Julian Assange: All That Malware On Wikileaks Isn't a Big Deal (vice.com)

WikiLeaks celebrates its 10th anniversary today. At a press conference, its editor Julian Assange hinted that Wikileaks could soon disclose more things about the U.S. election. Making use of the occasion, Motherboard asked Assange about the malware that Wikileaks website contains. To which, Assange responded (via Motherboard): âoeThe [Hillary] Clinton campaign has been going around saying 'don't read Wikileaks, because there's malware,'" Assange said in response to a general question about malware on the site from Motherboard. Talking specifically about malicious files that were included within a recent dump of emails from Turkey, Assange emphasised that there wasn't an issue for users who just visited the site, and that people needed to download the files themselves. "However this same risk exists for most '.exe' or '.doc' files downloaded elsewhere from the internet or received by email. As time goes by we flag documents to alert readers," a print-out given to journalists at the press conference reads. Assange even thought that the presence of malware itself was noteworthy. "There was malware sent to [the ruling Turkish party] AKP, either from criminals or from state attacks on the AKP. That's extremely interesting," he said.

Comments

WikiLeaks is pretty good at trolling.

[wiredog]

Trump backers realize they've been played as WikiLeaks fails to deliver October surprise

Re:WikiLeaks is pretty good at trolling.

[Minupla]

"OK, I admit I rickrolled you this time, but click on my link NEXT time, because I'd never rickroll you again, honest!"

Whose side is he on?

[Daetrin]

He's definitely biased, but i'm not quite sure yet if he's anti-Clinton, pro-Trump, or just pro-watching-the-world-burn.

Unless they just came into the info in the last couple months they should have released any damning revelations they had about Clinton during the primaries when it might have helped Sanders win.

At this point however the only realistic options are Trump and Clinton. And honestly even if wikileaks did have proof that the Clintons make a habit of murdering their political opponents (citation needed oh so very much) i'd still probably vote for Hillary. Trump doesn't know what an act of war is, he doesn't know how treaties and alliances work, he thinks nuclear weapons were made to be used, and he has a propensity for letting his temper get the better of him at 3am and lashing out. If he gets elected i'm honestly worried that the world might end in a nuclear fireball.

From a pure game theory standpoint in this situation i'd far rather hold my nose and vote for a known murderer who also happened to be skilled at international politics.

Re:Whose side is he on?

[Daetrin]

I was in my teens for Reagan and the start of the first Bush administration, so my memory of what was said about them is pretty fuzzy. But i don't recall a big deal being made about nuclear war being made, and that certainly wasn't my biggest concern during either the election for Bush 1's 2nd term or either of Bush 2's terms.

But Trump has said that he's okay with using nuclear weapons offensively:
https://thinkprogress.org/9-te...

Trump has also said that he won't guarantee defending our allies, which is potentially a very destabilizing action:
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyli...
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...

He said during the first debate that attacking an Iranian ship would not start a war. (To be fair, doing so wouldn't _definitely_ start a war, but almost identical actions have been considered acts of war in the past and could easily be considered so again, so saying that it definitely wouldn't is 100% wrong.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

And i can find any number of references for the off the wall stuff Trump has posted on twitter at 3am, in fact there has been analysis presented here on slashdot about the emotional tones of his tweets then vs when his staff is in charge:
https://politics.slashdot.org/...

Now normally i wouldn't say "this person acts unhinged on twitter, therefore they'll end civilization." However he has stated himself that he's willing to cause turmoil among our allies, which will lead to politically unstable situations, he's said himself that he's willing to preemptively use nuclear weapons, and he's said things that seem to indicate he doesn't know what is and is not an act of war.

If you combine that with the kind of temper and tendency to get unhinged when he feels he's been attacked or insulted that he's demonstrated both in real life and in his late night twitter sessions, i feel that it's reasonable to be very concerned.