Also, it's obvious that Assange has overstepped the mark. Just read the papers!
Have you seen the reports about 'Operation Payback'?
Already discussed on here mate.
4chan/Anonymous incarnation Operation Payback have been running DDOS attacks against corporates for somewhat longer than they've known about WikiLeaks. Just ask US government favourites the RIAA, the MPAA etc.
(It was a 4chan/Anonymous/OP DDOS a couple of months ago that resulted in what the ICO thinks may be one of the most serious breaches of data protection in the UK ever.)
WikiLeaks is just their latest focus. They will move on.
But I'm unclear why you are making a link between Operation Payback and Assange/WL; WL has nothing to do with Operation Payback (though WL was itself subject to DDOS last week, from parties unknown).
I think we can all agree here that SOME things should remain secret.
However, surely the general principle is that information should be as transparent in terms of governments and if it is not a danger to the public or to individuals than there shouldn't be any big problem about it going into the public arena.
The list of targets which has some people up in arms is a bit of a poor show; most of the targets are well known and as others have stated, if terrorists can't work out by now that oil refineries aren't sensitive to national security, they should get on their bike and do something else with their lives!
So for once I find myself sympathetic to the Green Tendency here... if the government wants to keep something secret, don't create a system that allows MILLIONS of users to access said 'secret' information!
Peace always has been and always will be an intermittent flash of light in a dark history of warfare, violence, and destruction
What WikiLeaks is really exposing is the extent to which the western democratic system has been hollowed out. In the last decade its political elites have been shown to be incompetent (Ireland, the US and UK in not regulating banks); corrupt (all governments in relation to the arms trade); or recklessly militaristic (the US and UK in Iraq). And yet nowhere have they been called to account in any effective way. Instead they have obfuscated, lied or blustered their way through. And when, finally, the veil of secrecy is lifted, their reflex reaction is to kill the messenger.
As Simon Jenkins put it recently in the Guardian, "Disclosure is messy and tests moral and legal boundaries. It is often irresponsible and usually embarrassing. But it is all that is left when regulation does nothing, politicians are cowed, lawyers fall silent and audit is polluted. Accountability can only default to disclosure." What we are hearing from the enraged officialdom of our democracies is mostly the petulant screaming of emperors whose clothes have been shredded by the net.
Best comment so far on this saga. every thinking person should be supporting WikiLeaks and fighting the false charges of rape against the founder of WikiLeaks.
Peace always has been and always will be an intermittent flash of light in a dark history of warfare, violence, and destruction
Surely SOMEONE here understands what I mean when I say that The Establishment will now start a process of bringing the Internet "under control"?
Some of you must have been security cleared for your work. You may have an idea of what I mean.
The authorities may be prepared to write off the current leaks as unavoidable - but they will do their damndest to minimise the risk of future similar incidents.
From what I have seen so far they will also have the support of a big proportion of the public.
Long term we will all suffer in some way because of all this fuss.
Vortex wrote:- Location of nuclear & other weapon stores
- Security details of weapon stores
- Names of closet gays
- Names of closet HIV infected
- Names of closet chronic illness sufferers
- Details of pre-patent research
Aw heck, why do I bother?
Of course there are secrets which which should remain secrets.
Have I entered a parallel universe where rational though has been swept away by a mismash of left leaning self-important rhetoric?
There is a wider point about 'business as usual'. Sure the current system, the current way of doing things needs secrets. But this aspect could be just one of many about the current system that's wrongheaded.
The current system also requires growth - that's wrongheaded too.
We know the current system is going to change radically this century, I don't see any point in caring any more about its current reliance on secrets than its current reliance on growth.
clv101 wrote:
There is a wider point about 'business as usual'. Sure the current system, the current way of doing things needs secrets. But this aspect could be just one of many about the current system that's wrongheaded.
All civilisations in all history have needed secrecy. You can't alter the proportion of humanity that are knaves and fools and that cannot be entrusted with the truth.
There are a lot of well-meaning people who think that the whole of humanity can be remade in their image. You only have to look at history and to look around you with open eyes to see that they're wrong. We have to muddle through with humanity as it is, not arrogantly assumed that we can overrule aeons of evolutionary psychology and perfect it.
"We're just waiting, looking skyward as the days go down / Someone promised there'd be answers if we stayed around."
What WikiLeaks is really exposing is the extent to which the western democratic system has been hollowed out. In the last decade its political elites have been shown to be incompetent (Ireland, the US and UK in not regulating banks); corrupt (all governments in relation to the arms trade); or recklessly militaristic (the US and UK in Iraq). And yet nowhere have they been called to account in any effective way. Instead they have obfuscated, lied or blustered their way through. And when, finally, the veil of secrecy is lifted, their reflex reaction is to kill the messenger.
Best comment so far on this saga. every thinking person should be supporting WikiLeaks and fighting the false charges of rape against the founder of WikiLeaks.
But the fact is it was always the case that governments were, to some extent, incompetent, corrupt and recklessly militaristic. WW1, anyone?
The idea that the western democratic system has been "hollowed out" is based on the delusion that at some time in the past, it had perfect integrity. One thing Naomi Klein shows in "The Shock Doctrine" (if it needed pointing out) is that foreign policy has always been largely ruthless and cynical. The difference is that now the Internet makes it several orders of magnitude easier to get at the truth than it was in the past.
"We're just waiting, looking skyward as the days go down / Someone promised there'd be answers if we stayed around."
Location of nuclear & other weapon stores ...
- Security details of weapon stores
We shouldn't have any.
- Names of closet gays
- Names of closet HIV infected
- Names of closet chronic illness sufferers
Those aren't state secrets - just personal. I don't have an issue with a bit of privacy for individuals who want it.
- Details of pre-patent research
That's more complicated. In a better world the keeping secret of information that could potentially lead to a common good would not be helpful. Firms need incentives to do R&D. Maybe there ought to be amendment to the way patent law works. Ultimately we should move to a world where all R&D is for the greater good, not individual profit.
Methinks, Vortex, your secrets are to preserve the imperfect world that we have rather than improve the world.
Vortex wrote:
Of course there are secrets to be protected.
Ok Vortex, perhaps you could suggest a short list of such secrets then?
If he knew them, they wouldn't be secret, would they?
That thought, of course, occurred to me when I posed the question but it's silly. Vortex could answer by saying that an important secret was the location of a nuclear weapons store without revealing the location.
(Actually, I very much doubt whether many such things are very secret, apart, perhaps, from the current location of a submarine.)
What secrets would you add to the list, Ludwig? You seem to think it is obvious but it really is not obvious to me.
Surely SOMEONE here understands what I mean when I say that The Establishment will now start a process of bringing the Internet "under control"?
Some of you must have been security cleared for your work. You may have an idea of what I mean.
The authorities may be prepared to write off the current leaks as unavoidable - but they will do their damndest to minimise the risk of future similar incidents.
From what I have seen so far they will also have the support of a big proportion of the public.
Long term we will all suffer in some way because of all this fuss.
I understand what you are saying. I've read enough Le Carre to understand the role of decoys and false trails used to tease out a reaction (and watched Operation Mincemeat earlier this week).
But wasn't it always the case that the state would try to control the internet? History shows that the state takes control of everything of value and insinuates itself into individuals' and families' private lives.
And how will it play out if the the state does increase its control? Who can say? Usually, a reaction invokes an opposite reaction - the law of unintended consequences. I wonder if Mandelson is, even now, devising some tortuous cliff-hanger storyline for Corrie to keep the sheep occupied?
Surely SOMEONE here understands what I mean when I say that The Establishment will now start a process of bringing the Internet "under control"?
I understand what you mean, but I think you are wrong. I do not believe the internet can be brought under control. Nobody controls it - that's its greatest strength. All it is is a very large network of computers. Unless you can control what software people have on those computers, or take down the network completely, then nobody can control the flow of information.
Some of you must have been security cleared for your work. You may have an idea of what I mean.
Several times, a long time ago. This is not the same. My work took place in buildings which could be closed off.
The authorities may be prepared to write off the current leaks as unavoidable - but they will do their damndest to minimise the risk of future similar incidents.
It's effective - my daughter worked in China and says that the normal person has NO idea of what REALLY happens outside china.
I think Australia planned a similar control of ISPs ... and everyone, quite rightly, had a good grump.
However NOW many people will SUPPORT blocks/walls etc on the web.
Would you be happy having queued for half an hour only to find that you can't use your credit card because of "those bloody hackers"?
Intelligent traffic management by ISPs could track and block all sorts of activity. The hardware (Deep Packet Inspection) is already there in many cases.
Legal rather than technical changes will also help: "So you set up a bot for use by the protestors? That's illegal - have this £5000 fine."
Example of possible pain coming: I use various private TCP & UDP protocols between various sites - I now imagine that ISPs might start blocking my 'unexpected' traffic, which will be a royal nuisance.
Sure, we will never block all protestors ... but the ISPs, governments etc now have an excuse to get their toys out of the cupboard.
One thing: hardly anything is truly anonymous on the Web. If you send a blackmail email, however cunningly routed, you will probably be caught. At the moment this takes quite a lot of time and so would not be done for trivial cases. However the combination of enhanced laws plus better tools to find the sender of emails or the operator of a DDOS bot PC will take a fair number of protestors off line.
The side effect of this will be increased control and monitoring of OUR Web use.
Ignoring the validity of WikiLeaks / Payback, all this is a total dog's breakfast which will eventually affect us all.
