Indeed. It's an "old trick" that has been upheld by the Supreme Court. The aggregation of the start and end points of a conversation, but not the content of a conversation, constitutes what is known as a "pen register". Such collection was judged to be legal without a warrant or court oversight in Smith v. Maryland 442 U.S. 735 (1979). Courts have subsequently found that pen register statutes apply similarly to IP addresses, logs of web sites visited, and the "envelope" of an email message — its To: and From: addresses, dates, and related information.
There's more to this story...the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 — passed by a supermajority of both houses of Congress — allows for the signals intelligence collection without a warrant via equipment and capabilities within the United States, provided the target is not a US Person. This requires determining which traffic content can be lawfully collected without a warrant, sometimes with the assistance of telecom operators in the US. In order to determine which traffic can be lawfully collected without a warrant, basic information about the traffic, such as its source and destination, must also be examined. Such examination of metadata — a "pen register" — does not require a warrant. If you don't like what you're hearing, don't complain to me: the Supreme Court decided this over three decades ago, and the decision has held with modern technologies as well.
The hallmark of the FISA amendments are judiciously protecting US Persons, while removing restrictions on where and how foreign intelligence on non-US Persons can be collected simply because it's traveling through a glass pipe in San Francisco instead of over the air on the streets of Yemen — and that includes warrantless monitoring of identified foreign intelligence targets, and the technical mechanisms via which their communications can be located, targeted, and extracted from data streams within the US. The cornerstone of the current law and the FISC decision is the protection of the privacy and rights of United States Persons. The current law is even more stringent with respect to US Persons than previous law: an individualized warrant from FISC is required to target a US Person anywhere on the globe; before, US Persons did not enjoy the same explicit protections under the law outside of the US.
So there's a bit more going on here that's not directly related to this story.
Nowhere did I say that Assange obtained the documents illegally. They were illegally obtained and released by the leaker (presumed to be PFC Manning).
Should open, democratic societies not be able to maintain information that is secret for purposes of conducting diplomacy and providing for a national defense?
If any secrets are acceptable, then who gets to decide what is secret? The press? A troubled young soldier who believes he can leak without getting caught (and only did because he bragged)? A foreign national who openly admits he is trying to impact US policy? I mean, do you really think that's okay: the subversion of lawful processes in a democratic nation?
Or should that perhaps only be reserved for nations like China, who today are busy censoring any media outlet that is referring to one of their citizens having won a Nobel prize?
Is China going to be a better global steward than the United States, given that nations like Ecuador in one breath offer Julian Assange safe harbor (nothing more than a shrewd political move, no doubt, but still), while simultaneously not renewing the US lease on its Manta air base and instead giving it to China?
I mean, do you really not see a problem with this?
What cause is that? Releasing a stream of illegally-released classified information from a democratic nation?
Too bad people can't see this for what it is: a foreign national releasing illegally-obtained classified information in a coordinated effort to deliberately try to influence public opinion and US policy.
Assange has already said he considers himself a "media insurgent", and that if forced to choose between "journalist" and activist/advocate, he would choose the latter. His response to a Washington Post reporter's query he apparently felt wasn't deserving of his attention was, "I'm too busy ending two wars."
He's an egomaniac, and the fact that Wikileaks is "going to publish classified information anyway" is used as a justification by mainstream media outlets to go ahead with the publication, under the guise of the public's "right to know". Well, since Wikileaks would likely publish any and all classified information it could get its hands on, my interpretation of the media's justification is that they feel they, not the government that works on behalf of the people, are the arbiters of what does and doesn't constitute properly-classified national security information.
That's exactly where this is leading, and what it results in is an environment where closed and repressive societies have an advantage in the information realm over open and democratic societies. Steven Aftergood, a guy who is a veteran crusader against excessive government secrecy and director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, said, "WikiLeaks must be counted among the enemies of open society because it does not respect the rule of law nor does it honor the rights of individuals." Indeed.
...just two starstruck women sympathetic to WikiLeaks' cause — one of whom was a longtime activist and even a part of an organization that arranged one of his talks, and thus obviously not a CIA "sparrow".
All the sordid details here. It's a must-read for people who think US intelligence agencies are somehow behind this.
Would this have been able to happen without Sweden's strange "rape" laws? No, probably not. Would the case have received as much attention from authorities if it was an ordinary person? Again, perhaps not, but that's the price of fame and notoriety: famous and well-known people often get different treatment — and what treatment they do get garners massive news coverage.
Does anyone really believe that as China presses its advantage in these areas that the Chinese Communist Party is going to be a better steward of the interests of freedom and democracy, even in light of anyone's opinions on US errors and missteps in foreign policy?
Can't help but notice that you didn't include any actual citations. If you're going to bother quoting, then the least you could do is provide links.
You should be able to verify any of these quotes easily. This is a slashdot comment, not an academic paper. But just so everyone knows what I said is accurate:
At its launch, WikiLeaks said it was "founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and start-up company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa", and that its "primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East". - Source
Steven Aftergood, a veteran crusader against excessive government secrecy and director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, notes, "WikiLeaks must be counted among the enemies of open society because it does not respect the rule of law nor does it honor the rights of individuals." - Source
And no, their efforts haven't just focused on the US because of the volume of materials involved. I don't care what has or hasn't been pulled from the web; the point is that the focus of WikiLeaks' efforts have changed to target primarily the US, instead of "oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East". Julian Assange's single-minded crusade against the US has caused rifts within WikiLeaks itself:
Indeed, as WikiLeaks is trumpeting its latest coup, a number of former WikiLeaks activists are painting another picture of an organization that is out of control, still too driven by the personality and ego of its mercurial founder, Julian Assange.
"I'm too busy ending two wars," is the response one reporter got in an e-mail from Assange after asking for clarity on an issue, according to a source who saw the e-mail, and thought it captured Assange's crusading and peremptory nature.
[...]
But the phenomenal rise of WikiLeaks over the past six months has come at a price, former activists say. At least five people from the core group have left because of disagreements over the way Assange was running the operation, said Herbert Snorrason, a 25-year-old Icelandic activist who moderated a WikiLeaks chat room until about a month ago. "Quite a few others" who were more tangentially involved have also left, he said.
He said too many editorial decisions were being made solely by Assange, including to title the Baghdad video Collateral Murder, a move that suggested to some that WikiLeaks is not neutral. "It had unnecessary effects on how the project was perceived," he said.
Former colleagues questioned the focus on high-profile disclosures such as the Afghanistan records, which, they said, not only meant smaller projects languished but that the rushed staff was ill-prepared to vet so many records to ensure that names of civilians had been redacted.
Mr. Assange’s detractors also accuse him of pursuing a vendetta against the United States. In London, Mr. Assange said America was an increasingly militarized society and a threat to democracy.
[...]
In an encrypted online chat, a transcript of which was passed to The Times, Mr. Assange was dismissive of his colleagues. He described them as “a confederacy of fools,” and asked his interlocutor, “Am I dealing with a complete retard?”
"I am the heart and soul of this organisation, its founde
You missed my point entirely, even though you included it in your quote excerpt. I'm not talking about China or Russia having access to the information in the cables.
I'm talking about the ability of the US to conduct its foreign policy being diminished because of the information becoming public, and the firestorm of debate and criticism it will cause. Julian Assange has said he is prolonging and staggering this information release to keep it at the forefront of the news for months, for maximum political impact.
This isn't a case of two wrongs make a right; this is a very real problem, and the public release of this information in the supposed name of "transparency" and the "peoples' right to know" only puts the United States at a disadvantage to nations that are far less free, and have far less honorable intentions.
The US is the "juiciest target" in the entire world?
Or are you one of those people who erroneously believes that the free and democratic nations of the world are actually the world's most egregious oppressors and abusers, and the US sits at the pinnacle of the abusers?
If you think the US is the "juiciest target", I wonder what you'd think if we saw the same level of leaks of communications from, say, Chinese corporations, the Chinese government, and Chinese "diplomatic" efforts...
At its launch, WikiLeaks said it was "founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and start-up company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa", and that its "primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East". Instead, WikiLeaks publishes mostly classified information from democracies.
So now, nations like China and Russia have an advantage over the US in the conduct of their international affairs, intelligence, and defense. I can only imagine China's delight with each new release from WikiLeaks.
Steven Aftergood, a veteran crusader against excessive government secrecy and director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, notes, "WikiLeaks must be counted among the enemies of open society because it does not respect the rule of law nor does it honor the rights of individuals." WikiLeaks doesn't care whether information it obtains is legitimately classified, nor whether it may cause grave harm if released. Indeed, the only thing exempt from this reckless behavior is WikiLeaks itself.
What is interesting to me is that many observers of this phenomenon in free and democratic societies seem to believe it is their own governments that are hiding the most egregious information, which deserves to be exposed via channels like WikiLeaks.
I would submit that individuals who live in the US and other Western nations who believe their governments are "oppressing" them have no idea what "oppression" is.
The linked article and the summary says that "he programme, sold for just 1.79 pounds in the online Apple store, has now been labelled an 'aid to terrorists' by security experts and the US Department of Homeland Security is also examining how to protect airliners." The Daily Mail article says "The US Department of Homeland Security is also examining how to protect airliners."
Nowhere does it say the "US" or any US official has said the application "threatens security". In fact, the only official to say anything in the article was a UK official, a British MP, who said, 'Anything that makes it easier for our enemies to find targets is madness. The Government must look at outlawing the marketing of such equipment.'
So basically, the only thing that comes close to any "government" entity calling this application a threat is a British politician, and the "US" has actually made no statement about this application whatsoever, other than a reference in one sentence of the article that DHS is "examining how to protect airliners", and is not, as the headline implies, calling for the app to be pulled or censored, or indeed, even talking about the app at all.
Great sensationalism, guys. The best part of this is that the comments are howling with the typical anti-US-government complaints, when the "US" hasn't said anything about the app at all. What I come to expect from slashdot.
It's only "already jailbroken" because the same iOS 4.1 issue used with the iOS 4.1 jailbreak that has already been developed works on this device, which is also running iOS 4.1.
This has nothing to do with Tor and everything to do with his links[1] to WikiLeaks. Period.
The fact that he is a Tor developer, and that WikiLeaks may at times advise people to use Tor, is coincidental and irrelevant.
He was questioned for his links[1] to WikiLeaks.
[1] Links/ties/aid/consulting/volunteering/whatever-you-want-to-call-it...the point is, there was a communication relationship with WikiLeaks, and that was why he was stopped. Not for being a "security researcher" or a Tor developer.
...they're all different URLs, different job postings, and different requisition numbers.
However, it's probably not likely that these positions are in any way related to the iPhone 4 launch, considering the time that these positions have probably been in the pipeline.
In free and democratic societies, an individual deciding on his or her own to leak classified information is a subversion of that very democratic process. In the US, we have collectively decided, as a society, that some information should be kept secret, even from The People, and we have empowered and entrusted the government with the power to do so.
When an individual, on his or her own, decides that some secret information should be leaked -- no matter the reason -- they subvert that process. It is nowhere near akin to leaking sensitive information from totalitarian or repressive regimes, or even from corporate entities.
Some might assert that information is overclassified, or classified such as to hide wrongdoing or illegal or questionably behavior. Fine, but:
1. You don't get to make that determination yourself. However...
2....if you do, this kind of decision is a moral/ethical one which must necessarily be tempered with consequences. I.e., if, in a free and democratic society, you really believe that a piece of classified information should be released, and you're going to unilaterally decide to do release it because of your own personal beliefs or convictions, you should be willing to pay your society's consequences for it.
People leak to WikiLeaks because they believe (mostly accurately) that there will be no consequences (unless they stupidly out themselves, as Manning did). This creates an unhealthy environment for any kind of legitimately protected or sensitive information -- indeed, the rule of law -- in a democratic society.
Your own personal view on whether something should or shouldn't be classified is irrelevant. There are well-known and established processes that govern classification.
I hope for intelligent responses to this post that actually acknowledge the need for some information to be protected, and for processes to protect that information, of which the government is the steward. Or, for any reasonable alternative other than any and all information should always be able to be indiscriminately leaked without fear of reprisal.
Actually, if you RTFA, it wasn't him that hit someone in the face with the ball. Even the victim said he was only mad at the one person who did it, and it wasn't the subject of this article.
And he did really just refuse to identify himself and/or show his ID; it's all right on the recording in the linked article.
The issue here is that everyone is saying the cops are bigs, but in most jurisdictions, it is completely legal for a police officer involved in an investigation to ask an individual to identify him or herself. What is at issue is whether or not it is legal to arrest/detain someone ONLY for refusing to identify themselves if they are suspected of no other crime (the other issue here is that perhaps playing street golf/hockey is probably against some ordinance, but let's leave that aside).
This really isn't about "papers, please". It's about a law enforcement officer making a legitimate, legal request...not complying with an officer's legal request, even if you haven't yet done anything else wrong, is itself a crime in many jurisdictions. Unfortunately, it hasn't been (and still isn't) established whether or not and under what circumstances it is inappropriate in the State of Washington for a police officer to request an individual's ID.
I get a kick out of all the posts here laying into the cops. Typical, though, and not surprising.
Wi-Fi iPad does not have GPS
on
iPad Review
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· Score: 1
The GPS is part of the 3G chipset; thus, the Wi-Fi version does not have GPS. This is readily confirmed on the specs page. The Wi-Fi version DOES use Skyhook Wireless for location finding, and it works remarkably well.
It may be "completely legal" to provide uncensored Simplified Chinese search in Hong Kong, but that doesn't mean "mainland"[1] China won't just block google.com.hk in response (which it probably will, soon).
>> 1. You don't get to make that determination yourself > > Everyone has to make that determination themselves. In the end, you are only accountable to your own conscience.
You're missing the point. That's not how the system is supposed to work, because of:
>> People leak to WikiLeaks because they believe (mostly accurately) that there will be no consequences > > I'd like to think that people leak to WikiLeaks because they believe there will be consequences. I don't think they do it for the hell of it, > they want information to get out there and effect change.
No. No consequences to them. Yeah, they want to "effect (sic) change". They just don't want to risk any punishment themselves. If it's so important to leak, why not risk the punishment that society imposes for releasing classified information?
Again, such activities in a free[1] society are wholly different than actions in a non-free society.
[1] Yes, I realize no society is completely "free", but I trust you get my point.
And not only that, in free and democratic societies, individuals deciding on their own to leak classified information is a subversion of that very democratic process. In the US, we have collectively decided, as a society, that some information should be kept secret, even from The People, and we have empowered and entrusted the government with the power to do so.
When an individual, on his or her own, decides that some secret information should be leaked, they subvert that process. It is nowhere near akin to leaking sensitive information from totalitarian or repressive regimes, or even from corporate entities.
Some might assert that information is overclassified, or classified such as to hide wrongdoing or illegal or questionably behavior. Fine, but:
1. You don't get to make that determination yourself, and
2. If you do, generally this kind of decision is a moral one which must be tempered with consequences. I.e., if, in a free and democratic society, you really believe that a piece of classified information should be released, you should be willing to pay your society's consequences for it. People leak to WikiLeaks because they believe (mostly accurately) that there will be no consequences. This creates an unhealthy environment for any kind of protected or sensitive information in a democratic society.
Your own personal view on whether something should or shouldn't be classified is irrelevant. There are well-known and established processes that govern classification.
This "there is no cyberwar" business plays right into Singel's agenda that anything related to cyber war is really a conspiracy to kill the open internet.
All the "cyberwar" stuff may be overplayed, and no, we're not in a "war", per se, at the moment, but we are most certainly unprepared, as are many open, information-dependent societies...
...is the fact that 30-some other companies -- companies without any such lawful surveillance facilities -- were also compromised as part of this Chinese operation, and all accounts indicate it was via 0-day vulnerabilities in IE and JavaScript-enabled PDF documents, not via any mechanism to enable surveillance intercepts.
This was Schneier using the incident as a platform to grind a political axe (probably based on a bogus tip), from which he wisely backed off.
So what, exactly, does that have to do with buying an Android based phone?
Touché.
(And in case you're missing this, your suggestion to buy an Android based phone indeed was completely irrelevant to the original poster's question.)
Buying one will still solve that problem as well as solve a number of other problems not mentioned in this thread.
Regardless, the solution is still valid.
Hardly. That's like saying that, oh, refraining from using computers entirely, or perhaps committing suicide, would also "solve" the problem.
But actually, that's not even comparable, because even though you're trying to salvage your utterly irrelevant suggestion with semantic justifications, it's still not a solution to the problem: the poster was unable to log into his Apple Developer Connection account using an Apple ID for reasons completely unrelated to which phone he might have. An individual with an Android based phone might still have a legitiamate reason to have ADC account and/or an Apple ID, and might still encounter an account lockout due to bad login attempts.
Similarly, someone with no Apple services whatsoever, and only Google/Android services, might encounter the exact same problem as this user; namely, being locked out of an account due to bad login attempts. This user's problem was benign, and he confirmed that the simple suggestion to reset his password as described in the support article in fact solved the issue. He could have encountered that same issue with Google, even if he owned dozens of exclusively Android based devices and shunned Apple like the plague.
For your protection, your Apple ID is automatically disabled (partially) if your account password is incorrectly entered numerous times. This affects some services you may access with your Apple ID, such as your accounts with: Apple Photo Services, iTunes Store, and MobileMe.
When you try to use some online services and your Apple ID has been disabled, the following message appears:
"This Apple ID has been disabled for security reasons."
So who's to say it's not someone just messing with these guys? All it takes is a few bad login attempts to temporarily disable ANY Apple ID.
And even if Apple was disabling just these Apple IDs, it's clearly not of all people with jailbroken devices, else we would know about it; instead it's specific, individual people (who are probably in violation of Apple's terms of service for Apple IDs).
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed. It's an "old trick" that has been upheld by the Supreme Court. The aggregation of the start and end points of a conversation, but not the content of a conversation, constitutes what is known as a "pen register". Such collection was judged to be legal without a warrant or court oversight in Smith v. Maryland 442 U.S. 735 (1979). Courts have subsequently found that pen register statutes apply similarly to IP addresses, logs of web sites visited, and the "envelope" of an email message — its To: and From: addresses, dates, and related information.
There's more to this story...the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 — passed by a supermajority of both houses of Congress — allows for the signals intelligence collection without a warrant via equipment and capabilities within the United States, provided the target is not a US Person. This requires determining which traffic content can be lawfully collected without a warrant, sometimes with the assistance of telecom operators in the US. In order to determine which traffic can be lawfully collected without a warrant, basic information about the traffic, such as its source and destination, must also be examined. Such examination of metadata — a "pen register" — does not require a warrant. If you don't like what you're hearing, don't complain to me: the Supreme Court decided this over three decades ago, and the decision has held with modern technologies as well.
The hallmark of the FISA amendments are judiciously protecting US Persons, while removing restrictions on where and how foreign intelligence on non-US Persons can be collected simply because it's traveling through a glass pipe in San Francisco instead of over the air on the streets of Yemen — and that includes warrantless monitoring of identified foreign intelligence targets, and the technical mechanisms via which their communications can be located, targeted, and extracted from data streams within the US. The cornerstone of the current law and the FISC decision is the protection of the privacy and rights of United States Persons. The current law is even more stringent with respect to US Persons than previous law: an individualized warrant from FISC is required to target a US Person anywhere on the globe; before, US Persons did not enjoy the same explicit protections under the law outside of the US.
So there's a bit more going on here that's not directly related to this story.
Nowhere did I say that Assange obtained the documents illegally. They were illegally obtained and released by the leaker (presumed to be PFC Manning).
Should open, democratic societies not be able to maintain information that is secret for purposes of conducting diplomacy and providing for a national defense?
If any secrets are acceptable, then who gets to decide what is secret? The press? A troubled young soldier who believes he can leak without getting caught (and only did because he bragged)? A foreign national who openly admits he is trying to impact US policy? I mean, do you really think that's okay: the subversion of lawful processes in a democratic nation?
Or should that perhaps only be reserved for nations like China, who today are busy censoring any media outlet that is referring to one of their citizens having won a Nobel prize?
Is China going to be a better global steward than the United States, given that nations like Ecuador in one breath offer Julian Assange safe harbor (nothing more than a shrewd political move, no doubt, but still), while simultaneously not renewing the US lease on its Manta air base and instead giving it to China?
I mean, do you really not see a problem with this?
What cause is that? Releasing a stream of illegally-released classified information from a democratic nation?
Too bad people can't see this for what it is: a foreign national releasing illegally-obtained classified information in a coordinated effort to deliberately try to influence public opinion and US policy.
Assange has already said he considers himself a "media insurgent", and that if forced to choose between "journalist" and activist/advocate, he would choose the latter. His response to a Washington Post reporter's query he apparently felt wasn't deserving of his attention was, "I'm too busy ending two wars."
He's an egomaniac, and the fact that Wikileaks is "going to publish classified information anyway" is used as a justification by mainstream media outlets to go ahead with the publication, under the guise of the public's "right to know". Well, since Wikileaks would likely publish any and all classified information it could get its hands on, my interpretation of the media's justification is that they feel they, not the government that works on behalf of the people, are the arbiters of what does and doesn't constitute properly-classified national security information.
That's exactly where this is leading, and what it results in is an environment where closed and repressive societies have an advantage in the information realm over open and democratic societies. Steven Aftergood, a guy who is a veteran crusader against excessive government secrecy and director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, said, "WikiLeaks must be counted among the enemies of open society because it does not respect the rule of law nor does it honor the rights of individuals." Indeed.
THIS is restricting press freedoms.
...just two starstruck women sympathetic to WikiLeaks' cause — one of whom was a longtime activist and even a part of an organization that arranged one of his talks, and thus obviously not a CIA "sparrow".
All the sordid details here. It's a must-read for people who think US intelligence agencies are somehow behind this.
Would this have been able to happen without Sweden's strange "rape" laws? No, probably not. Would the case have received as much attention from authorities if it was an ordinary person? Again, perhaps not, but that's the price of fame and notoriety: famous and well-known people often get different treatment — and what treatment they do get garners massive news coverage.
Not only that, but for all the people applauding Ecuador, have they noticed that Ecuador declined to renew the US lease at its Manta air base, and turned around and offered it to China? Here's a story from two years ago predicting this, something that has gotten utterly overlooked in this debate.
Does anyone really believe that as China presses its advantage in these areas that the Chinese Communist Party is going to be a better steward of the interests of freedom and democracy, even in light of anyone's opinions on US errors and missteps in foreign policy?
Can't help but notice that you didn't include any actual citations. If you're going to bother quoting, then the least you could do is provide links.
You should be able to verify any of these quotes easily. This is a slashdot comment, not an academic paper. But just so everyone knows what I said is accurate:
At its launch, WikiLeaks said it was "founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and start-up company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa", and that its "primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East". - Source
Steven Aftergood, a veteran crusader against excessive government secrecy and director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, notes, "WikiLeaks must be counted among the enemies of open society because it does not respect the rule of law nor does it honor the rights of individuals." - Source
And no, their efforts haven't just focused on the US because of the volume of materials involved. I don't care what has or hasn't been pulled from the web; the point is that the focus of WikiLeaks' efforts have changed to target primarily the US, instead of "oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East". Julian Assange's single-minded crusade against the US has caused rifts within WikiLeaks itself:
Despite latest coup, WikiLeaks facing challenges, Washington Post
Indeed, as WikiLeaks is trumpeting its latest coup, a number of former WikiLeaks activists are painting another picture of an organization that is out of control, still too driven by the personality and ego of its mercurial founder, Julian Assange.
"I'm too busy ending two wars," is the response one reporter got in an e-mail from Assange after asking for clarity on an issue, according to a source who saw the e-mail, and thought it captured Assange's crusading and peremptory nature.
[...]
But the phenomenal rise of WikiLeaks over the past six months has come at a price, former activists say. At least five people from the core group have left because of disagreements over the way Assange was running the operation, said Herbert Snorrason, a 25-year-old Icelandic activist who moderated a WikiLeaks chat room until about a month ago. "Quite a few others" who were more tangentially involved have also left, he said.
He said too many editorial decisions were being made solely by Assange, including to title the Baghdad video Collateral Murder, a move that suggested to some that WikiLeaks is not neutral. "It had unnecessary effects on how the project was perceived," he said.
Former colleagues questioned the focus on high-profile disclosures such as the Afghanistan records, which, they said, not only meant smaller projects languished but that the rushed staff was ill-prepared to vet so many records to ensure that names of civilians had been redacted.
WikiLeaks Founder on the Run, Trailed by Notoriety, New York Times
Mr. Assange’s detractors also accuse him of pursuing a vendetta against the United States. In London, Mr. Assange said America was an increasingly militarized society and a threat to democracy.
[...]
In an encrypted online chat, a transcript of which was passed to The Times, Mr. Assange was dismissive of his colleagues. He described them as “a confederacy of fools,” and asked his interlocutor, “Am I dealing with a complete retard?”
"I am the heart and soul of this organisation, its founde
You missed my point entirely, even though you included it in your quote excerpt. I'm not talking about China or Russia having access to the information in the cables.
I'm talking about the ability of the US to conduct its foreign policy being diminished because of the information becoming public, and the firestorm of debate and criticism it will cause. Julian Assange has said he is prolonging and staggering this information release to keep it at the forefront of the news for months, for maximum political impact.
This isn't a case of two wrongs make a right; this is a very real problem, and the public release of this information in the supposed name of "transparency" and the "peoples' right to know" only puts the United States at a disadvantage to nations that are far less free, and have far less honorable intentions.
...
The US is the "juiciest target" in the entire world?
Or are you one of those people who erroneously believes that the free and democratic nations of the world are actually the world's most egregious oppressors and abusers, and the US sits at the pinnacle of the abusers?
If you think the US is the "juiciest target", I wonder what you'd think if we saw the same level of leaks of communications from, say, Chinese corporations, the Chinese government, and Chinese "diplomatic" efforts...
At its launch, WikiLeaks said it was "founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and start-up company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa", and that its "primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East". Instead, WikiLeaks publishes mostly classified information from democracies.
So now, nations like China and Russia have an advantage over the US in the conduct of their international affairs, intelligence, and defense. I can only imagine China's delight with each new release from WikiLeaks.
Steven Aftergood, a veteran crusader against excessive government secrecy and director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, notes, "WikiLeaks must be counted among the enemies of open society because it does not respect the rule of law nor does it honor the rights of individuals." WikiLeaks doesn't care whether information it obtains is legitimately classified, nor whether it may cause grave harm if released. Indeed, the only thing exempt from this reckless behavior is WikiLeaks itself.
What is interesting to me is that many observers of this phenomenon in free and democratic societies seem to believe it is their own governments that are hiding the most egregious information, which deserves to be exposed via channels like WikiLeaks.
I would submit that individuals who live in the US and other Western nations who believe their governments are "oppressing" them have no idea what "oppression" is.
The linked article and the summary says that "he programme, sold for just 1.79 pounds in the online Apple store, has now been labelled an 'aid to terrorists' by security experts and the US Department of Homeland Security is also examining how to protect airliners." The Daily Mail article says "The US Department of Homeland Security is also examining how to protect airliners."
Nowhere does it say the "US" or any US official has said the application "threatens security". In fact, the only official to say anything in the article was a UK official, a British MP, who said, 'Anything that makes it easier for our enemies to find targets is madness. The Government must look at outlawing the marketing of such equipment.'
So basically, the only thing that comes close to any "government" entity calling this application a threat is a British politician, and the "US" has actually made no statement about this application whatsoever, other than a reference in one sentence of the article that DHS is "examining how to protect airliners", and is not, as the headline implies, calling for the app to be pulled or censored, or indeed, even talking about the app at all.
Great sensationalism, guys. The best part of this is that the comments are howling with the typical anti-US-government complaints, when the "US" hasn't said anything about the app at all. What I come to expect from slashdot.
It's only "already jailbroken" because the same iOS 4.1 issue used with the iOS 4.1 jailbreak that has already been developed works on this device, which is also running iOS 4.1.
This has nothing to do with Tor and everything to do with his links[1] to WikiLeaks. Period.
The fact that he is a Tor developer, and that WikiLeaks may at times advise people to use Tor, is coincidental and irrelevant.
He was questioned for his links[1] to WikiLeaks.
[1] Links/ties/aid/consulting/volunteering/whatever-you-want-to-call-it...the point is, there was a communication relationship with WikiLeaks, and that was why he was stopped. Not for being a "security researcher" or a Tor developer.
...they're all different URLs, different job postings, and different requisition numbers.
However, it's probably not likely that these positions are in any way related to the iPhone 4 launch, considering the time that these positions have probably been in the pipeline.
There has been "word" on when iOS 4 will be available for iPad, and the word is "this fall".
There were two separate development trains for iOS (previously known as "iPhone OS"); one for iPhone and iPod touch, and one for iPad.
Are you trying to claim that the people he gave the information to, who NEVER ASKED HIM FOR IT, should also be screwed?
No, if you'll read my post, I didn't claim that, but...
If so, what if he happened to have emailed the info to you? ...
Oh, I don't knpw...let me think: I probably wouldn't post it to the internet and protect the identity of the person who emailed it to me at all costs.
Aside from the fact that the Army had no reason whatever to believe that the "unarmed civilians" featured in "Collateral Murder" were "unarmed", and the fact that he skipped out on a planned appearance at a panel today in Las Vegas, NV...
In free and democratic societies, an individual deciding on his or her own to leak classified information is a subversion of that very democratic process. In the US, we have collectively decided, as a society, that some information should be kept secret, even from The People, and we have empowered and entrusted the government with the power to do so.
When an individual, on his or her own, decides that some secret information should be leaked -- no matter the reason -- they subvert that process. It is nowhere near akin to leaking sensitive information from totalitarian or repressive regimes, or even from corporate entities.
Some might assert that information is overclassified, or classified such as to hide wrongdoing or illegal or questionably behavior. Fine, but:
1. You don't get to make that determination yourself. However...
2. ...if you do, this kind of decision is a moral/ethical one which must necessarily be tempered with consequences. I.e., if, in a free and democratic society, you really believe that a piece of classified information should be released, and you're going to unilaterally decide to do release it because of your own personal beliefs or convictions, you should be willing to pay your society's consequences for it.
People leak to WikiLeaks because they believe (mostly accurately) that there will be no consequences (unless they stupidly out themselves, as Manning did). This creates an unhealthy environment for any kind of legitimately protected or sensitive information -- indeed, the rule of law -- in a democratic society.
Your own personal view on whether something should or shouldn't be classified is irrelevant. There are well-known and established processes that govern classification.
Just about the only thing WikiLeaks believes should be protected from leaking is negative information about WikiLeaks itself.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I hope for intelligent responses to this post that actually acknowledge the need for some information to be protected, and for processes to protect that information, of which the government is the steward. Or, for any reasonable alternative other than any and all information should always be able to be indiscriminately leaked without fear of reprisal.
Actually, if you RTFA, it wasn't him that hit someone in the face with the ball. Even the victim said he was only mad at the one person who did it, and it wasn't the subject of this article.
And he did really just refuse to identify himself and/or show his ID; it's all right on the recording in the linked article.
The issue here is that everyone is saying the cops are bigs, but in most jurisdictions, it is completely legal for a police officer involved in an investigation to ask an individual to identify him or herself. What is at issue is whether or not it is legal to arrest/detain someone ONLY for refusing to identify themselves if they are suspected of no other crime (the other issue here is that perhaps playing street golf/hockey is probably against some ordinance, but let's leave that aside).
This really isn't about "papers, please". It's about a law enforcement officer making a legitimate, legal request...not complying with an officer's legal request, even if you haven't yet done anything else wrong, is itself a crime in many jurisdictions. Unfortunately, it hasn't been (and still isn't) established whether or not and under what circumstances it is inappropriate in the State of Washington for a police officer to request an individual's ID.
I get a kick out of all the posts here laying into the cops. Typical, though, and not surprising.
The GPS is part of the 3G chipset; thus, the Wi-Fi version does not have GPS. This is readily confirmed on the specs page. The Wi-Fi version DOES use Skyhook Wireless for location finding, and it works remarkably well.
It may be "completely legal" to provide uncensored Simplified Chinese search in Hong Kong, but that doesn't mean "mainland"[1] China won't just block google.com.hk in response (which it probably will, soon).
[1] Yes, this is accepted term for it.
>> 1. You don't get to make that determination yourself
>
> Everyone has to make that determination themselves. In the end, you are only accountable to your own conscience.
You're missing the point. That's not how the system is supposed to work, because of:
>> People leak to WikiLeaks because they believe (mostly accurately) that there will be no consequences
>
> I'd like to think that people leak to WikiLeaks because they believe there will be consequences. I don't think they do it for the hell of it,
> they want information to get out there and effect change.
No. No consequences to them. Yeah, they want to "effect (sic) change". They just don't want to risk any punishment themselves. If it's so important to leak, why not risk the punishment that society imposes for releasing classified information?
Again, such activities in a free[1] society are wholly different than actions in a non-free society.
[1] Yes, I realize no society is completely "free", but I trust you get my point.
And not only that, in free and democratic societies, individuals deciding on their own to leak classified information is a subversion of that very democratic process. In the US, we have collectively decided, as a society, that some information should be kept secret, even from The People, and we have empowered and entrusted the government with the power to do so.
When an individual, on his or her own, decides that some secret information should be leaked, they subvert that process. It is nowhere near akin to leaking sensitive information from totalitarian or repressive regimes, or even from corporate entities.
Some might assert that information is overclassified, or classified such as to hide wrongdoing or illegal or questionably behavior. Fine, but:
1. You don't get to make that determination yourself, and
2. If you do, generally this kind of decision is a moral one which must be tempered with consequences. I.e., if, in a free and democratic society, you really believe that a piece of classified information should be released, you should be willing to pay your society's consequences for it. People leak to WikiLeaks because they believe (mostly accurately) that there will be no consequences. This creates an unhealthy environment for any kind of protected or sensitive information in a democratic society.
Your own personal view on whether something should or shouldn't be classified is irrelevant. There are well-known and established processes that govern classification.
Just about the only thing WikiLeaks believes should be protected from leaking is negative information about WikiLeaks itself.
FBI director warns of 'rapidly expanding' cyberterrorism threat
This "there is no cyberwar" business plays right into Singel's agenda that anything related to cyber war is really a conspiracy to kill the open internet.
All the "cyberwar" stuff may be overplayed, and no, we're not in a "war", per se, at the moment, but we are most certainly unprepared, as are many open, information-dependent societies...
...is the fact that 30-some other companies -- companies without any such lawful surveillance facilities -- were also compromised as part of this Chinese operation, and all accounts indicate it was via 0-day vulnerabilities in IE and JavaScript-enabled PDF documents, not via any mechanism to enable surveillance intercepts.
This was Schneier using the incident as a platform to grind a political axe (probably based on a bogus tip), from which he wisely backed off.
Touché.
(And in case you're missing this, your suggestion to buy an Android based phone indeed was completely irrelevant to the original poster's question.)
Hardly. That's like saying that, oh, refraining from using computers entirely, or perhaps committing suicide, would also "solve" the problem.
But actually, that's not even comparable, because even though you're trying to salvage your utterly irrelevant suggestion with semantic justifications, it's still not a solution to the problem: the poster was unable to log into his Apple Developer Connection account using an Apple ID for reasons completely unrelated to which phone he might have. An individual with an Android based phone might still have a legitiamate reason to have ADC account and/or an Apple ID, and might still encounter an account lockout due to bad login attempts.
Similarly, someone with no Apple services whatsoever, and only Google/Android services, might encounter the exact same problem as this user; namely, being locked out of an account due to bad login attempts. This user's problem was benign, and he confirmed that the simple suggestion to reset his password as described in the support article in fact solved the issue. He could have encountered that same issue with Google, even if he owned dozens of exclusively Android based devices and shunned Apple like the plague.
Thanks for playing.
Really? Wow, so Google doesn't lock people out of accounts that have had too many bad login attempts?
Because that is exactly what has happened here; nothing sinister.
Indeed, and see this Apple KB article:
So who's to say it's not someone just messing with these guys? All it takes is a few bad login attempts to temporarily disable ANY Apple ID.
And even if Apple was disabling just these Apple IDs, it's clearly not of all people with jailbroken devices, else we would know about it; instead it's specific, individual people (who are probably in violation of Apple's terms of service for Apple IDs).