Olena
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Olena {The Wizard} Shmahalo (23)
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    0 posts containing “Assange”
    Guys?



    Where are we on this? I think the Julian Assange (head of WikiLeaks) case is of importance to this community, no?

    For those who don't know:
    Julian Assange, defending our democracies (despite their owners' wishes)
    &
    Google: Assange

    Thu, Dec 9, 2010  Permanent link

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    weather     Thu, Dec 9, 2010  Permanent link
    I found this refreshing

    Julian Assange should be awarded Nobel peace prize, suggests Russia | Media | guardian.co.uk

    I hope that the leaked cables just might inject some level headed rational communication in world politics after reactionary oscillations diminish.
    BenRayfield     Thu, Dec 9, 2010  Permanent link
    I don't know much about the files offered by wikileaks, but I do know what to do when governments demand book burning... Save as many copies of the censored books as you can.

     http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikileaks  has links to the Wikileaks websites. Some of them are IP addresses instead of internet names (that point at IP addresses) because the internet authorities are trying to censor it.

    Wikileaks is offering a 3 megabyte download of all the .torrent files for their documents, which can be used to find the bigger downloads on BitTorrent and other p2p torrent programs. If enough people download that 3 megabyte file, then freedom of speech is protected.

    I don't know if that's really the Wikileaks website or their 3 megabyte file, but I verified a few of the torrent files worked as downloads.

    I do not give any government permission to shut down communication against them.
    Olena     Fri, Dec 10, 2010  Permanent link
    Thanks guys,

    Good idea Ben, I didn't know about that file.
         Fri, Dec 10, 2010  Permanent link
    There's also insurance.aes, which is purported to be an encrypted backup in case 'something happens to us' in assange's words. From wikileaks twitter... Cablegate: 1,269 of 251,287 embassy cables released: 0.5% down, 99.5% to go. Looking forward to seeing the key:

    http://www.minousoft.com/2010/07/probability-analysis-of-the-insurance-aes256-file-posted-by-wikileaks/

    4chan really sucks:

    http://www.2600.com/news/view/article/12037

    I really don't like how ham-fisted the response has been from a lot of people, especially authorities. It's just such a simple case of hypocritical entities making huge asses of themselves, tripping over their own feet. People are going to be looking back on this and wishing it went down differently. I think Assange shouldn't have tried to become the human face of this in the first place, and I think they could have pulled this off a lot more anonymously while still being able to retain a distinct identity (Which i think is one of the stated reasons why Assange became the spokesperson in the first place).

    This is far from the end of things. In forbes he was talking of releasing a bunch of documents on something to do with major bank(s?). The way I see it, this is not just an affront to opaque governments but also all other entities which are structured around secrecy, coercion, manipulation, and other such problematic ways of getting things done. Bank of America's shares fell when he mentioned that - Certain sections of the population are all in on this way of how things work when it comes to those who lead us. This is all the start of this way being threatened. What I think may be most critical is that widespread awareness of the potential for the ways of the world working in a better way should happen, free from leadership leading a ship of fools without empathy for all life on earth. Focusing on creative solutions & alternatives for making the world a better place which are better thought out than the ones we have in place is probably the best thing you could offer. I think I mentioned this quote from Alan Kay: "The best way to predict the future is to invent it"... I don't know if many people know what kind of positive future we could be having. There's a lot of focus on the negative, or on distractions. This can change. We could be having a lot of good times focusing on the proactive and the creative.

    Wildcat brought up a quote which I've really enjoyed: “I believe that consciousness is, essentially, the way information feels when being processed.” - Max Tegmark

    So I guess everyone should ask... How does information feels to be free? And how does information feel when it's being suffocated?


    On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other. - Stewart Brand
    Schmuck     Fri, Dec 10, 2010  Permanent link
    Governments are panicking because for the first time, they are being held accountable to what they do.

    The whole issue of Wikileaks is of phenomenal importance to the future of how society is going to work.

    It really can go either way at the moment, from complete transparency to totalitarianism.

    I completely support Wikileaks and everything that it stands for, far too many abuses have been carried out and kept secret under the notion of "National Security".

    It will be an enormous social progression if Wikileaks wins this information war, and starts forcing Governments to be more transparent, and held accountable to mistakes that they would have previously buried.

    It depressing therefore, to see that the focus has been on Assange, and these alleged crimes he has supposedly committed, rather than on the confirmed crimes of the governments that he has exposed, such as Clinton authorizing the spying of UN officials, why is that being ignored?

    I just hope that the people are going to outweigh the government on this matter, and flip the balance in favor of a more transparent, and hence fairer, society.
    Apollo     Fri, Dec 10, 2010  Permanent link
    Shmuck: Well put. I completely agree.
    BenRayfield     Sat, Dec 11, 2010  Permanent link
    There may be files (which you can choose to download after having the .7z file of torrents) which violate copyrights or are illegal for other reasons, but theres probably also files which everyone has the legal right to see, because it is not a crime to expose someone else's crime. For example, if you sign a nondisclosure agreement and later find a crime that would require disclosing such information to expose the crime, then the nondisclosure agreement does not apply. If its a crime of powerful people in the government, then the only people who have authority over them are the people of that country and other countries depending on who their actions affect, so that is who must see the accusations and evidence (because those they control in the government would be commanded to cover it up). My interest in Wikileaks is only to hold authorities accountable for whatever crimes they did (if any). It would be useful to have a website that tells the difference between the files before we download them, but some information is in the filenames of the torrent files.

    Also, is there any proof of what is written in these files?
    HelloAlexCL     Sat, Dec 11, 2010  Permanent link
    The Atlantic has a wonderful, regularly updated compendium of the best writings on wikileaks thus far.

    This is a personal favorite:
    The key, though, is that democracies have a process for creating such restrictions, and as a citizen it sickens me to see the US trying to take shortcuts. The leaders of Myanmar and Belarus, or Thailand and Russia, can now rightly say to us “You went after Wikileaks’ domain name, their hosting provider, and even denied your citizens the ability to register protest through donations, all without a warrant and all targeting overseas entities, simply because you decided you don’t like the site. If that’s the way governments get to behave, we can live with that.”

    Over the long haul, we will need new checks and balances for newly increased transparency — Wikileaks shouldn’t be able to operate as a law unto itself anymore than the US should be able to. In the short haul, though, Wikileaks is our Amsterdam. Whatever restrictions we eventually end up enacting, we need to keep Wikileaks alive today, while we work through the process democracies always go through to react to change. If it’s OK for a democracy to just decide to run someone off the internet for doing something they wouldn’t prosecute a newspaper for doing, the idea of an internet that further democratizes the public sphere will have taken a mortal blow.


    also, this one.
    gamma     Sun, Dec 12, 2010  Permanent link
    This whole affair is completely irrelevant, but if you look at the critics of wikiLeaks project, at least you know who gets to be an idiot.
    Olena     Sun, Dec 12, 2010  Permanent link
    gamma -

    By irrelevant, you mean to SC? Or that the accusations are irrelevant?
    I wholeheartedly agree with the latter... it doesn't even deserve discussion, it's absurd.
    But the intentions of WL need to be supported & I thought this community might have some ideas on how to do that. The first action is easy; sharing information, keeping it alive. But then what?
         Mon, Dec 13, 2010  Permanent link
    It's important to understand that the intentions of wikileaks comes from a wider movement of something that deserves attention. To understand the true antecedent ideals that have spawned all of these current events, you should check this out:

    http://www.cypherpunks.to/faq/cyphernomicron/cyphernomicon.txt


    2.3. "What's the 'Big Picture'?"
    2.3.1. Strong crypto is here. It is widely available.
    2.3.2. It implies many changes in the way the world works. Private
    channels between parties who have never met and who never
    will meet are possible. Totally anonymous, unlinkable,
    untraceable communications and exchanges are possible.
    2.3.3. Transactions can only be *voluntary*, since the parties are
    untraceable and unknown and can withdraw at any time. This
    has profound implications for the conventional approach of
    using the threat of force, directed against parties by
    governments or by others. In particular, threats of force
    will fail.
    2.3.4. What emerges from this is unclear, but I think it will be a
    form of anarcho-capitalist market system I call "crypto
    anarchy." (Voluntary communications only, with no third
    parties butting in.)


    Wikileaks is just one extension from this particular scene. There's others.

    Months ago (Around spring) I let some old computer running linux doing nothing but sit in the corner running bitcoin, for about 31 days. Generated about 1400 bitcoins, which I sat on for a while.

    Few days ago I woke up and on some hunch as soon as I got up I looked up bitcoin to cash exchanges. After a bit of looking around I found out that the exchange rates had totally jumped - 1181.28 bitcoins got me a total of 125 canadian and 100 american dollars. At first, I felt like I found 225 bucks just sitting there on the ground! I tell people this and they don't know what I'm talking about at all, and think I've lost my marbles or that I got ripped off or something, but the truth is that people are actually trading with this - Everything from goods to prepaid visa cards. This is my own personal delicious scoop of crypto-anarchy. A computer running for a month straight, which only cost me 16 bucks or so on my power bill, yielding me 225 dollars with extremely minimal effort. Bitcoin saved christmas!

    To the point, though. It's about consensus - We are led by these entities that get our consent by systematically doing bad things to people. What's now emerging from this being put in a spotlight is opportunity to do the opposite, mostly through well thought-out creative endeavors. A bunch of people, we all just consented to use a system of valuating wealth like this and now I got a bunch of 'real' money that makes a LOT less sense to me after acquiring it through this process, on a 'why are we still using this shit' level. If anyone thought the concept of bitcoin was confusing, look in your real wallet and tell me how what you're looking at is simpler or superior in how it works. As the fiat currencies of the world continue to devalue, the value of bitcoin goes up.

    It's interesting to note that the creator of bitcoin made a personal plea for wikileaks not to accept donations through it. Bad timing for a system that's still in beta for it to be known too well in association with something as big as that.

    So any creative endeavors for the purpose of freedom should be undertaken. This right here, cyberspace, is where it's going down. I think many other things around the same philosophies and ideals I've been talking about here could be created that a lot of people will like and get something good out of. I'll get back to that question once I've dug deeper. I also suggest checking out this for further inspiration:

    https://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html
    (Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace)
    gamma     Mon, Dec 13, 2010  Permanent link
    I don't believe that any information on WikiLeaks is important.
    gamma     Sat, Dec 18, 2010  Permanent link
    Documentary....
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvmfOaZ34Pk 
     
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