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In a 'Plot Twist', Wikileaks Releases Documents It Claims Detail Russia Mass Surveillance Apparatus (techcrunch.com)
WikiLeaks, believed by many to be a Kremlin front, surprised some observers Tuesday morning (Snowden called it a "plot twist") when it released documents linking a Russian tech company with access to thousands of citizens' telephone and internet communications with Moscow. From a report: Writing a summary of the cache of mostly Russian-language documents, Wikileaks claims they show how a long-established Russian company which supplies software to telcos is also installing infrastructure, under state mandate, that enables Russian state agencies to tap into, search and spy on citizens' digital activity -- suggesting a similar state-funded mass surveillance program to the one utilized by the U.S.'s NSA or by GCHQ in the U.K. (both of which were detailed in the 2013 Snowden disclosures). The documents which Wikileaks has published (there are just 34 "base documents" in this leak) relate to a St. Petersburg-based company, called Peter-Service, which it claims is a contractor for Russian state surveillance. The company was set up in 1992 to provide billing solutions before going on to become a major supplier of software to the mobile telecoms industry.
For politicians, revealing their misdeeds means you're an agent of their enemy. Not having any honesty or integrity themselves, they don't entertain the thought someone's agenda might be something else than supporting a particular political party.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Is there a forthcoming article by a western new source about to pop? Get the spin out early and make it look like it is OK because "everyone is doing it." Just read Wikileaks's editorial comments: "suggesting a similar state-funded mass surveillance program to the one utilized by the U.S.'s NSA or by GCHQ in the U.K"
I guess he's getting tired of living in his Ecuadorian mom's basement and his 15 minutes of fame are over about an hour ago. Let that co-opted weasel dangle.
From the article:
Gee, ya think? They've now released thirty-four whole documents and they're looking for a pat on the back.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Kremlin Julez has less credibility than I do posting this spitball as an AC.
"believed by many to be a Kremlin front"
Who believes that?
Is this everything or just a selected release? Sometimes i wonder if we are getting everything or is there info held back.
They found the US government was spying on its citizens and released proof. Now they've discovered that Russia is spying on its citizens and released proof. Seems consistent.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
If it turns out to be true, how many people would really be surprised by learning that Russia's government is doing what many other governments do with their distinctive surveillance programs?
But well, at least one less thing that the trolls can use for their whataboutisms.
The headlines on Slashdot sure have changed over the years. You guys used to (figuratively) fellate Assange in the comments here, but one election cycle of punching your candidate for a change, and Wikileaks is a Russian front? That's some thin skin.
WL had documents about Russia before. Here is an article regarding it.
WikiLeaks, believed by many to be a Kremlin front,
List 5 such people who are not absolute retards. I'll wait.
If its REAL, peopel at WikiLeaks will start mysteriously DYING by the half dozen. If its not real, nothing will happen to mysteriously kill WikiLeaks personnel.
I don't understand why anyone trusts the MSM, if a foreign country is influencing our politics it isn't Russia - it's Israel. I'm not aware of many politicians with citizenship to both the US and Russia.
Peter Service? Please.. . :-)
Whoa! WTF? Not kidding, this is the very first time I have heard this conspiracy theory.
When you say "many", are you talking about a number of people approximately equal to the number of 9/11-Truthers? Half the number of Obama Birthers? C'mon, put this "many" into the units that we're familiar with, you know, like how you measure hard disks in terms of Libraries of Congress.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
In 2010 you both held Mr. Assange in higher regard and pointed out to those, who'd consider him "an ass":
But now that your precious Hillary has blamed him, you are not only call him names yourself, but do dismiss the truth he delivers... Or is "ass" materially different from "weasel"?..
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Yes.
This REALLY PISSES ME OFF.
SINCE F****N WHEN does publishing leaks about the surveillance apparatus make you a front for kremlin?
Read: butt-hurt Hillary supporters.
sig: sauer
Just so I'm clear: this would be a "Peter-Service leak"?
I guess he's getting tired of living in his Ecuadorian mom's basement and his 15 minutes of fame are over about an hour ago. Let that co-opted weasel dangle.
Does this actually matter?
I've often wondered why people keep trotting out these sorts of attacks. It's saying, literally, "this is not a good thing, because the person is somehow bad".
Firstly, it's only your opinion.
Secondly, Julian does not seem to have a lot of conceit, pompousness, or self-importance in other matters - including interviews. He's certainly confident and well-informed, but I haven't seen anything particularly negative about his demeanour.
Attention whore is an explanation of this one action, but with no other corroborating evidence do you think the explanation is likely? Are other explanations more likely than this one?
Thirdly, and most importantly, is this in any way relevant? Is there some reason we can't say "good job, Julian!" and think that maybe his actions are doing some good for the world?
Must we discount this achievement because he's not your model of perfection?
Now that would have been interesting.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
There's no plot twist, there's just a final revelation which will be largely unknown among the Russians because most media outlets are controlled by the Kremlin, as well as the largest social network in Russia.
Everyone with a brain perfectly understands that Putin has always been lying about the state of surveillance and privacy in Russia. Largely there's none, because there's no law when it concerns the men in power. They do as they please.
But...but...but... it was HER TIME!
[by whom?] [citation needed]
suggesting a similar state-funded mass surveillance program to the one utilized by the U.S.'s NSA or by GCHQ in the U.K.
No, it suggests that Russia might have similar telecommunication laws to some of its neighbors where there is a legal requirement for the telecommunication actors to provide the facility for search and surveillance to the officials. The expression mass surveillance has a different meaning.
SORM has been widely known for many years. Google it.
Does anyone know weather or not there is any law that would lead lead people to believe they have a right to privacy in Russia? in the united states we have laws against illegal search? Does the same concept even exist in Russia?
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
msmash is a well-known troll.
it's the key to "modern journalism" - inflate, conflate, suppose, provoke, irritate
do anything to get the clicks
be "edgy"
yeah, slashdot sadly has changed editorially since Dice turned up ... :(
Don't you fucking dare oppose Putin ever. We know everything.
Most likely, the details are all falsified by the FSB (so NSA/GCHQ/BND doesn't get in), but the scope is authentic.
I can't believe anyone would give credence to the Russian Front conspiracy theory.
Then I watch TV - and you can tell who is making this shit up.
It's funny because they talked about creating that narrative in the very emails! Pity most people never actually read them and instead trusted people like CNN, who lied about them being altered when they're DKIM verified, had Chris Cuomo, who is an attorney who should know better, lie about it being illegal to read them, and who also helped rig the debates? Or maybe Bezos' WaPo, which was passing the DNC articles to review, working with Podesta, and running secret fundraisers with the DNC after the DNC's own lawyers said not to?
I don't believe anyone who doesn't have verifiable sources any more.
The Russian expat I just discussed it with yawned and changed the subject. Assange gets played a lot but that's cool. The rape allegations make him sound like a bit of a scumbag, and no that's not a plant you clowns, and wikileaks has gotten innocent people killed with their religion of data dumping. Those people weren't in the US or EU so much cheaper kills. I sure wish the Hillary emails had been crazier. It would be so entertaining if even one of the further out conspiracies was true. I'm quite sure Bernie knew he was being sandbagged long before any data dump and the only people really shocked, SHOCKED really should pay attention to more than Obama, college and Cosmo.
... regarding assange, for years leading up to the 2016 election, in amongst your bleating yelps of "rapist! " . Someone needs to get you a new script.
my ass. Stop repeating liberal propaganda bullshit.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Disinformation: Vlad is throwing Peter Services under the bus while leaving the other sources of spying in the clear.
He's hiding out, but nobody wants him. As a purveyor of information, he's damaged goods, desperately trying to stay relevant. You'll notice how the anti-US docs have dried up now that Putin's boy has become president.
You are welcome on my lawn.
That some of the leaks are believed to have come from Russia wasn't the thing I hadn't heard of. The thing I hadn't heard of was that some people believe Wikileaks is a Russian front.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Wikileaks has been releasing material on the CIA for months. Way to not respond to me at all though.
"but one election cycle of punching your candidate for a change, and Wikileaks is a Russian front?"
Sorry, but a guy who injected himself in the election specifically because he personally didn't like a candidate deserves that title. When you selectively data dump what you have, vocally timing it up to drip to influence the US election, both practices that were different from past releases of simply dumping everything he had in troves as fast as he properly process it, you've become a tool, esp when it's clear he also knew the nature of the source itself that was releasing the data to him to control the narrative and he continued to participate.
It's not /. that changed. It's the standards and behavior of the person running Wikileaks that did.
And despite the fact that the Trump administration has been leaking like a sieve, Wikileaks has released nothing on them. When you're an organization that prides itself on integrity, choosing sides politically is not a good look.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The fact that you expect successful RICO charges is how I know the reports you rely upon are the ignorant ravings of the clueless:
https://www.popehat.com/2016/06/14/lawsplainer-its-not-rico-dammit/
In other news, Assange's hair and teeth have started falling out after latest balcony appearance.
It WAS her time. You guys cheated as we keep finding more and more corroborating evidence to support that. This story being one of those pieces. Don't worry, we'll get that ass. Maybe y'all should think about running off to Ecuador.
"Gee, ya think? They've now released thirty-four whole documents and they're looking for a pat on the back."
It's not a hard concept to grasp really. Offer a wiki where any leaker and post. I think you underestimate the dynamics of human beings and leaking things, in the U.S. and in Russia. Go read the wikipedia page on widely believed sequences of journalist murders attributed to the Russian government. Then do the research to realize this was not conspiracy theory, but exactly what the U.S. government believed of Russia's government, and then look at the relationship between the two governments over the past 20/50 years.
It's not hard at all for me to believe that amongst the chaos of existence, we would see these sorts of relative statistics. People who don't fear Putin are stupid, nature selects against that trait.
Likewise, the role of wikileaks after exposing many tens of thousands of covered up (never published) civilian deaths in the afghan/iraq w/cheney war era, followed by the suspicious sexual crime story (go back, read the details, the timelines, the government official reactions, the slashdot summaries, the slashdot comments).
Then read the first bit of this summary that gives flashbacks to Trump's many "many people are saying" talking points that led up to his being elected *cough* 'leader of the free world' *cough*.
No, you have it wrong. Sometimes statistical discrepencies have explanations other than the ones that fit the narrative you are pushing. This is one of those times.
If Trump is already leaking like a sieve. Whats the point in leaking more? Is it even possible to leak more?
A corrupt, incompetent candidate who allegedly said "can't we just drone this guy"? Golly Gee, I wonder why Assange might not like her. Were you whining, though, that Assange "just didn't like Bush" when he was publishing information about that president's war crimes?
You and I have rarely agreed on political/ideological topics, but I will step up and say we are in agreement regarding the hypocrisy shown here regarding Wikileaks/Assange. You nailed it quite well. Thank you.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
The headlines on Slashdot sure have changed over the years. You guys used to (figuratively) fellate Assange in the comments here, but one election cycle of punching your candidate for a change, and Wikileaks is a Russian front? That's some thin skin.
Slashdot is run by limp-wristed gay boys.
Did you REALLY expect them to act like men ?
In Russia, first come spy, then come bribe, then come hitman. So take bribe, eh? da good!
It's sad seeing a once respectable technology site reduced to being the Faux News of the technology media.
punching your candidate
Well he would have punched both candidates, but one of them was standing in the corner beating on himself. For some reason voters considered that more trustworthy and he "won" by a photo finish.
These a 4 year old public documents folks. You have been hoodwinked.
If you know anything about how wilileaks works, you'll know that they don't do sieve type leaks. The leaks they publish are ones that have been given to them directly and they don't go around re-publishing stuff that's already been leaked to mainstream media.
"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
High level ignorance posting. He's publishing CIA docs and the US president, that applauded him during the election, already said he doesn't care that he will be prosecuted by the DOJ.
They are declaring them a "non-state intelligence agency", trying to add that term on US law and go after him.
As a purveyor of information, someone from Russia just chose him. OTOH, it seems you are damaged goods as a receiver of information.
I wonder what kind of retard upvotes you. Must be multiple accounts.
Well, it is believed by many to be a Kremlin front.
They're all stupid fuckwits, but they still believe it.
"Plot twist: @Wikileaks publishes details on Russia's increasingly oppressive internet surveillance industry." - Edward Snowden tweet. Not very accurate in both cases.
What if the Trump-leakers decided to contact Fox or WSJ instead of Wikileaks? How would Wikileaks be able to publish that information? It's not like they magically get a copy of every document accidentally left on a train, or quietly spoken to a contact on while hiding in a cupboard at work.
So you blame Assange and not Hillary for the crap that Hillary did that cost her the election? That is some hard-core position bias right there. If he had other dirt that he could position to get the maximum exposure he would have. That's how he releases what he has.
Unbelievable, you are mad at the guy for not assisting Hillary in keeping voters ignorant of her corruption. What you are asking for is the exact opposite of Wikileaks mission.
If Assange sat on dirt on Trump until after the election, like you wanted he to do for your corrupt politician, you would have come unglued. How do you live in a head so full of hypocrisy and hate?
Wait, I agree with a '+5 Insightful' post, even thank him when we usually disagree on many if not most topics, and I get modded 'Troll'?
LOL!
I'm not sure if it's the actual content of the post or the fact that I dared to exhibit consistency in my principles even with someone with whom I usually disagree with that triggered the snowflake with mod-points.
Either way it's pretty damned hilarious, and very telling!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
What a sensation. Check wikipedia for SORM. The system is being built from 1995. The system itself is a requirement for law enforcement. Sure can be misused but is it what documents are about?
Start with some extremely suspicious behavior, compounded with obvious lies, around the rape allegations. I got really annoyed by people who swallowed whatever he said, no matter how implausible, no matter how wrong. His political campaigning against Clinton showed that he isn't an impartial truth dumper.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Right. Reread what you wrote. You're agreeing that Assange was doing his best to stop Clinton from being elected, and you're making excuses for why.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Are you a bot or do you just copypaste shit? Are you capable of actually responding to anything that is said to you?
Uh, you first, Slick. Hillary Clinton was a complete and utter trainwreck of corrupt warmongering incompetence. Anyone with two neurons to rub together would want her as faaaaar from any position of power as possible. Now you take that, plus an alleged crack about getting someone murdered - it wouldn't be the first time - and you think said person wouldn't have a perfectly valid self-interest in seeing that person lose an election?
And that's assuming his decision was in any way influenced by threatened by a drone. Most of the commentary on Assange's character and motivations is mindless, drooling character assassination. This is not an exception.
Well, I would say it was a butthurt Hillbot with modpoints, but I'm still sitting at a +2, so who knows. But it sounds like we can agree on her being a loathsome person, so I will raise a glass and toast to her sharing Kristian Saucier's fine accommodations, and for the same reasons he did.
Right. Reread what you wrote. You're agreeing that Assange was doing his best to stop Clinton from being elected, and you're making excuses for why.
As Uberbah pointed out already, Wikileaks published dirt on the Bush Jr. administration as well as HRC.
Maybe he smiled a bit when WL published the Clinton/DNC emails after having his life threatened by HRC, but seeing as how WL has published dirt from *both sides*, I don't see any other reason than DNC/Clinton butthurt as a reason to accuse Assange/WL of plotting specifically against HRC.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.