WikiLeaks Launches New Platform, Privacy Study 96
itwbennett writes "WikiLeaks has launched a new submissions platform, along with a study of the global trade in surveillance products. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told press conference attendees in London that all the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Gmail users in the crowd were 'screwed.' 'The reality is intelligence contractors are selling right now to countries across the world mass surveillance systems for all of those products,' Assange said."
...some days later... (Score:5, Funny)
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What has always bothered me about that, besides the obvious conspiracy theories, is that he effectively allowed that accusation to take form.
Your mockery appears to have no basis - but the case against him does... there really are two completely random women, and he has admitted to having sex with them. What was he thinking?
One can say "well he's only human" - but somebody in his rather extraordinary position can't be 'only human' because the slightest of slip-ups just means you give 'the enemy' ammunition
Re:...some days later... (Score:5, Funny)
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there really are two completely random women
Yes, a US agency hired two random women to have sex with Assange only to report about it to police shortly. Is that what you mean?
If not, care to explain why these two events "randomly" happened at the same time?
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The convenient timing and a large tin foil hat. What's your evidence against?
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The convenient timing and a large tin foil hat. What's your evidence against?
Occam's Razor. It's far easier to believe that a man just can't keep his pants zipped than to believe he's the target of a government conspiracy. Government's aren't nearly as efficient at staging such things as you tinfoil hat conspiracists would like to think. And even if a government did stage it, all Assange had to do was keep his stupid pants on and the entire operation would have been totally foiled - - amazing. All that effort could've been spoiled by a little something called SELF-RESTRAINT.
Slashdot
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO [wikipedia.org]
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Tendency to commit a crime before US govt got framed: 0 in 22 years
Tendency to commit a crime after US govt got
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You're an idiot. That's not how character assassination works. The reason it works is that the enemies sit down and review an existing profile of the victim, and then twist some convenient detail they find into something bad. That works with anybody, because the details of the "bad" can always be different and always tailored to the one individual.
So you've got
Special thanks to martin-boundary (Score:1)
Indeed you are right, good citizen!
A quick review: everyone involved in this appears to be financially related to the Bonnier family whose tabloid publication (now where have we heard that term lately???) first appealed to be the sole publisher of Julian Assange's Wikileaks -- which he turned them down on when he was back in Sweden, originally.
Next, we see Ardin, convincing a younger female and recent intimate of Assange's, to go to the Swedish police with her about Assange. The case is dropped, then pic
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http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Canadians+targets+sexpionage/5793483/story.html [montrealgazette.com]
http://tucsoncitizen.com/usa-today-news/2011/12/01/sexpionage-are-chinas-hotel-rooms-bugged/ [tucsoncitizen.com]
Sexpionage is standard MO for many world governments and large corporations. What happened to Assange looks very similar, but with lawsuits instead of blackmail. Read the first article; it can be very hard to combat this kind of attack, especially when all the immediate parties are unwitting at the time of the event.
...some more days later... (Score:2)
... Satan says he was coerced into making a statement by an overzealous detective.
CIA, FBI counter with "Nu-uhh" (Score:5, Funny)
In response to questions about privacy concerns, various government intelligence organizations from around the world, along with industry representative from Google, Apple, et. al. assembled at the first annual "Nope, Nothing to See Here" Privacy and Security Conference in London. "We are very pleased to report that there is nothing to these silly rumors. We've examined the concerns and determined that there is no need to worry," announced conference chair Janet Napolitano. The conference closed several minutes later, with industry representatives congratulating each other on dealing with all the privacy concerns in their products. "See, I told you there was no need to worry," said Apple CEO Tim Cook, shaking hands with Google CEO Larry Page.
Whatever Julian (Score:3, Insightful)
No matter how many acts of journalism this guys commits I will never see him as a journalist. I have to like someone personally first and also make sure they have a flawless record using a standard that I set and reserve only for him. Until this impossible standard is met I will bash in any way I can regardless of logic and back calls for his extrajudicial murder.
It's really the only sensible path Very Serious People can take.
Re:Whatever Julian (Score:4, Insightful)
No matter how many acts of journalism this guys commits I will never see him as a journalist. I have to like someone personally first and also make sure they have a flawless record using a standard that I set and reserve only for him. Until this impossible standard is met I will bash in any way I can regardless of logic and back calls for his extrajudicial murder.
It's really the only sensible path Very Serious People can take.
He's a facilitator. He made vast amounts of information available. He doesn't claim to the the journo or editor - that's the audience he's feeding to - assuming they'll do their job proper. You're always free to sift through the documents yourself, to stimulate your own personal outrage or mistrust of various world leaders, govenment functionaries, paper shufflers, rubber-stampers and pencil-pushers. Don't condemn the man for his journalistic shortcomings.
Re:Whatever Julian (Score:5, Informative)
I think your snark detector is broken.
JA describes himself (accurately IMO) as a publisher which is an act of journalism one engages in without being an actual journalist. It's a more general term.
Whenever I look around at our current field of "respected" journalists and then back at JA I don't know how one can come to the conclusion that he's the evil one.
Re:Whatever Julian (Score:4, Insightful)
The reality of the 21st century is that *everyone* can be a journalist, whether you consider them one or not [techdirt.com]. You can define it any way you want, but anyone can be a part of the press: reporting, feedback, facilitating, etc. Good/factual/relevant journalist? That's up to one's own interpretation.
So what you call it, isn't really relevant. The laws haven't been updated to respect this [techdirt.com], but with technology it's held true for quite some time.
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The reality of the 21st century is that *everyone* can be a journalist, whether you consider them one or not [techdirt.com]. You can define it any way you want, but anyone can be a part of the press: reporting, feedback, facilitating, etc. Good/factual/relevant journalist? That's up to one's own interpretation.
So what you call it, isn't really relevant. The laws haven't been updated to respect this [techdirt.com], but with technology it's held true for quite some time.
Well stated, Citizen Journalist!
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He doesn't claim to [be] the journo
Wrong:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/28/assange_journalist/ [theregister.co.uk]
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Actually it's Wikileaks that describe themselves as journalists (they provide editorial context) and publishers (they publish the source info that gets leaked to them). I got that wrong above. JA considers himself a scientific journalist (or data journalist in some parlance) that unites editorial content with the source documents/data to heighten transparency and give readers an opportunity to form their own conclusions.
Like I said, pure evil.
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He doesn't claim to [be] the journo
Wrong:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/28/assange_journalist/ [theregister.co.uk]
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Whoops, double post. I hit submit, it fails with "resource is not valid, try again" but it went through anyway.
Re:Whatever Julian (Score:5, Insightful)
for profit journalism has been corrupted so badly by the money and trying to make really rich people even richer that I no longer see them as journalists.
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Its kind of funny to talk of extrajudicial anything when the man has steadfastly refused to go to judicial hearings.
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I know that you're being facetious, sarcastic, whatever but for the sake of interstellar amity include a smiley for all the humorless nerds that just don't get it.
"all the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Gmail users" (Score:4, Interesting)
Also no my life hasn't turned to shit, I don't spend 6 hours every evening trying to manage these things while wearing a tinfoil hat. Yes sometimes changes need to be made when SSL certificates expire (although I prefer self-signed for a lot of this stuff, as Governments can compel CA's to issue false certs I consider them of little value) or what recently happened was the guy who wrote my mail server stopped developing it and IMAP was always just around the corner so I finally had to install a "proper" email server which had a bit of a learning curve but it's not terribly unweildly either.
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This is kind of the problem with privacy.
I think it's important and people need to be taking action now before it is too late to go back.. however I _personally_ don't feel the impact from invasions of my privacy.
I don't have any medical issues I'd like to keep secret, I don't have any embarrassing purchases, I don't care if people know how much money I have or my current location (well, I wouldn't want my location public to anyone who wants it for personal safety reasons.. but government/law enforcement..
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You are exactly the kind of person that oppressive governments want, boring, complacent, not a threat to the status quo. But the instant you try to make waves, to make any changes for the better, that's when they will come for you.
The continuing increases in surveillance, loss of privacy, militarization of the police, increased use of "non-lethal" weapons for crowd control, erosion of people's rights, corporate dominance over governments, union busting, dismantling public education, etc., etc., are all jus
Re:"all the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Gmail users" (Score:5, Insightful)
From your first sentence I thought you were going to point out that the problem with privacy is that you have to be a computer security expert to achieve it.
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I like to think of privacy this way:
I live with my wife in a small apartment. We both urinate with the door to the bathroom left open since we just don't care. However, when its time to go #2, we both close and lock the door. (Why is this? I don't know.) But the point is, that both of these are natural human functions, neither is any less embarrassing than the other (presumably), but yet, I can infer the bodily function by the state of the bathroom door.
If you closed and locked the door for each to
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Ridiculous is the state of our society (Score:5, Interesting)
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"When non government organizations end up doing the tasks governments should be doing, but not doing, and end up getting prosecuted for it."
This is what happens when you become a free market ideologue and worship corporate power. When the public worships capitalism this is the natural result. Most people have never lived through times of being killed by capitalists, most americans are so ignorant and illiterate of history as to make their opinions about much of anything seriously suspect.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubberhose [wikipedia.org]
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Re:EFF off (Score:4, Informative)
Software is never going to completely defend your privacy
Irrelevant; the point is to make it expensive to engage in mass surveillance, not to make it impossible.
the privacy of the millions upon millions of ordinary users who have never heard of your super-awesome encryption software
Yet the number of Tor users has been growing steadily over the past few years, and every time an authoritarian government tries to block Tor more people become interested in it.
Only the 'legalware' of challenging government (and non-governmental) intrusion in the courts can ultimately defend your rights.
Thus explaining this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nsa_wiretapping [wikipedia.org]
And no, I think it's absurd that writing encryption software entitles you to lead the struggle vs survelliance.
You claimed that Julian Assange had no right to speak about online privacy because he had no experience with it. That is plainly false given his involvement with the cypherpunks movement and his involvement with a deniable encryption system. Now you are claiming that is not enough? Somehow, I think you are just an anti-Assange/anti-Wikileaks shill.
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And no, I think it's absurd that writing encryption software entitles you to lead the struggle vs survelliance.
How's that whole choosing who gets to lead struggles thing going for you? Not good you say? One doesn't choose a leader they emerge and one chooses to heed their guidance or not? GTFO? Really? Wow? Thought you had an ace in the hole with that argument.
Re:EFF off (Score:5, Insightful)
The one thing Assange is accomplishing that the EFF (from my perspective anyway) has failed to do is get people talking about these issues. Not geeks on slashdot, but your every day guy. To seriously fight back against erroding privacy, you need a huge mass of people to take a stand, and the problem has always been that most people just don't care.
He may be an attention seeking asshole, but I think we kinda need that.
~** Screwed **~ (Score:2)
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told press conference attendees in London that all the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Gmail users in the crowd were 'screwed.'
Yes, now they will know that I messaged my girlfriend to grab some coffee on her way home. I'm definitely screwed!
Does this guy realize that the vast majority of us aren't political dissidents (practically tautologically, since once the vast majority of us hold a political view it becomes the orthodoxy against which the minority dissent) or whatever else he imagines is actually worth someone's time to read my messages out of the billions of electronic messages that exist?
Surely if the government compromises
Human Rights (Score:5, Informative)
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
You have the right to privacy; that right is not predicated on being a political dissident. The fact that these companies are undermining that right is what Assange is referring to when he says that you have been screwed.
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I don't think the USA agreed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and I can't see them doing so in a meaningful way these days.
4th amendment (Score:3)
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
American citizens have a right to privacy and are supposed to be free from broad, non-specific searches (e.g. like the NSA wiretapping program). The fact that we have strayed from our founding principles is another story entirely; the right has not been official revoked so much as simply ignored.
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So LAWFUL=RIGHT?
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So LAWFUL=RIGHT?
Given that you're using an assignment operator, then if you're government, the answer is 'yes'
But if you meant $LAWFUL == $RIGHT, then the answer is 'no'.
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I don't think the USA agreed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and I can't see them doing so in a meaningful way these days.
The US helped write the UDHR. The UDHR is a non-binding declaration, but was instrumental in creating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which is a legally binding agreement the US has ratified. Too bad we took an exception saying it's not self-ratifying, so it can't actually force change in US law. Nyah.
(Oh, and Articles 2.1 and 25 guarantee the right to representation. As a DC resident without a vote in Congress, I can tell you we've ignored that part as well.)
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I don't think the USA agreed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and I can't see them doing so in a meaningful way these days.
They helped write it and voted for it. A simple google would have shown you that.
Regardless, it's not a treaty nor is it law. It's one of many meaningless yet diplomat-ego-inflating things the UN has done.
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You have the right to privacy; that right is not predicated on being a political dissident. The fact that these companies are undermining that right is what Assange is referring to when he says that you have been screwed.
I didn't say that the right is predicated on being a political dissident, I only noted that I am not really materially screwed in any sense because my private information is just not interesting enough for anyone to care about. Whether or not I have such a right to privacy is sort of immaterial in such case where I don't care if it's violated. It's like saying that it matters that we have a Fourth Amendment in a case where I want to invite a police officer into my apartment for dinner. It only matters when
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Over here in the UK we've got a little bit of a scandal going on, about listening in to other people's voice messages. That came about because people were accessing official sources (eg PNC, DVLA) and getting phone numbers and such like.
Thing is, if they don't need to go the official route - they just go via some app installed on people's phones, or through their email system - then there is lit
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How would you feel if somebody followed you around and took notes of what you did during your day? Wouldn't you find that creepy? Even if they said they were doing it for marketing purposes, wouldn't you be creeped out?
I would be, and I'm just as creeped out that companies track me and collect data on me through electronic devices.
But most of all, my main concern is control over that information. There's a lot of stuff I'd be comfortable sharing if I could know how it is used, who has access to it, and what
They have to have the capability (Score:1)
If intelligence and law enforcement weren't looking into this type of surveillance they wouldn't be doing their jobs. The capability has to exist for them to function in the modern world. When it should be used is the legal question.
Re:They have to have the capability (Score:5, Insightful)
Law enforcement agencies are more powerful today than at any other point in human history. Why are we not talking about reducing that power?
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Law enforcement agencies are more powerful today than at any other point in human history. Why are we not talking about reducing that power?
It would cut into the X-Factor finals.
WikiLeaks and Facebook (Score:2, Interesting)
Whatever happens now, both WikiLeaks and Facebook are driving "free thoughts" in some way.
And they try changing from both sides:
- Facebook is making way for a free world by not stopping hangouts for protesters, making way for the democracy as we know it; capitalism and "free" governments.
- Wikipedia, on the other hand, is trying to show us how far this has gone in our own free world.
There's no longer dictatorship but somehow there still are forces that try control us. That can be a good thing, however there
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I didn't quite follow your argument, but there are definitely some salient points in what you say.
Facebook and WikiLeaks are both about trying to make information freely available. WikiLeaks concentrates on governments, and Facebook concentrates on everyone else. Both provide a nice concentrating and filtering interface to make it easy for the interested parties to find what they're looking for.
To rephrase:
Wikileaks: takes from the government and large corporations and gives to the masses
Facebook: takes f
Alternative view (Score:3)
I would place Facebook near the bot
So, what to use instead? (Score:2)
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Similar options for IM -- use OTR or some similar encryption system, and if possible run your own XMPP server.