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WikiLeaks Launches New Platform, Privacy Study
itwbennett writes "WikiLeaks has launched a new submissions platform, along with a study of the global trade in surveillance products. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told press conference attendees in London that all the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Gmail users in the crowd were 'screwed.' 'The reality is intelligence contractors are selling right now to countries across the world mass surveillance systems for all of those products,' Assange said."
New allegations surface that Julian Assange was sacrificing babies to Satan while raping women in Sweden! More at 10...
Palm trees and 8
In response to questions about privacy concerns, various government intelligence organizations from around the world, along with industry representative from Google, Apple, et. al. assembled at the first annual "Nope, Nothing to See Here" Privacy and Security Conference in London. "We are very pleased to report that there is nothing to these silly rumors. We've examined the concerns and determined that there is no need to worry," announced conference chair Janet Napolitano. The conference closed several minutes later, with industry representatives congratulating each other on dealing with all the privacy concerns in their products. "See, I told you there was no need to worry," said Apple CEO Tim Cook, shaking hands with Google CEO Larry Page.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
No matter how many acts of journalism this guys commits I will never see him as a journalist. I have to like someone personally first and also make sure they have a flawless record using a standard that I set and reserve only for him. Until this impossible standard is met I will bash in any way I can regardless of logic and back calls for his extrajudicial murder.
It's really the only sensible path Very Serious People can take.
I don't know how many years on this Earth I got left. I'm going to get real weird with it. - Frank Reynolds
Running one's own email & XMPP server FTW and most of the privacy-invading features of Android can be disabled
Also no my life hasn't turned to shit, I don't spend 6 hours every evening trying to manage these things while wearing a tinfoil hat. Yes sometimes changes need to be made when SSL certificates expire (although I prefer self-signed for a lot of this stuff, as Governments can compel CA's to issue false certs I consider them of little value) or what recently happened was the guy who wrote my mail server stopped developing it and IMAP was always just around the corner so I finally had to install a "proper" email server which had a bit of a learning curve but it's not terribly unweildly either.
When non government organizations end up doing the tasks governments should be doing, but not doing, and end up getting prosecuted for it.
Read radical news here
The dude does look kind of creepy.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
... I'd really rather listen to the EFF, who have a lot more experience in the online privacy business and you know, have fought to actually defend these rights, than Mr Assange who approaches these things with little more than a clutch of advertising materials and offers no plan or counter-action than 'You're screwed!'. Let's hope he doesn't taint this field as well with his brand of divisive self-aggrandising paranoia.
Apparently you did not see this...
carrieriq-most-phones-ship-with-rootkit
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told press conference attendees in London that all the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Gmail users in the crowd were 'screwed.'
Yes, now they will know that I messaged my girlfriend to grab some coffee on her way home. I'm definitely screwed!
Does this guy realize that the vast majority of us aren't political dissidents (practically tautologically, since once the vast majority of us hold a political view it becomes the orthodoxy against which the minority dissent) or whatever else he imagines is actually worth someone's time to read my messages out of the billions of electronic messages that exist?
Surely if the government compromises his communications, he's screwed -- that comes with the territory. But to imagine that this applies to everyone else evinces a serious disconnect with reality, a reality in which most people are boring enough that the dissemination of our entire digital lives to the government is quite harmless.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
You have the right to privacy; that right is not predicated on being a political dissident. The fact that these companies are undermining that right is what Assange is referring to when he says that you have been screwed.
Palm trees and 8
... Satan says he was coerced into making a statement by an overzealous detective.
I8-D
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
American citizens have a right to privacy and are supposed to be free from broad, non-specific searches (e.g. like the NSA wiretapping program). The fact that we have strayed from our founding principles is another story entirely; the right has not been official revoked so much as simply ignored.
Palm trees and 8
If intelligence and law enforcement weren't looking into this type of surveillance they wouldn't be doing their jobs. The capability has to exist for them to function in the modern world. When it should be used is the legal question.
Whatever happens now, both WikiLeaks and Facebook are driving "free thoughts" in some way.
And they try changing from both sides:
- Facebook is making way for a free world by not stopping hangouts for protesters, making way for the democracy as we know it; capitalism and "free" governments.
- Wikipedia, on the other hand, is trying to show us how far this has gone in our own free world.
There's no longer dictatorship but somehow there still are forces that try control us. That can be a good thing, however there should be a free press that can monitor our governments and global corporations.
We all know it, there is no "free press" when it comes to stuff that Assange tries to finger-point. He might not be the best and most street-wise person around, but I really respect him for giving up his life for this cause.
Alright, we've gotten the "I troll against whatever /. is saying today" and some insightfuls out of the way...
Next step:
What do we use instead of gmail et al? Suggestions anyone?
-
whatever darien train
Facebook has become the world's biggest distraction, and people living under authoritarian governments are so distracted by Facebook and similar sites that they have stopped paying attention to politics. Additionally, authoritarian governments have already started using publicly available information on Facebook to track down dissidents for prosecution. Facebook has little reason to fight against any government demands for information, especially in the United States.
I would place Facebook near the bottom of the list of sites that have made useful contributions to human rights or democracy. It is possible that 4chan has done more than Facebook to spread democracy and freedom.
Palm trees and 8
Indeed you are right, good citizen!
A quick review: everyone involved in this appears to be financially related to the Bonnier family whose tabloid publication (now where have we heard that term lately???) first appealed to be the sole publisher of Julian Assange's Wikileaks -- which he turned them down on when he was back in Sweden, originally.
Next, we see Ardin, convincing a younger female and recent intimate of Assange's, to go to the Swedish police with her about Assange. The case is dropped, then picked up again for highly questionable and political reasons.
Next, a Bonnier tabloid begins publishing contrived stories about the Assange “rape”, etc., etc., etc.
A Swedish prosecutor’s office, in Gothenburg, instead of Stockholm, strangely enough, takes up an already dropped case due to lack of convincing evidence, or any real evidence. (Gothenburg is where Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen Systems AB is located – Jeppesen Dataplan is popularly known as Boeing’s “extreme rendition airlines”.)
The cast of characters: The Bonnier publishing/media family, Ardin -- who has worked for one or more of their tabloids, etc., Thomas Bodstrom, who has financial ties to the Bonnier business and was former Justice Minister who colluded with the American CIA to extreme rendition two innocent Swedish immigrants of Arab extraction, who were later acquitted and reimbursed monies for their injuries, etc. -- Attorney Borgstrom, with ties to the Bonnier family, and likewise other members of Sweden's Ministry of Justice, etc.
Many posters here have asked why a series of expensive appeals, all funded by the British tax payer, are necessary? Couldn't a prosecutor hop on a Ryan Air flight, (about 1 500 SEK, including a pleasant pub lunch) and interview Mr Assange in England?
And then if course, the first trial in the UK, where the Lord Justice wondered aloud as to why the Swedish prosecutors didn't simply journey to London and ask him there:
Lord Justice Thomas asked the same question yesterday, and seemed to get a bit peeved that no one representing the Swedish prosecutor wa prepared to properly answer him. Hopefully someone is about to inject some much needed common sense and fiscal responsibility into this rotten case.
sgt_doom
I tried to participate in the WikiLeaks new submissions platform but the lovely carrierIQ on my phone won't let me :(
So, to sum it all up, Assange gave us the undeniable truth that corporate companies collect information from their users for their own evil purposes, and get away with it.
Wait, didn't we already know that?