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Secret Chat Between Julian Assange and Eric Schmidt Published By WikiLeaks
New submitter milkasing writes "The Verge reports, 'Google chairman Eric Schmidt and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange secretly met in 2011 and held a lengthy interview, according to a transcript published on the whistleblowing site. The leak is surprisingly timely — Schmidt was apparently conducting research with Jared Cohen for the pair's book The New Digital Age, which is set to be released on Tuesday. Assange was under house arrest in England at the time the five-hour conversation took place. The conversation is a fascinating look into the minds of the two men, both of whom have had immeasurable impact on issues surrounding technology over recent years."
"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place" - Eric Schmidt
What a great guy!
It's a publication. Assange reserved the right to view/review/approve the transcript and presumably is doing this for the benefit of both sides. It benefits Assange that he gets to publish the precise transcript to rebut any criticism that they talked about anything else. Schmidt gains the same protection (ZOMG Google Chief Talks To Known Criminal About... What?) and also some pre-launch publicity. This interview is presumably not the underpinning of his entire book, nor featured in entirety as an excerpt, so it's not a leak of the content of the book either.
Eric, you better have a get away backpack ready (or at least a billion bucks in bribes).
You can't handle the truth.
That's why it's not measurable. There is nothing to measure
...how long it would take before Eric Schmidt said something that made me facepalm. Accidentally referring to TOR as "Thor" in the very first topic he brought up was bad, but not bad enough. Admitting right after that that he doesn't really understand what it is or how it works? In 2011? Just two months after stepping down as the CEO of Google? Facepalm.
Innocent until proven guilty?
Innocent until proven guilty?
And how can they prove his guilt if he's hiding out like a common criminal?
"... immeasurable impact on issues surrounding technology..."
What "immeasurable impact"? Google made a better search engine. Nice, but big deal. What ELSE have they done to "impact technology"? Google+? No. Gmail? No new technology there. Google Docs? They bought it, they didn't invent it. Google Apps? Others did similar things, they just weren't as big. Google Earth? Microsoft beat them to it by quite a few years. Google Maps? An incremental improvement in existing technology. (Google Earth + GIS.) Adsense? An extension of existing technology.
I will grant that Google Translate was something new. But most of Google's "technology" is about as much invention as somebody who welds a can opener to a pair of pliers: it might not be an obvious thing to do but it's hardly "new technology".
Assange has fled from the law enforcement over rape accusations. Like it or not, that is a factual statement. I think people support him out of blind partisanship ("he called out the US government, so I have to be on his side for life regardless of anything else!") which is foolish.
If you support the actual ideals of transparency and accountability, then it should apply to Assange as well. He shouldn't flee law enforcement over rape accusations. (Even though it isn't rape by American standards, he seems to believe he is above the law) His organization should be more transparent.
We also know that Assange's former partner accused Assange of threating to kill him once, and said Assange is purely financially motivated.
We know that when Assange released a bunch of civilian volunteer names unredacted, some of them received death threats. Amnesty International called out Assange for being irresponsible, to which Assange responded that if people wanted civilian volunteer names redacted in the future, they need to give him $200,000.
Amnesty International calls out human rights violation and government corruption as a transparent charity that operates within the law. They protect people rather than putting them in danger.
Honestly, I'm not sure how people can look at this track record and honestly consider him a hero or saint.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
They don't have to prove his guilt if he is hiding out like a common criminal, since whatever you say about his hiding out it cannot be compared to that. It might surprise you, but the falsely accused also hide out if they are pretty sure they are going to burn at the stake without regard to actual innocence.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
http://xkcd.com/834/
If he was guilty, which is probably not the case, they wouldn't need him to prove his guilty. This is just a smear campaign and nothing else.
Completed the first half of TFA. It is indeed fascinating.
Fascinating to know Julian Assange...his technical know how and philosophical underpinnings make him one of the foremost thinkers of our world. The way Assange connects geo-political issues, the ideas behind publishing, instant publishing to the basic design of Wikileaks is brilliant. (We have to put aside his issues in Sweden.)
Erich Schmidt comes across as a better version of Steve Ballmer. It would have been interesting if Larry Page / Sergey Brin had a conversation with Assange...they would be more interesting and the conversation would not be completely one sided.
Tat Tvam Asi
I bet Bradley Manning can measure it.
Excellent, if there's any other rapists hiding from the law I hope Slashdot lets us know when he releases promotional material on his website.
I heard there was one in Lincoln Park.
I would flee if I was in his position as would anyone with a brain. Especially considering the ridiculous nature of such accusations and the horrible track record of injustice from Swedish justice in the last years (check the piratebay trials for reference). Sweden justice system has been consistently proved to be subservient to US interests.
Your second "accusations" is basically hearsay, and your third accusation is ridiculous and completely false.
Governments feel entitled to secrecy. They are not, and it is past time for them to be accountable for their acts. Assange is not a hero or a saint, just a man who likely did both good and bad things throughout his life as all men, but one of those things happened to be something very useful for mankind.
It seems that Julian Assange is a hardcore Bitcoin fanboy... he spent about a third of his interview talking about it.
That said, if he took his own advice and invested heavily in Bitcoin back in 2011 when they were less than a $1 each, he'd be a wealthy guy right now.
The way he insensately interrupts other people is beyond belief.
That's crap. If they hold a trial in his absence you'll be shouting it's unfair because he can't defend himself.
He is a coward. He can assemble a huge collection of international lawyers to defend him and yet he chooses to hide like a common criminal.
Well, he created Wikileaks and was featured in many news headlines by fleeing Sweden.
Oh wait, that's not technology is it... Paris Hilton can also claim the same thing. Okay the summary is bullshit.
I don't think you have to be a hero-worshipper of Assange to believe that there's a difference between facing criminal charges in Sweden, and being rendered off to Gitmo to face a US kangaroo court. Personally, I don't like Assange, I think his strategy re: wikileaks has been misguided and harmful, and he handled the revelation of the US cables badly. I have no opinion on his guilt or innocence with regard to the rape accusations, and under normal circumstances I'd agree that he should have to appear and answer those charges. But you only have to look as far as Bradley Manning and what's being done to him to see that there's a real risk that Assange is going to end up in US hands and receive the exact opposite of justice if he comes out of his hidey-hole. Nobody - and I do mean nobody - deserves that.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
He has shown the lengths the US Government will go to on the internet to shut down people embarrassing them.
He is behind a site that manages to preserve anonymity from governments & corporations fairly well.
What has Assange done for technologies over the previous years, all he did was publish edited parts of some so called secret documents nothing more, nothing less?
Trial in absence aside, the prosecutors failed to present any real evidence of their charges. It is all based on blatantly inconsistent claims. They have nothing else.
And he may be a coward, but being courageous and being stupid are often one and the same. No collection of international lawyers would likely be able to defend him in the same place where piratebay trial happened.
I'm not quite sure that I'd call it hiding out like a common criminal. They can, after all, interview him, can they not? They want their terms met more than they seem to want to investigate and piece together truth in order to properly evaluate the accusations. As such I would definitely think that somebody is not on the level. There seems to be a lot of aggressive persecution and prosecution going on in general so why not this? And, for the record, I firmly believe that he had every right to publish everything. He even tried to have it vetted. So what, exactly, is the actual fucking problem?
\r
Where is this track record of the Swedish justice system as subservient to US interests? You do realize that Sweden gladly turned a blind eye to The Pirate Bay and US copyright concerns until The Pirate Bay until the founders hacked Swedish systems. And they weren't charged for any copyright infringement.
http://rt.com/news/pirate-bay-hacking-fraud-003/
I didn't accuse Assange of threating to kill someone. I stated that his former partner made that accusation. I stated a fact. I didn't claim to have direct knowledge if it was accurate. But it came from his former partner and supposed best friend. It should be noted that several people close to Assange left Wikileaks to start a forked project because they supported the ideal, but not him.
The third accusation isn't bullshit. It was widely reported.
http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/9874-news-assange-falls-out-with-rights-groups-as-us-presses-allies-for-investigations.html
You state that Wikileaks was very useful for mankind, but he refused to release tons of leaks given to him. His partner outlined how the entire purpose of Wikileaks was to funnel money to Assange, and that the ideals of transparency and whistleblowing were secondary.
You may also be interested in this link:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/12/07/18665978.php
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
But Assange insists the only reason he can't defend himself against the rape accusation is that Sweden would immediately send him off to the US. There are three problems with that statement.
1. The US hasn't charged him with a crime or filed an extradition request for him.
2. Before the rape accusation, he felt Sweden was a safe location. Now magically it isn't.
3. Sweden doesn't have a history of extraditing people to the US.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
"The Law" is not an objective measure of morality. If it were incorruptable, that may be arguable. But considering the nature of the charges, how the case was prosecuted, and the fact that one of his two accusers was kicked out of Cuba for being a CIA asset, the likelihood of his prosecution representing actual justice is very small. The government of Ecuador seems to concur.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
"The conversation is a fascinating look into the minds of the two men, both of whom have had immeasurable impact on issues surrounding technology over recent years."
BS. Eric Schmidt has had an impact on technology. Julian Assange has been a pioneer in whistleblowing and avoiding incarceration. Let's not make Assange a technology genius just because we're bored and have nothing interesting to say.
This attitude assumes that the law and those who create it and enforce it are always on the right side of it and completely above board and beyond any sort of mischief, or worse. An attitude I do not share. I mistrust my government greatly.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
The US Fed. said to Interpol "Get him for us please, find anything on him."
Interpol said to the Swedish Polisen "Ok, the US wants him, find something"
The Polisen found a broad with an axe to grind on Assange. End of story.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Dude, you're not the only one who can post as AC!! They're not trying to impersonate you. That's just how the system works. Everybody can be AC.
Wasn't he one of the inventors or early players in deniable encryption, like what can TrueCrypt use?
Flee from totalitarian dictatorship and everyone's your friend; flee for the same reason but have the dictator(s) say "Oh, he's a rapist" and everyone just turns a blind eye, or worse, helps those dictators capture him. See, words are powerful. They have the power to pull the wool over everyone's eyes.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Go read the extradition rulings by the various British judges - the answer most questions, including the fabled "they can interview Assange in the UK" one much vaunted here on Slashdot.
Fun drinking game...take a shot every time Eric Schmidt says, "That's interesting!"
This reads like a personal 'TED' talk from Assange to Schmidt. What I glean, more than anything, is that Eric Schmidt doesn't know WTF he is doing from a technical perspective. Not qualified to run a data center let alone all of Google. It seems he is the type of leader that just accepts what he is told by others.
FTA:
JA: you know about Bitcoin?
ES: No.
JA: Okay, Bitcoin is something that evolved out of the cypherpunks a couple of years ago, and it is an alternative... it is a stateless currency.
Thank you Dave Raggett
His accuser hates Castro? That must mean she works for the CIA!
Everyone who opposes Castro definitively works for the CIA! She worked with a group, who is connected to one member who hates Castro, and thusly was backed by the CIA! It's all proof!
Obama had fundraiser meetings with Bill Ayer, which clearly proves that Obama is secretly working for a terrorist organization!
Drawing a lose connection between two lines to support confirmation bias is the tool of a conspiracy theorist. It doesn't represent reality.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
And how can they prove his guilt if he's hiding out like a common criminal?
Damn straight! He needs to be present to be bound, rocks attached, and thrown in a river to see if he's guilty and floats!
I'm sure Giles Corey wished he had a place to hide instead of having his innocence proven-to-death (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giles_Corey).
I'll grant you that Assange thinks he's reinventing the wheel and high off his own 'innovation' fumes...but that doesn't justify your flame/troll tone...
It's obvious Assange overestimates himself. He talks about Wikileaks like it is the new internet and Neo from the Matrix.
From a technical perspective, innovation rhetoric aside, Assange is a journalist. Nothing more nothing less. He distributes information to a general audience chosen to be of particular interest.
Assange himself is probably best described as a news blog publisher/editor.
Thank you Dave Raggett
The "rape" he is being accused of is a radical feminist definition. He is a male being prosecuted by a society where males are subject to discrimination. Not fair.
He is in a similar situation to a black man accused of rape in Alabama during the 1920s.
They **do** have to have a working knowledge of the product of the company.
You're giving Eric Schmidt a pass...he doesn't deserve it. He should have a grasp of these concepts enough to make decisions about resource allocation. That means a systemic-level understanding, not all details.
We need to demand CEO's have core competency...weird as it is to say that, it's true. "management" is only part of the picture of leading a company.
Thank you Dave Raggett
You are giving the CEO position a pass on their core responsibility. He has to make decisions...among competing groups within Google. Different divisions **all want more** and he has to allocate that scarcity.
If he does not have the basic competency to think critically about what his advisors tell him, he's a figurehead idiot. He will be at the whims of whoever holds his attention more not who needs the resources.
Just because many CEO's operate like this doesn't mean we should accept it.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Despite the comments who pick on the Iacocca example (not familiar with that) Schmidt is remarkably technical for a CEO (former Sun CTO with a T) which is really rare. TOR was not something that would be interesting to him, they are doing big data, search mobile and many other things that he needs to understand. TOR would be just general knowledge for a guy who does more than most of us do every day.
Flee from totalitarian dictatorship and everyone's your friend;
Who is fleeing from a totalitarian dictatorship? How does that relate to this situation at all? YOU are trying to use words to pull wool over people's eyes.
Honestly, I'm not sure how people can look at this track record and honestly consider him a hero or saint.
Because people are tribal, and as Assange said early on in the transcript (I'm only halfway through it), people today are not any more intellectually evolved than people from several thousand years ago.
It also means that people still seek perfection (that pesky thing that gave birth to modern religions), and try to attribute it to others that they admire.
Assange is brilliant. He's also human, just like everyone else.
Amnesty International calls out human rights violation and government corruption as a transparent charity that operates within the law.
Within the law? Within what law? Within who's laws? To remain lawful, you have to trust the system creating and enforcing the laws. That implies trusting the people running the system. It's also antithetical to Wikileaks' purpose.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
I would appreciate Assange and what he does more if Wikileaks wasn't simply about the US. There are other governments which could use his form of activism.
brrrrrrrrrppp 'Ey Homer...Why don't girls like me?
The term rape is probably not applicable, but that's the problem with redefining terms.
However, the principle that he is calling for total transparency and accountability of others, while acting like a hypocrite still applies.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
There is a motive for hearsay be unusable in court. That is because it means absolutely nothing. It is irrelevant.
The third accusation isn't bullshit. It was widely reported.
It was reported that the data leaked had the names. Nowhere there it is said that he asked for money to take the names of it, as you falsely accuse him of. He only asked help from the Amnesty to edit the names.
His partner outlined how the entire purpose of Wikileaks was to funnel money to Assange
Again hearsay. You seem to like it a lot.
An above-board extradition may be the least of his worries.
Well, this timely leak should help sales of the book.
Thanks. I'll look for the answer to the fabled question when I can dig for it as the answer wasn't in my top 10 results. But what does an extradition ruling from one nation have to do with facts sought from another nation? Admittedly I'm sort of looking at it rather simply - have questions / seek answers. You know, the center of the onion sort of thing. That and being that he is the guest of yet another country I can't quite see how the first country rulings matter in the slightest. All said and done that is.
\r
The extradition rulings were SOLELY about whether the extradition order was correctly completed. NOTHING ELSE.
1) It was signed by the prosecutor and not a judge as was intended, but it was accepted anyway.
2) The claims by **by the prosecutor** were claims that allowed extradition, but nothing about whether the claims were valid was addressed (this is why it was intended to be done by a judge not the prosecutor: judges judge the criminal culpability, prosecutors just make claims).
Assange has fled from the law enforcement over trumped up, politically motivated rape accusations. Like it or not, that is a factual statement.
Provide a guarantee that Sweden won't extradite Assange to the US, and Assange would be in Sweden tomorrow.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
APK, you suck. Go die in a fire. The hosts file in Windows is a _terrible_ way to filter internet traffic.
...let alone a coffee stand. The guy sounds like a moron. I sort of know the answer which is he's probably decent at the Wall Street / Davos / TED schmozzing to get the stock price up. But really he got paid jillions for being a dumb-ass ?
It's too big!! Reallyt and too far reaching. It's multi-topical but all very interesting.
When I'm not n my iPad later I will post you the direct link - the reason the extradition rulings have everything to do with the points in question, because basically every argument that is raised here on Slashdot was also used by Assanges lawyers and the judges responded to every single one of them detailing why they were not valid or did not present a reason to dismiss the extradition warrant.
The fact that he is a "guest" of Ecuador has no bearing on this at all - he can't leave the embassy without being arrested, and as he is now wanted for jumping bail in the UK....
like a common anonymous coward?
When he was in Sweden, these accusations were made, he went to the police station and gave his statement and then they dropped the case. He asked if he was free to leave and told "yes".
He left.
And then he was to be arrested on an extradition order WHICH WAS NOT supposed to be issued for merely wanting him for *questioning*, but only if he were *guilty*.
He fled from this extradition order, NOT from an accusation of rape.
Assange has fled from the law enforcement over rape accusations. Like it or not, that is a factual statement.
There is an ongoing grand jury investigation of Wikileaks by an administration that has relied on the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers more than all the previous uses of the act combined, from a country two recent independent reports say has engaged in systematic torture of detainees. Like it or not, those are also factual statements.
I think people support him out of blind partisanship ("he called out the US government, so I have to be on his side for life regardless of anything else!") which is foolish.
Strawman. I think people support Gesualdo da Venosa out of blind appreciation of chromaticism ("he used such colorful harmonies, so I have to support wife murdering!"). That _is_ foolish logic. Nobody has ever claimed it, just like nobody has ever claimed what you quoted about Assange.
If you support the actual ideals of transparency and accountability, then it should apply to Assange as well.
Assange isn't a democratic government that is required to follow the law as outlined in the constitution. Or do you think every journalist who publishes a story based on leaked sources should disclose the name, address, and transcripts of communication with every one of those sources?
I can believe that Wikileaks ought to be more transparent without having to being bound by some simplistic notion of all-or-nothing disclosure.
We also know that Assange's former partner accused Assange of threating to kill him once, and said Assange is purely financially motivated.
And we trust the veracity his former partner's statements... why?
How many significant leaks has Openleaks released again?
some of them received death threats.
Citation, please. Preferably with the same amount of detail as Amnesty outlined the inhuman treatment of Bradley Manning in its letter to Defense Secretary Gates.
Amnesty International calls out human rights violation and government corruption as a transparent charity that operates within the law. They protect people rather than putting them in danger.
Yes, it is a completely different type of organization whose main focus isn't on leaking documents from confidential sources who could receive prolonged inhumane treatment if their identity is revealed, but rather reporting on and demanding access to such sources when they are detained for record amounts of time and treated inhumanely. One might say that ideally these two types of organizations work in tandem to fight against the same general injustices. In the real world organizations don't agree 100% on every single issue.
Honestly, I'm not sure how people can look at this track record and honestly consider him a hero or saint.
Does every fucking musicologist who writes a paper on Gesualdo need to start with a statement of moral outrage about murder? I could understand your point if there were as much silence over the accusations against Assange as there was over Manning's inhumane treatment. But instead there is a _years_ long effort to extradite him to Sweden for questioning over the rape accusation, an accusation that is rightly repeated without fail in every news account of the situation I've seen or read.
If you cannot see how people can show support for some actions of an individual without having to take complete moral responsibility for all their actions then you must lead a very narrow and ineffectual life.
You can't post a direct link from an iPad?
He assumes that journalism and the media can solve problems. This is a flaw because just revealing problems doesn't solve it and sometimes revealing problems causes only more problems.
He assumes everyone can do something about the problems once they are revealed when in actuality only certain people can do anything about these sorts of problems.
He assumes that information should be used to create just behavior but just behavior is subjective, and we cannot always agree on that.
So perhaps he has the right intentions but the implementation of Wikileaks is a flawed design. It's not decentralized enough because he's the center of it which is why he was so easily shut down. There is no international authority to bring war crimes or human rights abuse to who can do much about it. Do we give the documents to Interpol or what? Don't we need some International enforcement authority or police agency who can actually bring justice or consequences?
Just releasing information to the media often does not help. It encourages terrorism, vigilantism, and unorganized acts of violence in some instances and in other instances it merely causes a greater crack down on civil liberties. Cablegate accomplished nothing other than embarrassing the US government from what I can see. It did not reveal any human rights abuses, it did not save any lives, it did not prevent any wars. Had there been human rights abuses then releasing the information to the media would not have stopped it. The media had images of torture and we've all seen those images but torture hasn't been stopped has it?
We have seen war images going back to Vietnam but that hasn't stopped Iraq did it? The media or fourth estate actually has very limited power in the USA for example. You can go to the media about something, millions of people can know it's happening, and they can't do a damn thing about it.
It would be better to take that information to an International force that can fight corruption using police powers and the ability to arrest war criminals. Why isn't this possible? Could it be that the USA has already corrupted the UN? And we can't take it to the FBI because the FBI is a nationalist organization which cares more about protecting the status quo and which is certainly corrupt as is proven by cases like Robert Hanssen.
A new organization seeking to replace Wikileaks has to be completely decentralized and it needs an International enforcement mechanism connected to the UN who can enforce and defend the human rights of anyone anywhere in any nation. When that happens then it will make sense to give information about human rights abuses, war crimes and other particulars to that organization. Stuff like Cablegate does not protect any human rights or prevent war crimes or do anything from what I can see. Maybe the Wikileaks supporters are seeing something in it that I can't see.
What went wrong with Julian Assange is his implementation and his naive conceptualizations.
The ideals are right, we do need a way to prevent human rights abuses, to save lives, to fight corruption. I just don't think Wikileaks is properly set up to do that.
I don't think the media or journalists can do that. I think giving that information to the general public who is completely powerless and can do nothing to stop it doesn't really change a damn thing but it makes governments paranoid and makes them crack down.
There has to be a global currency and Bitcoin accomplishes that. There has to be a global policing authority and that is the part which is missing from all this. All the policing authorities are run by corrupt nationalists. They are all nationalists so there is no police to go to for enforcement with this information. The media and the civilians might care about human rights and care about solving these problems but the local police aren't capable of dealing with it and the national police such as the FBI or whatever aren't motivated or capable of dealing with this. In fact the FBI would probably be directly opposed to it.
So where exactly can this information be given where there is a reasonable guarantee that actions will be taken? Just putting it out there for public record or to give people a trove of information to gawk at is not exactly solving anything. It's making things worse because embarrassment leads to paranoia which leads to more crackdowns and nothing changes for the people who suffer. Julian Assange simply cannot help, and Wikileaks cannot help, at least not in any of the highly technological nations like the US. The only thing which could help in the US is for an international agency to start arresting people based on leaked information.
Actually he spent time discussing the merits of using the technology in bitcoin to assist anonymity - using a decay in value over time etc. He also mentioned there are shortcomings in that it can be hacked, as it has been, making it more unstable.
Wikileaks wants to release information to the media under the false assumption that there are some good guy heroes somewhere who can do something about it.
The problem is there aren't any organizations who can do anything about it. First in order to build such an organization you need to go to the UN and find a way to get it funded. When you do that the bad people in the US, China, Russia and other nations will join forces to prevent you from being able to fund your International enforcement organization.
Without that kind of organization Wikileaks is not only defenseless but all it's supporters are defenseless as well. The corrupt local and national police can have any Wikileaks supporter arrested for nearly any reason. It's not hard to make someone look like a sex offender, there are informants everywhere and undercover cops everywhere. Wikileaks releases information to the public and realizes the public is powerless but underestimates how powerless. The public cannot do anything at all to stop corrupt law enforcement if that law enforcement decides to make political arrests, or set people up to look guilty for political law enforcement reasons.
And what International agency can these people go to for protection? What International police exist to arrest corrupt local or national police in countries like the USA, or China, or Russia? You're a journalist in Russia and you're risking your life. You're a journalist in the USA and you're risking your reputation and freedom.
While you might die in Russia, in the USA you might find yourself suddenly accused of rape, or some sex offense. The result is the total destruction of the life of the individual. Journalists are effectively powerless. The only way this will change is through an International organization with the power to arrest people on US soil and that isn't going to be allowed to happen so what exactly can the media do?
Both are excellent. Google drive is excellent too.
Assange has fled from the law enforcement over trumped up, politically motivated rape accusations. Like it or not, that is a factual statement.
Provide a guarantee that Sweden won't extradite Assange to the US, and Assange would be in Sweden tomorrow.
Journalists have limited power. That is my argument. Police on the other hand seem to have nearly unlimited power.
The solution isn't the fourth estate or revealing the crimes to the public who can't do anything about it and who if they try may get labeled rapists or sex offenders themselves. The solution is to come up with a legal plan of action to create an international law enforcement organization and make that organization the Wikileaks 2.0. When you can make arrests then people are going to be more likely to want to help you but when you can only release it to the media how does that protect your friends, family, or you from being identified and arrested under false pretenses?
So where are these honest international cops who can arrest the corrupt cops embedded in the most powerful positions in government?
hello Jeremiah cornelius http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3581857&cid=43276741
You are better off setting up upstream DNS server on router and use hosts file on that, but you are bound to memory on router.
I actually run secret upstream DNS server with hosts file built in. I will send you teh codez if you want. You mearly need to set IP settings to point to the public IP.
That has nothing to do with technology. It's complete social engineering.
There's an app for that!
This is a UDP joke, I don't care if you get it or not...
OK. No hurries. I can't help but think, given the laws, rulings, nations and people in play here that the possibility of actually discovering whether or not those girls were harmed (apart from "because, money. secrets") that that would, above all, be the paramount question to answer and fuck all in between if those that have questions could have, should have, can but won't ask these questions, in any setting. And, if the accusations turn out to be more than sufficient to arrest him for real crimes committed, the host nation would, I should think, give more credence to the possibility that they're sheltering a potentially (to other women) dangerous person and that person should be tried.
From a "wow, those law books sure are thick" perspective I perceive a thread of aggression in these events that, on the level of nations, doesn't seem justified. There seems the very real and sufficient threat of extradition to yet a fourth country that is seen as unjust by the third country and the objective here must be to have either the fourth country admit as much and deal with the third country directly or for the second country to regress or seek redress from a world court respective of all four countries, should one exist. Or, more likely, the pieces will simply remain on the board as placed.
\r
See, this is what gets my hackles up!
Those are not the only two options. You can have core competency and still be a manager. Also, it'd be nice if a good number of management came up from production...
Used to be in America, in high level business you could expect your manager knew the basics of the entire system, and had probably done your job at some point.
Thank you Dave Raggett
You should have read more. First, bitcoin's workings were just one of a litany of things that Assange elucidated that got Schmidt all fanboi
Second. You didn't read the basics of Bitcoin that's for sure:
"In 2009, the bitcoin network came into existence with the release of the first open source bitcoin client and the issuance of the first bitcoins.[9][22][23][24]
2010
The initial prices for bitcoins were set by individuals on the bitcointalk forums. The most significant transaction involved a 10,000 BTC pizza.[9] The Mt.Gox bitcoin exchange was soon established."
Full article and sources here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin
Here's a /. from 2009 on Bitcoin V.3 release: http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/07/11/1747245/bitcoin-releases-version-03
Bitcoin had been in the news for awhile. Schmidt should have at least know of its existence and the basics of how it works.
Thank you Dave Raggett
This is a flaw because just revealing problems doesn't solve it and sometimes revealing problems causes only more problems.
Knowing about a problem is a necessary prerequisite to solving it. Your post is meandering and logically flawed.
Assange has fled from the law enforcement over rape accusations. Like it or not, that is a factual statement. I think people support him out of blind partisanship ("he called out the US government, so I have to be on his side for life regardless of anything else!") which is foolish.
If you support the actual ideals of transparency and accountability, then it should apply to Assange as well. He shouldn't flee law enforcement over rape accusations. (Even though it isn't rape by American standards, he seems to believe he is above the law) His organization should be more transparent.
So, if you have done something that pissed off China, and now Chinese authorities accused you of rape, you would still voluntarily submit to Chinese law enforcement? If not, you are just a big hypocrite and also believe yourself "above the law".
Fortunately for the rest of us, society doesn't work that way. Of course, thats because the rest of us aren't paranoid nut jobs who will one day scream and rave about how awesome Sweden is for giving the US the finger, having a 'pirate party' and allowing TPB to exist even though its sole purpose is clearly to facilitate piracy ... and then the very next talk about how Sweden is going to basically suck the US off while they hand over Assange because they are so under the control of the US.
Do you have absolutely any idea how idiotic you sound? Its fucking Sweden you moron. If we wanted him, England wouldn't have tried to arrest him for Sweden, they would have just put his ass in a box and shipped him to gitmo for us. You sound retarded because doing away with Assange would be far less surprising than other stuff they have no problem publicly admitting to.
He's not as important as your fantasies seem to think he is. He's just another selfish douche bent on obtaining and using power for his own personal gain. He is, in fact, EXACTLY like the people he pretends to be against, and you're too blindly in love with him to recognize it.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Jesus christ ... if the US gave half as much about Assange as you loonies think, we would have just fucking shot him and made it look like some random fanboy such as yourself did it. There are clearly enough loonies out there to make it plausible.
HE's not a whistleblower, he's a jackass who prays on the morality of others to gain power and influence over others. He is, in fact, EXACTLY like the governments you think he's 'outting'. You're just to blinded by your love for the ideals to see the reality.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
The enemy knowing what you know can help them to take actions to prevent you from solving it. Telling the media alerts the same people the events are about which can make alert those people to merely do a better job at being corrupt. They aren't going to change their behavior because of a bad news article.
It's not hiding if you can google the address he's living at!
A bit difficult when he hasn't even been charged yet. There isn't even enough evidence for that, just suspicion and a request for him to come and answer questions in a place that has already handed someone over to be shipped to GITMO no questions asked.
Half of the fucking world is "purely financially motivated".
That wasn't done with the last person "rendered" out of Sweden to the USA either. That should also answer your history question.
Keep embarassing yourself Jeremiah Cornelius http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3581857&cid=43276741 since you posted that using your registered username by mistake (instead of your usual anonymous coward submissions by the 100's the past 2-3 months now on slashdot) giving away it's you spamming this forums almost constantly, just as you have in the post I just replied to.
Do you really think the current UK government would survive condoning a high profile extra-legal rendition direct to GITMO? It would split in half and no longer have the numbers to be a government.
Erin Burnett did for 10 minutes.
Schmidt might have co-written Lex. But if you read TFA, you realize he does not even know TOR and the idea behind TOR - probably the most important invention in internet and communication methodologies. This is stupid.
I guess Schmidt should turn in his geek card, and as a champion supporter you should also join.
Tat Tvam Asi
TOR and the idea behind TOR - probably the most important invention in internet and communication methodologies
The most important invention in Internet and communication methodologies? You've got to be kidding. It's neither new (I ran a Mixmaster anonymous remailer for years; same concept, just a higher level in the stack), nor particularly influential.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Immeasurable impact on issues surrounding technology over recent years
I suppose you could say that - I certainly haven't been able to measure the impact mr Assange has had on technology. He was in the news, but so were the "megastars" from Big Brothel. And like them, he has now faded away into obscurity.
The other half is also looking for some tail.
That sounds more like the box Julian has ticked (or tickled during sleeping, which when translated badly into English seems to have come out as rape).
You don't think there are other more important Internet/communication inventions than Tor? Think lower... Hypertext, TCP, UDP, IP... Ethernet, Radio, Fiber-optics. Other stuff that is really cool, that I don't even know about. Tor is interesting in our times because privacy is currently struggling in the face of technology. But IMHO it's not nearly as earth-shattering as the stuff it's built upon.
No, our whisleblowers are rotting in prison, at some points being tortured.
Oh, and that's my Lord who's name you are misusing. Apparently He isn't yours; please do not tread on that ground.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
" both of whom have had immeasurable impact on issues surrounding technology over recent years."" Eric Schmidt is just some guy the VC suits FORCED on Larry and Sergei when Google was trying to get funding. Larry and Sergei DRAGGED THEIR FEET and delayed capitulating to this "adult supervision" requirement as long as they could. Since Eric Schmidt is basically just a stand issue schmuck without insight, without vision, they figured they'd be able to "get along" with him - read: roll over him on all important decisions, and they were right. Schmidt spent his time cheating on his wife ( who is well compensated and probably a little relieved) and chasing after 10s of the sort that had ignored him in high school, but now needed help with their coke addictions, taking them to Burning Man, playing the role of Dr. Strangelove then paying for their rehab No, seriously. http://gawker.com/5475332/ http://gawker.kinja.com/5499121/photos-google-ceo-eric-schmidt-at-burning-man-with-his-ex+mistress Schmidt is the guy with a knack for the anti-quote - things Google would wish he'd never said, oh like "With your permission you give us more information about you, about your friends, and we can improve the quality of our searches [...] We don't need you to type at all. We know where you are. We know where you've been. We can more or less know what you're thinking about." and ""If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." and " "most people don't want Google to answer their questions. . . . They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next." and "One day we had a conversation where we figured we could just try to predict the stock market. And then we decided it was illegal. So we stopped doing that." Even the curated collection of things which appear on quotes pages like this one and presumably are intended to show him in his best light merely range from the pedestrian: " Success is really about being ready for the good opportunities that come before you. It's not to have a detailed plan of everything that you're going to do. You can't plan innovation or inspiration, but you can be ready for it, and when you see it, you can jump on it. " and "We have an opportunity for everyone in the world to have access to all the world's information. This has never before been possible. Why is ubiquitous information so profound? It's a tremendous equalizer. Information is power. " to the weird: "A mind set in its ways is wasted. Don't do it. " "If you forgo your plan, you also have to forgo fear. " to the creepy: "In a world where everything is remembered and everything is kept forever, you need to live for the future and things you really care about." This guy and the pile of money that's been shoved under him is the ultimate expression of the American elites' fear of everything which is not mediocre, not "regular" , not tame and predictable. They couldn't have the brains of Google also presume to be the captains of Google because who knows what kind of idealistic fantasies they might become obsessed with and worse, actually realize. You can read all about how Eric "Lucky" Schmidt washed up on the shore of Tropical Paradise Google and all the other details in Ken Auletta's book . It's just as I described. http://www.amazon.com/Googled-End-World-As-Know/dp/0143118048
" both of whom have had immeasurable impact on issues surrounding technology over recent years.""
Eric Schmidt is just some guy the VC suits FORCED on Larry and Sergei when Google was trying to get funding. Larry and Sergei DRAGGED THEIR FEET and delayed capitulating to this "adult supervision" requirement as long as they could. Since Eric Schmidt is basically just a stand issue schmuck without insight, without vision, they figured they'd be able to "get along" with him - read: roll over him on all important decisions, and they were right.
Schmidt spent his time cheating on his wife ( who is well compensated and probably a little relieved) and chasing after 10s of the sort that had ignored him in high school, but now needed help with their coke addictions, taking them to Burning Man, playing the role of Dr. Strangelove then paying for their rehab
No, seriously.
http://gawker.com/5475332/
http://gawker.kinja.com/5499121/photos-google-ceo-eric-schmidt-at-burning-man-with-his-ex+mistress
Schmidt is the guy with a knack for the anti-quote - things Google would wish he'd never said, oh like
"With your permission you give us more information about you, about your friends, and we can improve the quality of our searches [...] We don't need you to type at all. We know where you are. We know where you've been. We can more or less know what you're thinking about."
and
""If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."
and
" "most people don't want Google to answer their questions. . . . They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next."
and
"One day we had a conversation where we figured we could just try to predict the stock market. And then we decided it was illegal. So we stopped doing that."
Even the curated collection of things which appear on quotes pages like this one and presumably are intended to show him in his best light merely range from the pedestrian:
" Success is really about being ready for the good opportunities that come before you. It's not to have a detailed plan of everything that you're going to do. You can't plan innovation or inspiration, but you can be ready for it, and when you see it, you can jump on it. "
and
"We have an opportunity for everyone in the world to have access to all the world's information. This has never before been possible. Why is ubiquitous information so profound? It's a tremendous equalizer. Information is power. "
to the weird:
"A mind set in its ways is wasted. Don't do it. "
"If you forgo your plan, you also have to forgo fear. "
to the creepy:
"In a world where everything is remembered and everything is kept forever, you need to live for the future and things you really care about."
This guy and the pile of money that's been shoved under him is the ultimate expression of the American elites' fear of everything which is not mediocre, not "regular" , not tame and predictable. They couldn't have the brains of Google also presume to be the captains of Google because who knows what kind of idealistic fantasies they might become obsessed with and worse, actually realize.
You can read all about how Eric "Lucky" Schmidt washed up on the shore of Tropical Paradise Google and all the other details in Ken Auletta's book . It's just as I described.
http://www.amazon.com/Googled-End-World-As-Know/dp/0143118048
Shut up, Paul.
a link to some random google analytics of words searched doesn't mean shit
people like you are a pox upon data analysis...the hilariously sad truth is that most people think like you...some even run their country based on some fucking graph of data that gets shoved in their face between fundraising...
Thank you Dave Raggett
see, he just has to **be aware** that it exists and the basics of how it works
you understand that, right? it takes a matter of minutes for an intelligent technical professional to understand Bitcoin...
a matter of minutes...so you're argument fails.
just accept that Google's CEO is kind of an airhead...it's not like he's your fucking child
Thank you Dave Raggett
Tor is a million miles off the radar if his job is running google.
for fuck's sake...I'm talking of being aware of a thing like Bitcoin. AWARE IT EXISTS and basics of HOW IT WORKS
cuss people are stupid sometimes!
i'm not saying he has to be CEO of Tor and Bitcoin...he just needs to know they exist and how they work. a tech professional could accomplish that in a matter of minutes.
Thank you Dave Raggett
your 3 points are all technically valid, but they are all red herrings...
my point, the point that proved you wrong about Schmidt, is that the 'either/or' context of 'manager/tech' is dumb and a gross oversimplifiction
it is a false equivalence
**working knowledge** and **understanding basics** and **professional awareness** are mandatory for a CEO to make decisions
Thank you Dave Raggett
"He assumes everyone can do something about the problems once they are revealed when in actuality only certain people can do anything about these sorts of problems."
Who are these certain people that are the only ones that can do anything about certain problems? Can you give some examples?
"He assumes that information should be used to create just behavior but just behavior is subjective, and we cannot always agree on that."
No, he explicitly states that it's subjective, but that he believes just behaviour arises from the ability to both provide transparency (i.e. whistleblow safely), and act on objective information (i.e. not manipulated by biased media).
"We have seen war images going back to Vietnam but that hasn't stopped Iraq did it? The media or fourth estate actually has very limited power in the USA for example. You can go to the media about something, millions of people can know it's happening, and they can't do a damn thing about it."
I think the problem is you're making the very human mistake of expecting things to happen on your timescale, but the world, the universe doesn't work on our timescales, it's much bigger than that.
You suggest that nothing has been done because of Vietnam, because of Iraq, but I don't think that's true. I think international and national disgust for what happened with Iraq has crippled Americas ability to carry out similar wars. Public understanding of how flawed the Iraq war was across the globe has caused America's international reputation to absolutely plummet making it hard for it to justify much military action. If Iraq had never happened and it's international reputation remained at pre-War on Terror levels I suspect America would've hit Iran and intervened in Syria now. Since the intervention in Iraq, US intervention overseas has been massively limited, to simply providing support in places like Libya where there was vast international support and only really Russia as a major player aired distaste for it, but didn't outright block it at the UN.
It's about political capital, and political capital is something you gain by doing things that are popular, and lose by doing things that are unpopular. Political capital doesn't exist as a tangible currency, but exists in the form of international opinion weighted on different components of the individual - for example, if just the population of Fiji objected to America intervening in Syria they wouldn't care, if it was the population of Russia they'd listen a little bit more, and if it was there allies - the EU, then they'd listen much much more again. The problem with Iraq is that even nearly all their allies were against it, and that's why it cost so much in political capital to go ahead with it, and that's why America has yet to regain the political capital required to do that again.
But here is, where I think, Assange is concerned - he is concerned that whilst political capital expenditure on things like the war in Iraq are transparent and open for the world to make up their own mind, other things are not. For example, America deserved to suffer a loss in political capital for extraordinary rendition, and for waterboarding, but it tried to keep these things secret - whistleblowing on these issues so that they were discovered ensured that the correct political expenditure was made to limit the possibility of repeating this sort of thing.
Consider the hypothetical scenario that the conspiracy theorists were right, and that Obama did order that the CIA give Hugo Chavez his cancer - if that was kept hidden Obama could carry on as is, as if nothing had happened, but if a whistleblower leaked evidence that it was true, then this would destroy Obama's remaining political capital and possibly see him removed from office. It would deter any president from ever doing anything like that again any time soon.
You see, it's not about any one individual, it's about making sure information is known so that global opinion, although subjective for each individual, can be a reasonable measure of the legitimacy of an action, or leader, but for that to be possible, the world population has to be informed, they have to know the facts, and it is for that reason that Assange sees whistleblowing as important.
"His accuser hates Castro? That must mean she works for the CIA!
Everyone who opposes Castro definitively works for the CIA! She worked with a group, who is connected to one member who hates Castro, and thusly was backed by the CIA! It's all proof!"
Um, no. Read his post again. This wasn't some tenuous link, this was the government of Cuba kicking her out as they determined her to be a CIA asset. Millions of holiday makers from the West go to Cuba as a holiday destination each year (outside the US it has a massive tourist industry), few to none of them like Castro, but none of them get kicked out for being CIA assets.
You accuse the GP of confirmation bias and claim that it weakens his point, the fact you have to resort to rewriting what happened and completely distort what he said doesn't exactly do anything to strengthen your point.
TOR and ODIN both have wide reaching implications and everyone in technology (at this point) should be aware. They both will eventually impact every user of mobile or wired internet. I challenge VentureBeat to do some more in depth coverage as I have been reading about these two for a while now on the net, and I am starting to think tech people, especially managers and infrastructure people, should at least be aware of them.
It is likely they both will emerge as an issue for corporate infrastructure one of two ways (IMO): Corporations/non-governmental entities will want to implement these network systems—or they will have to respond to the reaction from ‘black hat’ internet forces (which will no doubt clog the internet with nasty stuff—regardless of whether they are resisting the technology or grafting it for their own means).
You have brushed an important and "under-reported" topic...please dig deeper. http://goo.gl/WrCLD
ES needs to grow a pair. http://goo.gl/UTDC9
It's all proof!
We're talking about odds here, not proof, specifically "what are the odds that the prosecution against Assange represents actual justice and not prosecution for the sake of extradition?"
We know that the Cuban government labelled one of his accusers a CIA asset. They may have been wrong. We know that Assange was warned about sexual entrapment by foreign intelligence services. We know that of all the millions of women in Sweden, one of the two Assange took to bed had been previously connected to CIA by a foreign government. That could be a complete coincidence. We know that this one convinced the other one to press charges. We know that the accusations are outside of what typically constitutes a case in these matters. We know that the case was dropped and then picked up again by a politically-connected prosecutor. We know that Sweden refused to give the UK a non-extradition agreement or conduct their interviews in the UK, as they had done in previous cases.
None of this proves anything, but all of it weighs into the odds-guessing decision about whether his prosecution is political or in the interests of justice. Diplomacy a black and white game as often as the whole truth is told (i.e. never). The government of Eucador considered all of the available evidence and made the judgement that they felt the odds were significant enough that this was political that they would defy the UK and Swedish governments and take the hit to their respective relationships to grant him asylum. There's still a chance that they're wrong, but those who argue that the prosecution in Sweden is definitively morally correct are either ignoring the available evidence or operating on faith.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
If Assange faced rape charges in Sweden, how would that lead to extradition to the US?
Again, Assange hasn't been charged with anything in the US and there is no extradition request. Nor does Sweden have a record that would indicate they would extradite him.
You're saying there is some conspiracy that the CIA framed him for something fairly trivial in Sweden (rather than just apprehend him) to get him extradited, when the whole thing is a long shot. You're talking about odds, and those are some long odds.
If Assange truly supported his supposed ideals of transparency and accountability, wouldn't he be willing to stand trial and defend his name?
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
If Assange faced rape charges in Sweden, how would that lead to extradition to the US?
The two countries have an extradition treaty.
Again, Assange hasn't been charged with anything in the US and there is no extradition request.
There's a sealed grand jury indictment in the US on charges of criminal activity under the Espionage Act that has been leaked. See the Sydney Morning Herald report on it.
Nor does Sweden have a record that would indicate they would extradite him.
They've extradited three people to the US for torture ("extraordinary rendition") in Egypt at CIA black ops sites there. See Agiza v. Sweden at the European Court of Human Rights.
You're saying there is some conspiracy that the CIA framed him for something fairly trivial in Sweden (rather than just apprehend him) to get him extradited, when the whole thing is a long shot. You're talking about odds, and those are some long odds.
I'm raising the possibility based on the above available evidence. The Government of Ecuador's sources surely know more than I do and have come to that conclusion.
If Assange truly supported his supposed ideals of transparency and accountability, wouldn't he be willing to stand trial and defend his name?
Trial? Like Bradley Manning's three years of pre-trial torture? Assange isn't an American Citizen nor covered by the UCMJ, so he could easily be classified as an "enemy combatant" (they have a different term now but same idea), transferred to Gitmo and left to serve his sentence until the War on Terror is "over". Why would you assume he would be treated any better than Bradley Manning or given a fair trial?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
1. Sweden extraditing Assange would be extremely difficult because they'd have to sign off on it, and so would the UK. Neither have suggested they would.
2. Manning was in solitary, not tortured.
3. The UCMJ places more restrictions on you. Members of the military are basically held to a higher standard and have FEWER rights than others. For example, you can face a court martial and a separate criminal trial and double-jeopardy does not apply. This was explained to me that I was effectively waiving some of my rights when I joined the Marine Corps. Bradley Manning voluntarily made that choice.
4. You're suggesting that the UK and Sweden have both been duped and Ecuador has proof of this. But said proof hasn't been revealed publicly. If Assange had any proof he was framed, why wouldn't he reveal it?
5. Agiza was an Egyptian wanted in Egypt that Sweden handed back to Egypt. Sweden had negotiated promises from Egypt that he would not be tortured, and Egypt lied. Sweden had also labeled Agiza a terrorist, which it has not done to Assange. Sweden ruled that letting Agiza in the country was a security risk because they labeled him a terrorist, and thusly deported him to his home country, while at the same time demanding that Egypt not torture him. Sweden had zero qualms letting Assange in the country. Saying this situation is the same is nothing short of ridiculous. They are completely different.
6. This is by far the most important point. Conspiracy theorists assume that anyone who speaks negatively of the US government is rounded up and punished for it, but all evidence speaks to the contrary. Plenty of Americans speak out negatively about the government every single day with nothing happening to them.
Again, there is zero documented evidence that he was framed. There is zero documented evidence that Sweden would be able to or willing to extradite to the US for someone they haven't gone after themselves.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.