With World Watching, Wikileaks Falls Into Disrepair 258
JDRucker writes "Supporters are concerned. Very concerned. Would-be whistle-blowers hoping to leak documents to Wikileaks face a potentially frustrating surprise. Wikileaks' submission process, which had been degraded for months, completely collapsed more than two weeks ago and remains offline, in a little-noted breakdown at the world's most prominent secret-spilling website."
!Surprising (Score:3, Interesting)
They are either afraid of, or in cooperation with the groups whose documents they leak, or are truly out of funds. I am placing my faith of judgement in one of the former.
Wikileaks' Response (Score:5, Interesting)
Taken from wikileaks' Twitter at http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/17498238199 [twitter.com] is this:
"Wired's war on WikiLeaks continues. See comment by 'mpineiro' http://bit.ly/aZm4US [bit.ly]"
Not so quick to judge Wired's coverage at face value...
Re:Wikileaks.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, such things cost a bit of money, but this is the internet, distribute things via torrents and other ways, use other servers, etc.
Re:Wikileaks' Response (Score:1, Interesting)
7. As an added bonus, the author of this story, Ryan Singel, before knowing or understanding all the facts (which we know because he didn’t bother to ask for them), came rushing to the defense of his direct supervisor on the boingboing message boards. Someone had merely *raised* these issues and even wrote over and over again that no conclusions could be formed but that Wired and Poulsen should be forthcoming and disclose what they know. First, Poulsen responded angrily to the post and then Ryan Singel came onto the forum and ranted against all the commenters who agreed that Wired should provide full disclosure of any possible conflicts of interest.
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/13/video-wikileaks-foun.html
The article mentioned in point 7. where Poulsen and Singel argue run in mouths blazing against what was an as yet undecided conversation.
Re:Sad to see this happen (Score:2, Interesting)
"the site failed to renew its SSL certificate, a basic web protection that costs less than $30 a year and takes only hours to set up..... Wikileaks' head Julian Assange declined to comment." - What's he hiding?
Perhaps the fact that there's a man in the middle now handling/reading his traffic?
Re:Wikileaks.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I seriously have to take issue with that. If all of the others are for-profit, you will never get what you want... only what they tell you we want. "Reality TV" is a classic example of them telling us what we want. I haven't watched TV since.
On the other hand, PBS provides intellectual stimulation that is simply not available elsewhere. What is there for kids to watch as they grow up? What did you watch growing up? PBS is indispensable and we need at least one more of them, not less of them. Where are the Science shows that we all still love today? Will we see "Nova" anywhere else? The history channel has boiled down to "the war clips channel" and the others like Nat'l Geographic and the like? Well, gotta pay to get access to those... where's the free TV?
Re:Wikileaks.... (Score:2, Interesting)
What about an archive of the site and all those things hosted throughout the world via torrents and the like? Etc..
For some reason I don't like the idea of donating my IP to a swarm full of the stuff that wikileaks has..
Re:Wikileaks.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think citizens will only revolt when it becomes apparent that the message is being stifled, not when the message is "out there." And by stifled, I mean with soldiers (real ones, not police in fancy armor) in the streets shooting people. The general trend in Western societies is to just assume that we're fine, that all is as it should be, and when people complain to say "why don't you go to North Korea or something and then try saying that!". I think the difference between Iran and America isn't that our government is less corrupt, but that our citizens have become more corrupted with crap like American Idol and/or Facebook. Our protests are totally lame and half-hearted. The people who talk the most about revolution have beer guts too large to allow them fit in a fox hole, and age degenerating their eye sight, so they probably can't shoot very well either. Wikileaks is almost irrelevant in the face of cultural apathy. It really almost doesn't even matter if WikiLeaks were flourishing because only the people who are inclined to care would, and there aren't nearly enough of them to cause any major changes.
Re:Sad to see this happen (Score:3, Interesting)
What the fuck do you want, emotionless robots?
Actually, yes; That's EXACTLY what I want. Even better if the robot speaks with a proper British accent.
Re:Sad to see this happen (Score:5, Interesting)
Ouch. I didn't say much about this video but i didn't see an apache shooting at innocent journalists or children. I did see an apache shooting at what they thought was an armed group. Then they shot a van that was trying to rescue one of the targets. I also saw that when the ground units arrived, a search of the van showed that there were children inside and the soldiers rushed the wounded children to safety. I then heard a chopper pilot try to convince himself he didn't do anything wrong by placing blame on the victim. It was a terrible thing to watch happen.
Unfortunately these kinds of situations happen often. Everyone reacts to them differently and the experiences will create veterans that can deal with them better (or the soldiers will f-up and be put in less trying situations). But there will always be shitty situations where the optimal solution can only be found in retrospect. The lesson being that you should always look for the 3rd option.. it's there somewhere.
Your posts usually punch my frustration buttons but you are dead right about ACTA. But don't take my comment to be asking you to stop (not that i expect you to).
Re:Sad to see this happen (Score:3, Interesting)
They did tell what happened. In fact, they release the entire raw footage to the entire internet, so that any random person could analyze it independently or make their own edited version. That's way WAY different from how the mainstream media operates.
But they also released an edited version, and that's all you watched, because you don't actually care enough to do the work of reviewing the primary source yourself. If you're too lazy to interpret the raw footage yourself, you're going to be stuck with someone else's interpretation.
Re:Sad to see this happen (Score:2, Interesting)
"Wikileaks provides an extremely useful service, one which is only possible on the Internet, considering its widely accessible scale. Here's to hoping things get straightened out -_-;;"
I think it is too late.
I've donated to Wikileaks in the past, but I am not going to in the future, and for one reason alone.
It is my honest opinion that Wikileaks has been compromised. Funding is one thing (and I agree that is what probably idled WL in the first place, months ago), but this leaking of diplomatic cables was just too much for Julian to handle. My guess is that the US government took the kid gloves off, infiltrated his communications, verified that he actually DOES have the documents, then cornered him somewhere and gave him an ultimatum--go on like nothing has happened, and report to us, or die. Such an arrangement would give the government some degree of control of any future leaks--killing Assange would not. The government knows full well, after this last huge leak, that more then likely it WILL happen again and contingencies need to be made.
Another post points out the importance of these documents. This cannot be underestimated. In the past, people have simply disappeared over stuff like this, inexplicably stepped out of windows, etc. The treatment afforded to Manning should speak for itself--the man had shit he wasn't supposed to--important shit. Assange could quite possibly hold the ability to change the course of wars in his hands.
I don't expect the US government to play by the rules as far as Assange is concerned. To be blunt, I am amazed the man is still alive. Why is he? I figured some Icelandic banker would have had a contract put out on the man, or something to that effect, by now. People have been killed for far less--why is he still alive?
DISINFO TO DISCREDIT WIKILEAKS / ASSANGE (Score:3, Interesting)
The US Gov is undermining CREDIBILITY of Wikileaks, to discourage leakers.
You ARE familiar with the 2008 Army Counterintelligence Agency report, [itbusinessedge.com] which specifically calls to discredit Wikileaks through disinformation and propaganda, are you not?
The HIGHLY suspect connection of Manning with Greenwald STINKS of a PsyOp, [salon.com] then, hot on the heels comes this tidbit. Where from? Oh! DangerRoom on Wired.com.
I think we can now see wired.com as another polluted information channel, co-opted by the spooks. Leak meaningless true tidbits on intelligence and surveillance to establish/maintain credibility - then use this established route for the insertion of disinformation messages.
The next stage is to plant doubts about Wikileaks among its advocates, who will begin to speculate if the project is not a honeypot, designed to attract and expose leakers.
"To live outside the law, you must be honest."
-- Bob Dylan
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
The Reporters Sans Frontiers project is a honeypot (Score:3, Interesting)
Reporters Sans Frontiers/Reporters Without Borders are primarily funded by the US government [zcommunications.org] [zcommunications.org] through the National Endowment for Democracy which was founded during the Reagan administration to channel funds to organizations abroad that would support US foreign policy. Sometimes this funding is direct [ned.org] [ned.org], sometimes it is conducted through the international arms of the US Democratic Party or Republican Party [counterpunch.org] [counterpunch.org].
I'm sure that the US government would much prefer that whistleblowers send any leaked video of massacres by US troops or State Department cables to this new site rather than Wikileaks [wikileaks.org] [wikileaks.org]. The only way it would be easier for them to discover the identity of the whistleblower would be if the leak went directly to the CIA with a return address.
It appears to me that this new Reporters Sans Frontiers project is a honeypot intended to catch would-be whistleblowers.