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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.
Don't put words in his mouth. He didn't say 'no big deal'. The gist of what he said was more that, for security researchers and people interested in this sort of thing, having the malware available for analysis within document dumps can prove a fruitful line of enquiry, and people downloading and extracting these dumps are unlikely to be the mouthbreathing 'hurr durr an exe gotta run it see what it does' idiots.
Doc files, I can see some merit in providing two dumps, one with any autoplay macros neutered. Or at least, putting a massive great warning reminding researchers to take care.
Dang it, where's my "mod inciteful". All I have is insightful.
Trump backers realize they've been played as WikiLeaks fails to deliver October surprise
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We don't like click-baity, misleading, and misrepresentative headlines here. They're disingenuous and you should be ashamed for having snuck this one past the editors. It should come as a surprise to no one that the mail spools of gov't officials would contain malware, because they're just bound to be targets for spearphishers. To people who can manage to examine files without uncontrollably clicking on them until they execute, this malware poses *zero* threat. ...and yet here this headline and article is, trying to make it sound like WikiLeaks has been in some way *infected* with malware that is a danger to visitors of the site, and that Assange is improperly and unprofessionally downplaying that threat.
Whatever Clinton is paying you, it's not worth it. Your integrity is worth more than money.
Misinformation? They leaked emails containing malware targeted at the people they were originally sent to. Rather than adopt any kind of editorial oversight, wikileaks is a firehose of irrelevant (emails to/from targets family), not-newsworthy (SSNs of donors whose names are already public record), privacy invading (names of gay Saudis, where homosexuality is punishable by death), and occasionally malware-laden (because why not target malware at high-profile politicians), leaks with only a few nuggets of anything of interest delivered with transparent animus and bias
But if he's got an important leak, why didn't he make it? Instead, they were hawking books. He's turning into an infomercial.
Don't get me wrong, I think if he's got an important leak to make that would affect the election, I think we should know about it. The problem is, Trump is hiding a bunch of shit as well, and that information could affect the election, and Assange is basically giving him a free pass. (For the record, I consider both major party candidates to be terrible. But Trump is getting away with all kinds of things that would sink any other candidate because the media is in love with ratings.)
And hell, I honestly consider Trump to be the more dangerous candidate when it comes to a free and open press. Hell, he's said he wants to make it easier to sue publications if they publish something he doesn't like.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
No, editorial review is what would inttoduce bias. They're not journalists, and they're not really activists, except in the narrow realm of information trandparency - they're a data source. Sure, there's a lot of noise with the signal, but thats why other organisations that *are* journalists filter through it and provide editorialised opinions on it.
Don't make wikileaks into something its not - we need an open data dump more than we need someone selectively picking the facts that support their position and rolling them up into an article. We've already got plenty of those.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
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.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Thus far Assange's big leaks have been little more than damp squibs. There's going to come a point very soon when he's just going to fade into obscurity, locked in his embassy prison, and no one giving a shit any more. Snowden stole the torch anyways, and is a far less complex hero for those that want data to be free.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.