Julian Assange Could Be Time's 'Person Of The Year', And Is Also Still Not Dead (time.com)

Long-time Slashdot reader cstacy noticed Saturday that Julian Assange hadn't made any communications or public appearances in six weeks. But today an anonymous reader writes: Julian Assange is still not dead, reports The Inquisitr, noting "the WikiLeaks founder made his first appearance in weeks, speaking with an interviewer for a conference in Beirut" including comments about the recent death of Fidel Castro.

Assange is also in the running to be chosen as "Person of the Year" in Time magazine's annual online reader's poll, and last Monday even moved briefly into first place, inching past Donald Trump. "It's worth noting that the poll presents people alphabetically," Time reported, "so Assange is the first option participants consider and Trump comes near the end of the poll."
I think the poll's being hacked by state actors, since Vladimir Putin now leads with 38%, followed by Theresa May (16%) and North Korea leader Kim Jong Un (13%), and Donald Trump is locked in a tie for fourth place with India Prime Minister Narendra Modi at 9%. Time worked with Opentopic and IBM's Watson to assemble the initial list for reader's votes, which also included Apple CEO Tim Cook and FBI director James Comey. Surprisingly, a few celebrities also turned up on the list too, including comedian Samantha Bee, Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Olympic gymnast Simone Biles.

Comments

Was about to mod +1 funny when I read...

[zedaroca]

I think the poll's being hacked by state actors, since Vladimir Putin now leads with 38%, followed by Theresa May (16%) and North Korea leader Kim Jong Un (13%),

Then realized it was part of the summary, so probably not a joke.
The editors in Slashdot are really pushing on the (Russian) state actors hacking tale. Why would state actors act on Times' online poll? If they did, why would they put up these results?

Times' poll was hacked by 4chan before. Kim Jong Un won in 2012 thanks to them, the magazine just discarded the results.

And furthermore

[Okian Warrior]

Assange doesn't have the funds and probably also not the influence.
In any case, the whole "russians are hacking us" is mostly paranoia.

"Mostly" is being generous.

Assange took the unprecedented step to say specifically "it was not the Russians". He has stated that they never reveal their sources, so to go that far (eliminating Russia gives information about the actual source) he probably felt the fear-mongering was a prelude to a declaration of war, or at least minor hostility.

(And to be fair, it sure looked, at the time, that America was ginning up for a fight with Russia.)

And as for Clinton wanting to kill him, she specifically asked in a meeting "can't we just drone this guy", apparently was not joking, and as a result of the meeting the aides sent her a list of "legal and non-legal strategies" for dealing with assange.

But then again, this could be fake news. Hillary doesn't remember joking about Assange, and Snopes has the "drone strike" claim listed as "unproven".

(Note: The "legal and extra-legal" link is to a copy of the actual memo sent to Hillary.)

Re:And furthermore

[alvinrod]

Here's the same story from USA Today. In case they're a state-sponsored mouthpiece for Russia or some other government here's the same story from Fortune. I'll leave it up to you to do a quick web search to find dozens of other sites reporting on the story. Even Fox has a version of the story and while they're a mouthpiece, it's not a state-sponsored Russian one.

Of course you focus on the messenger far too much and ignore the more obvious. What guarantee do we have that Assange is telling the truth or that he is capable of knowing that for a fact. Let's suppose he knows that the leaks came from party X who he has reason to believe isn't involved with the Russian government. He could be legitimately mistaken and Russia could ultimately be the source of the leaks pushed through enough independent channels to hide their involvement. Or it came directly from Russia and he's covering up that fact for his own reasons.

Unless you're also getting fed the kind of classified information that gives you a better idea of the shape of the world, all we can do is speculate. However, I think a better way to go about that is to look at what's happened since the election and what happens going forward. If we never see any additional email leaks related to Hillary or the DNC going forward it's pretty safe to assume that it was someone who really didn't want them to get elected and since that even has passed, they have no further interest. Even Trump who was heavily on the bandwagon to put Clinton in prison has done a bit of an about face on it. Whether he really ever wanted to or not is immaterial, it was just useful in helping him get votes. However, if over the next year we continue getting more and more leaks, it's probably safer to assume it isn't Russia (or if it really is that they'll try to act in a way as to make it appear less likely that it's them in which case we need more criteria that we don't post to the internet where they can read about it) and is just some hacker doing it because they can or to shake the ant farm a little bit for his or her own amusement.

Of course there's a whole host of other sources that aren't Russia and it's usually safer to play the field unless you can't legitimately think of anyone else who might have been involved.

Audio is not enough for proof of life

[PhrostyMcByte]

The Assange/Wikileaks situation has been a bit weird for the past month, and no strong proof of life has been shown. Going with an audio interview is just going to fuel all the conspiracy nuts in /r/WhereIsAssange.

Re:BTW

[Mashiki]

Don't worry, we know. You're still pining for Hillary, hate to break it to you but she lost. Maybe you can pine on Obama a bit more and his peace prize, and all the wars he's started.