the US, as expected, and confirmed that it's a responsible decent world power.

Hehe, crazy.. Here in the EU there's a lot of talk about cables that point to the US being underhanded, at best, with allies.

I guess you're on the CNN side of the Atlantic.