WikiLeaks' Daniel Schmitt Speaks 154
Lars Sobiraj submitted an interview with Daniel Schmitt of WikiLeaks. "He encourages all readers and warns his opponents — WikiLeaks has the means to make our society better, to create a world which stands united and strong against abuse — locally and nationally as well as globally. Modern, fast, world-wide technology makes it possible. In the interview, Daniel explains in detail how this will be done, with the help of WikiLeaks and all its supporters."
Got to love the fact.... (Score:1, Offtopic)
that SonicWall blocks the article site from the current hotspot where I'm enjoying a cup of coffee and a bagel before work.
Re:Got to love the fact.... (Score:5, Informative)
gulli.com is a known hacking/warez site. Back in the day they were one of the places you could reliably get programs like Serialz 2000. They also have rootkits and other malware available for download.
Put your money where your mouth is! (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think the Slashdot crowd should need convincing that Wikileaks is a force for good. However, passive support won't be enough for such a contentious organisation, so do what I did and show them some love [wikileaks.org].
(Hmm, I just noticed that PayPal donation is currently down, which is rather awkward...)
Re:Put your money where your mouth is! (Score:5, Insightful)
(Hmm, I just noticed that PayPal donation is currently down, which is rather awkward...)
One would hope it's because they got slashdotted with donations.
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Not different from the rest of the internets.
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Some Wikileaks donaters' info was posted to Wikileaks.
I'd like to see WikiLeaks post a leak of everyone who contributed leaks to their site.
Or is some information better left secret? There are good things that have come out of WikiLeaks, but the potential for harm that comes along with it sometimes outweighs the advantages. If a site advocating openness of information is keeping secrets, we are straying into hypocrisy, even if it's not out-right.
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I'd like to see WikiLeaks post a leak of everyone who contributed leaks to their site.
Oh yeah, smart. Why the hell do you think WikiLeaks exists in the first place? Because leaking certain information is either forbidden or extremely dangerous. The sources have to be protected. If they didn't, they would not need to use WikiLeaks but could just put their information on their personal website.
Gosh, that wasn't so hard to figure out, was it?
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Dangerous to the person posting the leak, of course.
If "our" safety relies on some information being suppressed, I'd rather the information gets out as fast and as loud as possible so that the underlying flaw gets fixed ASAP. Security by obscurity has been proven to be a very stupid concept in IT. Relying on it for your life is suicidal.
It's like blurring the location of power stations and other critical infrastructure on Google Maps: The target is still vulnerable. Nothing was gained.
Twatter again (Score:4, Insightful)
Quote Schmitt:
In the context of the latest developments in a complex context and the necessary political support for a certain cause, we are considering marking certain Tweets with a hashtag for emergencies which signifies that it has to do with something very important which needs the world's attention. #EMERGENCY or something like that. We have to try and make sure that dramatic developments in the world get the necessary attention.
Honestly, when did the humble RSS feed or - heaven forfend - an actual webpage become an unacceptable way of disseminating information?
More importantly - why?
Re:Twatter again (Score:4, Insightful)
New modes of information dissemination don't destroy the old ones. People can, and will, still use web sites and RSS feeds and IRC and telephone calls to disseminate information. But why not add Twitter to the mix? And why not establish some simple social rules for each of those communication channels to be used as effectively as possible?
Your argument is almost like saying "Why do we need to establish 'SOS' as shorthand, when people can just say 'please help us!'. And why do ships bother using flags and lights to communicate to each other, when they can just yell at one another."
I'm not arguing that Twitter is a world-changing paradigm-shift. But it's not useless. It's fast and easy to use and bridges different communication modes (text messaging, the web, RSS, etc.). That's why it has been helpful in emergency circumstances; because people were able to update their Twitters status very quickly and easily, even from a mobile device... yet the answer was broadcast across the web, enabling everyone to share in the knowledge.
So, again... Why not?
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Honestly, when did the humble RSS feed or - heaven forfend - an actual webpage become an unacceptable way of disseminating information?
You should realize that Twitter is both- more specifically, you can see it as an index of RSS feeds.
That's kinda like being puzzled that Myspace became more popular than Geocities. The latter has more freedom in what you can display, and how you can display it, but Myspace makes it easier for the average person to find their friends and all that other Web 2.0 goodness.
The problem with Wikileaks is... (Score:2, Interesting)
The U.S. has set up over the last two centuries a means by which information that should be kept secret is kept secret and information that should be public is public. By and large, this works, despite some well publicized failures. Legislation such as the Freedom of Information Act, etc. has proved to be a means to uncover unsavory facts that would see the light of day despite the wishes of unsavory politicians. All of this takes place in the well defined arena of law and politics.
Wikileaks would throw al
Re:The problem with Wikileaks is... (Score:5, Insightful)
The U.S. has set up over the last two centuries a means by which information that should be kept secret is kept secret and information that should be public is public. By and large, this works [...]
How can you tell this works? For who does it work?
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Well, you can look at the speculative picture. Let's say, for example, you saw a powerful man murder someone else, and you don't know whether to testify against him. The government wants this guy in prison, so they offer to help you get away, change your name, and give you some limited protection in exchange for testifying. Which would you prefer?
a) The government doesn't help you or anyone else in the same situation and the crime boss goes free
b) The government helps you, and posts your details on Wikileak
the problem with secrets in a democracy ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The people have a right to know what its government is doing on their behalf. Generally, if it can't stand the cold light of day, then they shouldn't be doing it. The ACTA [wikileaks.org] secret agreement being a case in point.
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A comment above yours makes an interesting point: The witness protection program. I would prefer systems exist that protect witnesses who would otherwise be coerced or killed prior to testimony.
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1293041&cid=28594959 [slashdot.org]
if there is no place for government secrecy, what about WitSec protectee information? Is that fair game?
Re:The problem with Wikileaks is... (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Duration. I've seen FOIA requests take years to fulfill.
2) Redaction. The FOIA answers often have sections blacked out in them. Sometimes large sections. What you're left with is a document that is essentially unreadable.
3) Scope. FOIA only works where we're interfacing with the US Government agencies. It does not work with private corporations nor does it work with other nations.
Much like free speech, Wikileaks should be covered under "freedom of press." There needs to be some place where this information can be distributed and the person doing the leak is not put at risk. There are too many groups/agencies around the world who solve problems by burning the bodies.
Re:The problem with Wikileaks is... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I don't think many people would disagree with the notion that information is often leaked for partisan and/or personal reasons not related to money.
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This is true, but still, perhaps the greatest leaker of all did not gain even one penny from his leaking...Deep Throat.
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Killing people and breaking things is often in the national interest when others are trying to do the same to you.
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Well said.
Re:The problem with Wikileaks is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, I think the answer is "yes" on both counts.
The entire security process around both of those entities should assume that the "attacker" has
- the complete resources of a modern government at its disposal
- the experience and wherewithal to murder anyone necessary to obtain secrets
- the ability to plant multiple human spies inside the organizations in each scheme
As such, any process should be resistant to attackers who know all of the information in excruciating detail.
Certainly security through obscurity can help, but it is not sufficient. I expect my government to spend the resources necessary to build a process (a human and information machine) that is resistent to tampering, infiltration, and information disclosure, in the sense that it doesn't guarantee that these never happen, it instead guarantees that the system/process continues to function properly while sustaining a certan amount of all of these defects.
IOW: understand the threats; have mitigations for each.
I'd be a lot more concerned if wikileaks was posting the home address, SSN, and home alarm de-arming instructions of doctors that performed abortions, or people who had bad things to say about the prophet muhammed. Those people typically do _not_ have the experience, time, money, or sanity to protect themselves from even 1 agitated nutcase.
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Or how about leaking information that could end up making it easier to take out the President?
Why should you even have a President to take out? What decisions does he make that can't be made by a large group of people, such as a democratically elected Parliament or Congress?
If you have a single, central figure, then you set yourself up for these unnecessary security problems, plus you have someone who can go rogue and destroy the reputation of your country, as Americans found out recently.
Rich.
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That would be great if launch codes were leaked, because that would basically announce that the codes need to be changed (rendering the old codes useless), and better measures taken to prevent future leaks. If the system was set up right in the first place, changing all the codes shouldn't take a long time.
What's worse is if someone malicious gets them and doesn't tell anyone about it.
As a general point: Wikileaks does much more good than it does harm. "Bad" leaks happen whether or not Wikileaks exists or n
Launch codes not a problem ... (Score:2)
Sheesh, NOOBs.!
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Arguing the extremes merely reduces the discussion to black and white, allowing it to proceed with everyone on the same page...i.e. leaking national secrets is a bad thing or a good thing.
"Depends" makes for a messy discussions with people quibbling over the relative seriousness of one particular leak over another.
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Yeah, to blacks and whites of your choosing. Arguing with you becomes like a game of chess where you start with 16 pieces and the opponent starts with a king and a pawn: that is to say, your intellectual dishonesty extends to redefining the rules in order to have some kind of a Righteous Victory.
You, sir, are a fop and an arse-bandit, and I spit on you.
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Also the almighty "is not a suicide pact".
Re:The problem with Wikileaks is... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is one of trust. These days, I don't trust my government (UK) enough to let them make decisions about what I don't get to see. If they wanted to keep this trust, all they had to do was not oppose the release of their expenses quite so vigorously.
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The problem is one of trust. These days, I don't trust my government (UK) enough to let them make decisions about what I don't get to see. If they wanted to keep this trust, all they had to do was not oppose the release of their expenses quite so vigorously.
You would trust wikileaks though? You would trust the judgment of a few individuals with their own agenda? If you don't trust your government and the individuals who run it with their own agenda why would you trust wikileaks any more? They aren't some super moral group of people. They are as human and corruptible as your government, or you or I am for that matter.
It's very popular to bash governments for their many mistakes and foibles, but the problem is none of us have come up with an better solution
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Wikileaks is just another piece of the puzzle. It's not a replacement for all public disclosure laws, and it's not a replacement for journalism. You're complaining that it has its own agendas and bias, which is undoubtedly true, but so does every other possible outlet for this sort of information.
You can never create a source that's guaranteed to be free of that bias, so the proper system has lots of separate sources, which hopefully "averages out" all the bias and provides some sort of truth. To claim that
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I would. And I'll tell you why. Because if someone comes to Wikileaks and the site pulls some sort of 'nefarious' power play by only posting leaks in regard to a specific agenda, those people trying to get the banned material leaks will know and find alternative methods of getting the word out.
Were you under the impression that these are the only folk who know how to setup a web site?
PS. The answer to the question is: If Wikileaks has something out there that is so damaging to your 'elected officials' that
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Your ATM PIN code is secret, is it not?
The location of our nuclear warheads is secret, is it not?
The location of the emergency shelters for the Executive Branch is secret...OK, Biden fucked that up.
There are some things that need to be kept under wraps.
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Would you like to know where North Korea keep their nukes?
No bullshit prevarication: yes, or no.
Now, why do you think that anybody outside the US gives a Goddamn whether the US wants to keep its nuke locations secret?
Oh, you thought Wikileaks was a US entity only interested in spilling US beans? Jog on.
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ATM - bank(and all employees) knows about it.
WMD - http://archive.greenpeace.org/wmd/ [greenpeace.org]
emergency shelters - mountains of MD.
You need to come up with better examples.
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I suspect that Wikileaks does not care about the difference considering that they have apparently posted the answers to a Red Hat Certified Engineer's exam.
Re:The problem with Wikileaks is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh wait [wikipedia.org]. Maybe one or two cases. Y'know, nothing important.
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So you would rather judge a person on whom they are rather than by what they do?
How contrarian of you. Idiotic, but admirably contrarian.
Re:The problem with Wikileaks is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikileaks would throw all of this out and make themselves (the collective leakers) the sole arbiter of what is in the national interest and what is not with respect to keeping secrets.
Wikileaks is not the "sole arbiter" and they do not paint themselves as such. Publicizing leaked information has been a staple of investigative journalism for a long, long time. And it is generally acknowledged that this is one of the most beneficial things that journalism does for a democratic society: publicize the failures and corruptions of "the system"... particularly in those cases where "the system" is gaming itself to keep that information hidden.
Wikileaks is thus an extension of tried-and-true techniques of leaking scandal, applied to a digital age. It fits in nicely with journalistic infrastructure, providing a way to get information out to the public in cases where entrenched powers would like to hide it.
So what wikileaks does is to substitute the judgment of a system, made of up of untold knowledgeable individuals, with the judgment of one or two cranks with an ax to grind. The cranks may be right sometimes, but I think more often that not they will be wrong.
I disagree. The "leaked information journalism" network (of which Wikileaks is a part) is another system made up of untold individuals, using their judgment to decide what to leak and publicize, and what not to. You say the system doesn't work on average. Can you point to a large number of things that were leaked and were damaging to National Security, without having a significant benefit with respect to democracy and stamping-out corruption? How does the number of such 'mistakes' compare to the number of 'legitimate leaks,' where the information really had no right to be suppressed?
Another point to consider is that we don't know how many bits of leaked information were not publicized. The people who get hold of the secret data have choices to make. They can publicize it or not (this goes for someone considering uploading to Wikileaks, a journalist, etc.). Actually the fact that very few National-Security-compromising secrets have seen the light of day (troop movements, launch codes, etc.) suggests people are using appropriate discretion in leaking. Most of the things leaked are damaging to some individuals and organizations... but not a matter of security (military or economic or other). In short, they mostly deserve to be leaked.
Again, I think you're going to have to defend your "more often [than] not they will be wrong" claim with specifics. As far as I can tell, information leaking has always been, and will continue to be, a vital portion of maintaining a democracy. Things like FOIA are also good, mind you. But to maintain a democracy we, the individual people making up the nation, must do our part in terms of oversight... which will occasionally mean breaking one set of rules in order to uphold a much more important set of ideals.
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The "National Security" argument is valid, but it is all too easy for it to be abused.
Abuse of the privilege is more common and dangerous than any leaked secret could possibly be. It quite literally puts the executive above the law. IMO, when a principle does more harm than good that makes it invalid, no matter how many well meaning arguments there are in favor of it.
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I submit to you the "torture" controversy.
Two groups of documents, the memos describing and authorizing, and the pictures. Both of which a great majority of wikileak supporters would consider more than appropriate for publication.
Obama has released the memos, to much controversy, but not the pictures, to even more controversy. But then, he is the President, with access to the necessary resources to decide what he believes is in the best interest of the nation. He was elected to make these decisions.
Wikileak
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But in the real world, we cannot count on absolutes. In particular we cannot set up systems that are so absolute that they become inflexible and incapable of dealing with the frailties of humanity (which include
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If the government say they did X but the truth is that they instead did Y, if possible it should be exposed that they did Y. Substitute X and Y for anything. Same thing for corporations. Lies are bad, okay? If exposing the lie cause harm then they probably shouldn't had done Y in the first place. If exposing it might teach them to think twice the next time they are about to act against the will of the people, something good has happened. Basically, if they really really NEED to do something unpopular they s
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Well, "national interest" is also defined that way: a bunch of powerful guys at the top of the hierarchy who disseminate information at their own discretion. Sometimes, they don't deserve to be trusted.
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They do this without realizing the potential impact to national security or potential diplomatic damage that, while the leaker may think is justified and deserved, is more damaging to the U.S. (or other country subject to a wikileak) than the leaker realizes. They can't know the potential impact because they do not have access to the entire picture.
Correction: They don't have access to the entire picture yet. A problem, which WikiLeaks is there to solve.
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The answer is that you trust the people you elect to make decisions that are in the best interest of the country. If you elect people that do not do this, then vote them out. It's slow, it's tedious, but it is the right way to do it.
Wikileaks is quick, but it is reckless, with the potential to wreak havoc, and is the wrong way to do it.
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You cannot. The nation can.
Some would say replacing Bush with Obama is a great example.
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"you trust the people you elect". . Are you kidding me? You think I trust any elected official to make decisions in the best interest of the country? The whole point of wikileaks is that I don't trust _any_ of the elected officials.
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I would prefer that allegations of such abuses be considered by our elected leaders (who were fully informed, despite their lame protestations) performing their mandated oversight duties, and then be dealt with in a manner that falls within the rule of law and is best for the over all good of the nation.
I would not prefer to have some political hack with a grudge or some young and dumb idealist decide for the entire nation what should be done with said allegations.
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To be wary and cautious of those in power is a good thing.
To be distrustful and paranoid to the point where people take the law into their own hands is not a good thing.
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You say "event", meaning, I assume, some action the government has taken. There are also secrets that are not so much actions as information that could be used by someone to perpetrate some kind of harm.
But...right off the top of my head...
1. Clandestine intelligence operations.
2. Ongoing law enforcement investigations.
3. Defense development projects
4. And of course, UFOs.
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"Wikileaks is but one place for individuals to research what their governments are doing"
But then, you have only the word of the leaker. How many "fake, but accurate" documents are in Wikileaks?
Wikileaks can also be quite RETARDED (Score:1, Interesting)
I noticed they had the question and answer keys to the Red Hat Certified Engineer's exam, so I asked what the justification for this was. The answer was that Red Hat was being "unfair" by keeping the test closed. For political matters, Wikileaks can be useful, but for being a place where cheaters gather, it's pretty damned lame.
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Actually they answered that the reason they posted the tests were to level the playing field as a number of people already had copies of the tests and thus an unfair advantage. When Redhat came after them, they argued that the onus was on Redhat to change the test since the cat had already been out of the bag.
Which, you will note, Redhat did.
All readers? (Score:1, Offtopic)
He encourages all readers and warns his opponents
Huh... looks like we got ourselves a reader.
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Novas Scarman report (Score:2)
Fear the power (Score:5, Insightful)
Since I'm sure this posting will be flooded with a lot of love for Wikileaks, I feel I have to try to post possible negatives.
We must never forget this. We have the means to make our society better, to form a world in which there is a strong and united opposition against abuse. Locally, nationally, globally.
One problem I've often seen in the past with regards to certain activist groups is their unintentional imposition of values on the people they claim to support. A very common example in places like Europe and occasionally Canada is feminist groups speaking on behalf of oppressed Muslim women who have to wear certain kinds of clothing. Some of these women are oppressed, but usually the solution those groups present is as undesirable to them as is the original problem. Additionally, most of the Muslim women seriously dispute the notion that they are oppressed, only to be dismissively told that they don't see it because they're not yet free. In other words, the activist groups have this attitude of "We know what's right and the rest of the world is wrong." If any of you have spent a lot of times with activists, I think you'll find this is a trap often fallen into.
I've seen similar issues with some human rights organizations, labor oriented organizations, etc. They often fail to realize that while a problem may exist, the solution in their own society may be a poor solution in other societies.
The real question is: Can Wikileaks avoid such a path? Or will they ultimately take on certain philosophies with the belief that they hold for all humanity, while possibly having little experience with most of the world's major cultures. So far they seem to have done well, but I suspect that this is something they'll need to actively guard against.
Mod Parent Up (Score:2, Informative)
The parent post was a none-too-insensitive discussions on the potential darker sides of Wikileaks, and certainly didn't deserve to be modded troll.
Truth is ALWAYS better (Score:4, Insightful)
People who argue how damaging things can be if they were made public completely forget that if certain things were known earlier... things like this wouldn't NEED to be kept hidden.
This huge cloud of people who just don't want to know and go on with their happy day lives is exactly what allows events to build up where releasing the information COULD be damaging.
But lets be honest. How worse off do you think the United States could be right now in the eyes of the world?
You will always have followers who don't want to know things and want the *smart* people to deal with it. The problem is, often enough those smart people aren't smart... or are greedy, power hungry... or otherwise influenced. Public eye on what they do is the ONLY thing stopping them. Watchdogs so to speak. Most of them in jobs just like you and me who happen to be there when something happens.
The fear is that people will overreact to the sheer amount of hidden crap and revolt, or some religious nutjob will start calling the end of days and 50,000 idiots will believe him. But if you start slowly... revealing the truth bit by bit people will gradually become adjusted to it.
The reason this will never happen is those in power will suddenly lose the ability to do things that might have been the "easy" way. It also will prevent us from doing things for "the good" that would be seen as "the bad". But that's a tradeoff I want to see simply because... the person making that decision does not have to answer to anyone if they were wrong. That should always be part of leadership.
You make the call... you take the fall.
Re:Truth is ALWAYS better (Score:5, Insightful)
But lets be honest. How worse off do you think the United States could be right now in the eyes of the world?
That depends entirely on which "eyes" you want to look through, does it not?
Frankly, I'm not interested in a world popularity contest. I don't really care if Iran thinks the U.S. is a great nation. Frankly, it won't think the U.S. is a great nation as long as it thinks the entire world should be under Islamic rule. Just an example.
My question is this: how many nations in the world do you think actually want the U.S. to be successful, as opposed to wanting their own country to assume the prominence that the U.S. has enjoyed for a while now? Do you think Britain thought highly of the U.S. in the late 1700s/early 1800s? Do you think most of the world thought highly of the U.S. during World War I/World War II?
If the point of politics is to "look good" to other countries, then politics is severely messed up. If the point, on the other hand, is to do what our country/people think is right to do, then we have a point for discussion. Otherwise, we're just a puppet in a grand popularity contest. And when push comes to shove, when North Korea or some other country decides it wants to rule the world. the Popularity Contest is going to seem pretty silly in comparison to the "Uh, guys, we need to deal with this country forcefully before they decide to blow us all up in because we don't match their ideology." That's kinda what happened in the World Wars. Germany had an ideological difference. They wanted to rule the world with it (it's happened a few times in history...). If we only had "popular" countries (say... countries that decided to disarm...), I'm pretty sure we'd all be speaking German right now. Except for non-Aryan races, who wouldn't exist.
And I'm not going to ask pardon for saying that the human race is capable of doing such awful things in the 21st century. We're quite capable of making some pretty stupid decisions and believing some insanely stupid things. And, IMO, it's insanely stupid to think that if the U.S. were just more popular with the worlds' countries, those countries would like the U.S. better. Nobody, especially those greedy for power, like a powerful country that is able to "threaten" a country. Unfortunately for humanity, it looks like that power is always going to exist; the question is, who has it and what beliefs do they hold to. Some countries are a lot less freedom-loving than others.
But if you start slowly... revealing the truth bit by bit people will gradually become adjusted to it.
Let's start with talking about the truth about human nature. Human nature is greedy, power-hungry, and wants to rule. Let's not forget that there are countries and people groups out there that pretty much would rather everyone believed (externally) the way they do or die. I'm not using words like "terrorist" or "muslim," because I'm not talking about any specific group. I'm saying that this is human nature, and has been for all of recorded human history. There's a reason you had really powerful nations in history like Egypt, Greece, Rome, Assyria, etc... Germany, Russia, U.S., Korea, Iran... they all have different ideologies, but most countries like to be in control.
So, here is what I think the question really is... now that we have technology that can allow a very small country to threaten the world ("do this or we blow all of you up"), it becomes very important to be able to do more than talk to them or issue warnings/resolutions at them. It's the same as a playground bully. You don't "defeat" the bully by talking to him, making him see the error in his ways and hoping he joins you for a piece of cake and some tea. Bullies won't back down as long as they think they can bully their way out of it. Something has to make them realize this. The question is: who is the one that gets to have the power to stop the bullies, or should we just talk to the bullie
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"And, IMO, it's insanely stupid to think that if the U.S. were just more popular with the worlds' countries, those countries would like the U.S. better."
Actually, um, that's not only easy to believe but a tautology - if the US were more popular, by definition it would be more well-liked.....
I'm trying to parse what you really mean and I can't figure it. Do you mean 'it's stupid to believe that if the US were less aggressive on the world stage, it would be more popular?' Or 'it's stupid to believe that if t
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Most leaders of all countries act like criminals. (Score:2)
Almost all of the leaders of the planet Earth act like mobsters and criminals that are above the law because they are wealthy and above the law. The US is no exception. It is very very rare in the history of any country in any part of the world to find a leader that was not a monster. No matter who it was in any given time in any given place.
This is why Wikileaks is necessary. Try and imagine a world where every secret of every government in every part of the world was known by every citizen. Governments sh
Sayeth Sid Meier: (Score:2, Insightful)
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
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I think Wikileaks recently posted some private wikileaks financial information. Just saying.
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Yes they did, after the donators emails were accidentally sent to lots of other donators and some of them requested that they'll add the leak to the site.
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks_partial_donors_list%2C_14_Feb_2009 [wikileaks.org]
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When people and organizations are in positions of power and public trust, secrecy is, as often as not, a means of breaking trust. Wikileaks has had a valuable role in exposing some of these instances.
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I do not have "trouble" with any particular posting, instead it is the principal of the thing. When you think about it, wikileaks goes against any IT best practice, and it certainly goes against any geek value. They are getting a free ride and sympathy from a crowd where they don't deserve it. The fact that you may think it's a hoot that your personal bad guy had his secrets exposed today should be irrelevant. If someone is breaking the law and using secrecy to protect themselves, well they too can fall (Ni
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What does he have to do with this?
Re:Surely he isn't biased... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Actually, I think you mean the number of hypothetical scenarios are endless. Examples would be things that have actually occurred. Do you have any of those?
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What if you were in the military, and someone decided to leak secrets that proved the war you are fighting was illegitimate? No... that could never happen....? Could it?
If the military truly has leaks, they're doing it wrong! It's not everyone else's job to keep their secrets. The importance of bringing truth to the masses outweighs any straw man argument you can possibly bring up. Exposing things like secret government human rights abuses will always trump anything else. Do you have a better idea fo
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Or worse yet, what is someone leaked false information indicating the war was illegitimate and because other soldiers protested, you ended up getting killed or maimed.
No, of course that would never happen... except you have no way of knowing if whatever was posted is real or not. So which is worse, eating from the hands of the people gover
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Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you're stupid, I'm saying your hypothetical coworker is stupid.
If this R&D is worth millions, then the coworker could sell it to a Chinese company for a tidy profit and nobody would know. (They might strongly suspect, but it could be convergent research.) At least with Wikileaks, the company could confirm that it's been leaked and try to take action against the coworker. So given the choice between the hypothetical coworker seeking only revenge via Wikileaks and seeki
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How about selling R&D that the R&D'ing company intends to sit on and not develop? Surely the suppression of progress is a great enough sin to warrant a leak -- and the money comes in handy trying to avoid The Man for the next ten years, so no begrudging that either.
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I take issue with your idea that Wikileaks goes against "any geek value". Other posters have addressed the fact that leaks happen regardless of Wikileaks' existence, and that the leaker stands to profit more by leaking elsewhere. I want to talk about the geek values involved.
First, Wikileaks is free to access and open to anyone. I think most geeks would think a corporate secret, if leaked, is better off out in the open than sold to a competitor. Second, often a leak itself is in accordance with geek val
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wikileaks goes against any IT best practice
Quite the opposite is true: It aims to ensure the anonymity of its sources to the best. It aims for maximum uptime, distributes its server locations strategically to ensure operations even against wide-spread censorship and disruption and aims to verify the integrity of the information it provides. (Not its authenticity, mind you. That is someone else's job.) That's more than you could ask for from most web hosting providers.
it certainly goes against any geek value
Quite the opposite is true, again: Openness of information, transparency of off
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Given that your interpretation of the "general principle of the thing" (fixed your sp for you, no need to thank) leads you to an obviously contradictory conclusion, have you taken the time to consider whether your interpretation isn't, in fact, bollocks?
Generally people who set up shit like WikiLeaks take far more time to come up with the concept than you do attempting to tear it down. It's unreasonable to assume that WikiLeaks' administrators were idiots or half-wits or otherwise of right-wing mental calib
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And we should be bound by your "geek values" why?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VX_gas#Synthesis [wikipedia.org]
Seriously, why are people so paranoid about the formula for these things? Most nerve gases are very similar to industrial pesticides (in fact, VX gas was originally intended to be a pesticide), and if we kept the knowledge of how to synthesize nerve agents top secret then we could not educate chemists or chemical engineers.
The fact of the matter is that i
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The formula is already out, if Wikileaks were to publish it then they would be the conduit, not the source of the leaked material. Censoring wikileaks does nothing to stop the leaking of information, only it's publication on a single site so the information is still out there.
With regards to the specific VX example, the formula is
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Besides, you can make poisonous gas with household cleaners; they certainly aren't that big of a deal. The real secret to them is the most efficient way to disperse them...and that is harder to find.
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Air dispersed aerosols would be somewhat effective but in order to compensate for wind you would need a lot of toxin and a lot of time in the air which leaves a huge window for discovery and interception.
Re:Surely he isn't biased... (Score:5, Insightful)
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It seems very unfair however, to mention Jimmy Wales and Schmitt in the same breath. As these are two very different types of people. Jimmy Wales' interesting and dubious background (and present for that matter), and many failings, have been well covered here, and on many other sites. Schmitt isn'
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While you're right about the general respect for IP among slashdot patrons, there is also a very vocal slashdot community that does not view intellectual property as property. That component is a natural friend of wikileaks.
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onyxruby, I get the impression you don't understand what Wikileaks is about, and are setting up an army of straw men to wage war on.
wikileaks are no more parasites of the technology world than any other site on the Internet. Rather, they serve a useful function: It is not the purpose of wikileaks to expose the personal information of "normal" individuals, nor stuff like credit card data. They release information, where it becomes known, of wrongdoings of corporate and/or government institutions and/or emplo
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I simply don't understand your thinking. I've not yet heard of Wikileaks installing malware on computers, or harvesting personal data for whatever nefarious reasons. But, you compare them to such people.
Wikileaks is just about the ultimate whistleblower. Perhaps you believe that fraud is a protected activity of elected officials? As well as people appointed by those elected officials? How about large corporations? Government itself, whether elected or not?
The fine people at Wikileaks may be chasing wi
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This is due entirely to the US government (amongst others, I wont argue about who is the worst, almost all western governm