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The Unsettling Relationship Between Russia and Wikileaks (dailymail.co.uk) 271

schnell writes: The New York Times is reporting on the informal but seemingly symbiotic relationship between Russian hackers attacking American targets and Wikileaks (Warning: may be paywalled) as their favorite spot for disseminating the embarrassing results. New York Times reports: "American officials say Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks probably have no direct ties to Russian intelligence services. But the agendas of WikiLeaks and the Kremlin have often dovetailed." When it comes to embarrassing the U.S. government, Russia and Wikileaks' Julian Assange doubtlessly have common interests. But the reporters' analysis of leaks over the past several years raises a question of whether this is just a natural alliance of a source for incriminating documents and a motivated publisher, or does Wikileaks focus on the U.S. and downplay revelations about authoritarian regimes like Russia's as a result of the cozy relationship? nickovs adds: The New York Times is reporting how Russia often benefits when Julian Assange reveals the West's secrets. The article discusses Assange's change in stance regarding Russia over the years and how the Kremlin appears to support, and benefit from, the leaks that he publishes. The New York Times reports: "United States officials say they believe with a high degree of confidence that the Democratic Party material was hacked by the Russian government, and suspect that the codes may have been stolen by the Russians as well. That raises a question: Has WikiLeaks become a laundering machine for compromising material gathered by Russian spies? And more broadly, what precisely is the relationship between Mr. Assange and Mr. Putin's Kremlin?" Daily Mail (non paywalled source) reports: "In 2010 Assange was arrested in London on allegations of rape stemming from Sweden and released on bail. He described the arrest as a plot to extradite him to the U.S. where he could be investigated over the diplomatic cables leak, which greatly harmed American relations with the rest of the world while Clinton was Secretary of State. Putin also called the charges against Assange 'politically motivated' and said he is being 'persecuted for spreading the information he received from the U.S. military regarding the actions of the USA in the Middle East, including Iraq.' Russian officials have also suggested that Assange be given a Nobel Prize, and in 2012 paid to stream his TV show on state-backed network Russia Today. The Times also claims that Assange was offered a visa by Russia in 2011, though WikiLeaks has denounced this as false..."
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The Unsettling Relationship Between Russia and Wikileaks

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  • It's Hillary time! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02, 2016 @08:01AM (#52814299)

    Quick, blame the Russians for fucking EVERYTHING

    • by tripleevenfall ( 1990004 ) on Friday September 02, 2016 @08:09AM (#52814335)

      Gee, I wonder why the old media might be working overtime to discredit Wikileaks, who they till recently were madly in love with?

      • by ADRA ( 37398 )

        Wikileaks is a dissemination of information that generally is against government, powerful people and large company’s' best interests. That hasn't changed since it started. If whistle blowing was actually a right the US wanted to honour and respect, the site wouldn't be necessary.

        Secondly, if you forget into the distant past in the last gasps of the Bush administration, the entire site was the biggest boogie-man in journalism and certainly in government agenda. I don't know why you can't remember that

      • by Xenographic ( 557057 ) on Friday September 02, 2016 @11:57AM (#52815919) Journal

        When will they explore the unsettling relationship between the media and the DNC? Or is it normal to hold clandestine fundraisers that their own lawyers forbid?

        Source: https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/2699 [wikileaks.org]

        Re: WaPo Party

        From:kaplanj@dnc.org
        To: RangappaA@dnc.org
        Date: 2015-09-22 13:29
        Subject: Re: WaPo Party

        Great - we were never going to list since the lawyers told us we cannot do it.

        We are waiting

        Jordan Kaplan
        National Finance Director
        Democratic National Committee
        (202) 488-5002 (o) | (312) 339-0224 (c)
        kaplanj@dnc.org

        > On Sep 22, 2015, at 11:25 AM, Rangappa, Anu wrote:
        >
        > They aren't going to give us a price per ticket and do not want their party to be listed in any package we are selling to donors. If we let them know we have donors in town who will be at the debate, we can add them to the list for the party.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Apocryphos ( 1222870 )
      Are we really supposed to pretend that the Russians pose a credible threat to the West? Or are they just relying on boomers failing ability to understand current events to trigger that emotional band-wagoning against the villain of yore?
      • by Anonymice ( 1400397 ) on Friday September 02, 2016 @09:04AM (#52814643)

        When you say "the West", I'm guessing you really mean "the US". Because they could cause a lot of hurt to all of the "Western" countries that aren't the US (ie. Western Europe).
        They've got a strong military & a whole lot of man power. Let's not forget that it was basically Russia who won WWII - if it weren't for them, we'd be living in a very different world today.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by shaitand ( 626655 )
          Not really, Russia was a breathe away from being conquered in WWII and a huge part of their success was leaked data from the UK who had secretly cracked enigma and intentionally allowed a Russian spy into the group because Churchhill was unwilling to intentionally share information. Taking the brunt of the damage and serving as a meat shield doesn't make for taking the lion share of victories.

          There are so many slight changes that could have resulted in Russia losing. Enigma not being cracked, the Brits not
          • by cheesybagel ( 670288 ) on Friday September 02, 2016 @09:52AM (#52814969)

            Russia had their own spies in WW2. Never heard of Richard Sorge [wikipedia.org]? The Russians basically knew Barbarossa was going to happen a long time before it did. They just did not have an exact date.

          • The Soviet Union was never remotely close to being conquered in WWII. They had that deep hinterland that went deep into Siberia, and for them to be fully conquered, Japan would have had to invade them from the East. To do that, Japan couldn't have had any army even in Manchuria, much less China or the Pacific. Otherwise, no matter how deep the Wehrmacht got, the Red Army would have retreated deeper - into Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk, Frunze and Tashkent.

            That said, giving them the credit for winning the wa

        • by Max_W ( 812974 )
          Russian speaking people do not want attack Western Europe at all. Why would anyone attack such great cities as Paris or Dusseldorf? And you are in wrong thinking that Russia won WWII.

          WWII was the civil war in Europe. If it were not for German and Swiss resistance, the victory would not be possible at all. In Germany there were a lot of clandestine Jews, who did not like what was happening to their folk.

          In 1943 they informed the USSR that the Wehrmacht would attack at Kursk. There were practically no N
        • by CrimsonAvenger ( 580665 ) on Friday September 02, 2016 @11:24AM (#52815645)

          Let's not forget that it was basically Russia who won WWII

          Well, they certainly bled enough in WW2. But remember that the USA fought Germany and Japan both, while supplying the UK, Russia and China (we sent north of 10,000 tanks to Russia. And a similar number or warplanes. And a metric fuckton of other war material).

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          Let's not forget that it was basically Russia who won WWII - if it weren't for them, we'd be living in a very different world today.

          Dude. Seriously. What part of the USSR did you grow up in to actually believe that?

          Russia got lucky. Real lucky. But luck counts. Had the Nazis not gotten stopped by weather and some eventual decent Russian resistance, the Russians could have been out of the picture. Stalin killed tons of his military commanders out of his personal paranoia before the war and that played a huge role in why Russia got beat so badly at first. Then with the Nazis knocking on Moscow's door he came within a day or so

          • by Ryn ( 9728 ) on Friday September 02, 2016 @01:26PM (#52816601)
            Great, you watched that show on Netflix about Stalin and how his stupidity almost lost the war. Nobody is disputing that, even in Russia. But to claim that D-day somehow magically won the war for UK/US is bogus. Nazis surrended in Stalingrad in February of 1943. Battle of Kursk took place in August 1943. By the time Allies landed in Normandy the Soviets were pushing west through Ukraine, Belarus and Poland.
      • by MikeMo ( 521697 )
        Ageism is just as bad as racism.
      • Russian and Western interests differ profoundly. Whether it's in Syria or Iran, two countries that are historic allies of Russia that they want to maintain that relationship with (but we want to remove what we consider dangerous, or oppressive regimes - although we ignore Saudi Arabia's oppression because they're our allies).

        Russia is angered about the EU and NATO's march westward onto their doorstep. They want to remain as kings of their neighbourhood and hate how the west has moved east into "their turf

        • The US deserves at least some of the blame for Russian attitudes. The State Department in particular never got out of its 'The Russians are the enemy' mode. That's why in the 90s, they were supportive of the Chechens, and in the 2000s, they managed to piss off the Uzbeks and Kyrgyz by criticizing them for cracking down on their Jihadists.

          Had the West recognized at least after 9/11 that Islam had replaced Communism as the enemy, Russia could have been a great ally. They too have Islamic separatist group

      • by Rakarra ( 112805 )

        Are we really supposed to pretend that the Russians pose a credible threat to the West? Or are they just relying on boomers failing ability to understand current events to trigger that emotional band-wagoning against the villain of yore?

        Russia has been TRYING to be a credible threat to the West for quite some time, and Putin has been very open about this.

        No, not North Korea or World War III style threats, but Putin sees Russian power as a check on the influence of the US in areas where he thinks it doesn't belong. He is representative of an old guard in Russia who see the collapse of the Soviet Union as the greatest calamity of the 20th Century (Putin said explicitly that). They greatly resent the influence of the West and NATO, and consid

    • by hsmith ( 818216 ) on Friday September 02, 2016 @08:28AM (#52814403)
      Funny how the media lambasted Mitt Romney for his position on Russia being a shitty foe. But now, omg so bad!
      • by Oswald McWeany ( 2428506 ) on Friday September 02, 2016 @12:01PM (#52815949)

        To be fair, when Romney blasted Russia, Russia had not done anything wrong. I mean, sure, they weren't being very democratic and Putin had been dodging around their constitution to stay in power, but on the international stage they had been behaving.

        Putin and Bush were good buddies and got along well together. Russia hadn't invaded any other nations or instigated a civil war in any neighbours. We didn't know anything about state sponsored doping. Russia hadn't been sending troops to their western border. Russia wasn't building new nuclear fallout shelters at a rapid rate back then.

        Russia was behaving admirably for an authoritarian dictatorship. So yes, Romney deserved criticism back then; it was a different world and east/west relations were better.

        • Also, Russian occupation of Crimea wasn't unprovoked. Ukraine had just undergone a regime change, and the new regime made Ukraine a uni-lingual country. While that may be a desirable long term goal, glossing over the fact that in Crimea, the population was Russian, and that in the Donbass too, Russian was the major language just provoked Moscow.
    • Hey it worked for McCarthy... for a while.

      • Hell, it was still working for Reagan. Although I think these days most people know Russia wasn't really the devil just the victim of the US propoganda machine. The US couldn't stomach a nation powerful enough we considered it a threat and an idealogoy that suggested the people doing all the work and not the lazy nobles who contribute nothing should get the fruits of labor was a serious challenge to the wealthy who did and still do run the country.
        • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday September 02, 2016 @10:25AM (#52815219)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • by shaitand ( 626655 ) on Friday September 02, 2016 @10:43AM (#52815345) Journal
            ROFL Wow you really swallowed the propoganda whole didn't you?

            You do know almost all of that global activity on the part of the soviets was because of our pissing match with them, right?

            "The Soviets were involved in every brushfire war happening in Africa and Asia, and even a few involvements in the Americas - Cuba and Nicaragua come to mind."

            You can say the same of us.

            "Dozens of nations around the world had Marxist regimes sustained by Soviet aid, and growing that sphere of influence to isolate and Finlandize the West - and specifically the United States - was the Soviet plan."

            lol Yes, because going communist would destroy us!

            The soviets had warheads because we had warheads. They had no more interest in actually using them than we did. Actually they had far less interest, we were the only nation evil enough to use nuclear weapons once nations understood what they did and we tested them so we knew before we used them.

            "I lived in fear of those warheads ending society as I knew it for my first 20 years."

            Right, because your government told you to be afraid of them. The same government that told you to be afraid of those evil commies and their nucs also told children that if one showed up they should climb under their desk or curled up in a ball lining the halls at school. They aren't actually gone you know any more than ours are. The only thing that is different is the fear mongering.
            • by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Friday September 02, 2016 @11:46AM (#52815815) Journal

              One person knows 100 times more about Soviet policy during the cold war than either you or I know. Mikhail Gorbachev knows what he was trying to do.

              When I've been to an event with Gorbachev and heard what he has to say, he was pretty clear that both he and Reagan sought to destroy the other country. Reagan's goal was finally achieved on December 25, 1991; the Soviets had the same goal going the other way.

              Asked about certain events which occurred after the Cold War, Gorbachev used an interesting phrase to refer to that time period, "After Reagan defeated us ....".

            • Both the communists and democracies saw the domino theory as feasible. That's why there was a pissing match. It wasn't just the US being a nasty aggressor for the sake of upsetting the USSR and starting a cold war.

              Moscow believed that if they encouraged communism in more countries it would domino and eventually cause the whole world to adopt communism. The US was fearful that they were right and wanted to prevent this happening. The way you describe it is if the US was this nasty aggressive nation who pi

        • by shilly ( 142940 )

          "Russia wasn't really the devil"?

          You really need to read One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich.

          Of course, the USSR wasn't the only devil, nor was it uniquely devilish. But it was pretty fucking awful.

    • If you lie down with dogs, you will get up with flies. Close enough?
    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Oh stop with the Russia love!

      I stubbed my toe on my dining room table this morning. I suppose you'd have me believe the Russians weren't responsible for that!

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      The Russians are suspected of hacking computers of US political people, and then releasing edited documents. One POTUS candidate has very close ties to Russia, and even though Russia is not an enemy this is a concern, just like the same candidates direct request for campaign funds from a another foreign governement.

      There are two problems here. First, nothing on Wikileaks should be taken as fact without corroboration. Right now too many just accept everything posted as fact. This is what lead to the cu

    • Quick, blame the Russians for fucking EVERYTHING

      Funny how the Dems were a lot more comfortable w/ the Soviets during the Cold War, than they are w/ the Russians now!!!

    • by Rakarra ( 112805 )

      Quick, blame the Russians for fucking EVERYTHING

      Usual attack-the-messenger, just as bad as the attacks on Wikileaks.

      Do you have any reason to doubt the evidence so far that the Russians are behind the recent attacks?
      Do you have anything other than a caricature of a politician to support the assertion that this is BS from Hillary?
      Do you trust the Russians so much that you think there's no way it's them, this has to be a false flag perpetuated by the DNC, the Press, national security experts, and unaffiliated security experts?

  • by Anonymous Coward
    If not, I would definitely be suspicious because they should have all kinds of crazy going on in
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      If you steal secrets from the US, you face potential jail time. (as long as you're a US citizen. Foreigners can be tortured).
      If you steal secrets from Russia you get assassinated and your wife and kids get raped by some square-jawed man named Boris.

    • by 0a100b ( 456593 )

      Russians care less about the ethics of their government than Americans and are therefore less inclined to leak information about it's unethical behavior.
      Many Russians think of Stalin as a hero, that should say enough.

      • In fairness your view of Stalin is no doubt painted by more than a little Western propoganda while their view is colored by their own propoganda. The real Stalin was a short fat guy who lived in a bunker, was only allowed to sign the papers he was given, and had a cheeto fetish.
        • "The real Stalin was a short fat guy who lived in a bunker, was only allowed to sign the papers he was given, and had a cheeto fetish."

          So if he were alive today, he'd be on Slashdot?

  • really... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02, 2016 @08:05AM (#52814313)

    Anything to distract people from the massive corruption in the west.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

      Hi Vladimir!

      Nothing like "massive corruption" in the west to distract your own populace from even more massive corruption in the east, is there?!

      • Why distract? They know. They can't do jack shit. Why bother with distraction?

    • by Maritz ( 1829006 )
      Russian AC's wicked rejoinder/put-down boils down to "no, you". You're a fucking genius.
  • by speedlaw ( 878924 ) on Friday September 02, 2016 @08:08AM (#52814327) Homepage
    Where are the leaks from USSR ? Plans for Ukraine, or other disputed areas ? I'd love to see how much oil is left in Saudi.... Maybe something about the Chinese space program ? Trumps' tax returns ? (I'm sure on that one he was smarter than Hillary and nothing was attached to the internet)
    • by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02, 2016 @08:17AM (#52814365)

      I already know Russia is corrupt. I already know the Saudis are corrupt. I already know China is corrupt. These things are not news, and the citizens of these countries are already fully informed as to the corruption of their respective governments.

      Westerners still labor under the delusion that their governments "aren't as bad" as those nasty foreigners. Wikileaks, and the internet in general, threatens to overturn that, which is why the media and the politicians are united in their demonization of whistleblowing.

      • Sadly, I'm under no illusions about US Govt......but it isn't corruption, it is information.....
      • by swillden ( 191260 ) <shawn-ds@willden.org> on Friday September 02, 2016 @10:19AM (#52815183) Journal

        Westerners still labor under the delusion that their governments "aren't as bad" as those nasty foreigners.

        That's not a delusion. Western, democratic governments with a free press aren't as bad as countries without the feedback loops provided by the aforementioned characteristics. This should not be taken to mean that they don't contain plenty of corruption, they do... but it is the exception, not the rule. If you've ever lived in a country where corruption is actually the norm then you will understand the difference, and it will be abundantly clear why people in such countries don't bother publishing information about corruption, or get upset about it when such information is published.

        A common problem on slashdot, and elsewhere, is the sort of false equivalency implied by the parent. The world is not black and white, it is full of shades of gray, and it really is possible to have corruption, even serious corruption, while still having less corruption than someone else. It's also perfectly reasonable -- and appropriate -- to feel proud to be a citizen of a country with less corruption while still being angry and incensed about the corruption that does exist. Indeed, having citizens get angry about the corruption that exists and caring enough about their country to take action is the only way to fix the corruption. Attitudes like the parent's actually facilitate corruption because they encourage one to simply accept it (and other problems) as inevitable.

    • Princess, the ussr is gone; but the same assholes are still there; think russian koch brothers.
    • by HornWumpus ( 783565 ) on Friday September 02, 2016 @09:05AM (#52814661)

      The most interesting ones come from the KGB archives. Turns out CPUSA was paid for by the Ruskies (and it's leaders answered to them), the Rosenbergs were guilty, Alger Hiss was an agent of Stalin, etc etc. It's almost like the Birchers knew something.

      But that's not what you're asking, see sibling replies.

    • by Gibgezr ( 2025238 ) on Friday September 02, 2016 @01:14PM (#52816515)

      Straight from the Wikileaks refutation of this article:
      WikiLeaks has published more than 650,000 documents about Russian & president Putin, most of which is critical. See https://search.wikileaks.org/ [wikileaks.org]

  • That's nothing more than the situation that you don't need a Wikileaks-like platform to know that Russian Democracy has nothing to do with democracy. Any newspaper will do.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02, 2016 @08:09AM (#52814333)

    The sheer transparency of the attempt to discredit Wikileaks for its role in exposing the inner workings of the US ruling class is hilarious.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by chispito ( 1870390 ) on Friday September 02, 2016 @10:26AM (#52815223)

      The sheer transparency of the attempt to discredit Wikileaks for its role in exposing the inner workings of the US ruling class is hilarious.

      I think the valid criticism though, is that Wikileaks only works against entities that won't shoot your kids in front of you if they suspect you're leaking their private business. Snowden, for instance, would not have done what he did if he thought the NSA was going to go after his family after he fled.

      • Snowden, for instance, would not have done what he did if he thought the NSA was going to go after his family after he fled.

        Should have noted that yes I know he did not leak to Wikileaks but directly to journalists. I used him as an example of someone who knew the cost of his actions and went ahead anyway.

    • The sheer transparency of Assange's bias against Clinton is also hilarious. He's admitted that he times releases so that they case the most harm, so transparency isn't his only goal. He's also made ridiculous insinuations against Clinton which have no merit.

      It's entirely reasonable to assume that if he had anything against Trump he would sit on it or time the release so that it causes the least harm (i.e. after the election).

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02, 2016 @08:10AM (#52814341)

    Ever considered that the Real Enemy (TM) is the very existence of those "incriminating documents"?

    IOTW, if the US executive is doing dirty things and being intransparent it's pretty irrelevant whether Bad, Bad Assange is in Bed with Bad Bad Putin or not. Stop being such big assholes and you won't have this problem!

    Instead, the U.S. tries to discredit the source and is playing a dirty game. No wonder theories as "the whole might-have-been rape story has been planted by CIA/NSA" and now this one too sound all too plausible. It's the kind of dirty game those three-leters customarily engage in.

    • by jedidiah ( 1196 )

      Calling it "rape" is giving it entirely too much credit. The actual charges are nothing remotely like what the rest of the world would call rape.

      Even calling it sexual assault is a far stretch.

      It's more like breach of contract, but that's not salacious enough.

  • tl;dr version (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02, 2016 @08:10AM (#52814343)

    Wikileaks is damaging Hillary's campaign - they must be destroyed!

    Remember how awesome Wikileaks was when this happened?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_documents_leak

    Well, now they are going after the wrong party, so they are bad now. // Not voting for Hillary OR Trump

    • Wikileaks can leak documents from US government on other countries...and they have; it is just not intentional (yet) on the part of the US. As far as a bias... the US waging a cold war on Wikileaks does foster resentment...

      US elections now involve BILLIONS of dollars in propaganda spending; a great deal of that spending goes to media outlets. Surely you must notice how the "news" of organizations is skewed by their advertisers?

      Remember when email viruses were a big thing in the 90s because of Outlook and

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Just want to point out that this is squarely in the middle of the definition of "conspiracy theory": The DNC is a conspiracy theorist hub and interest group.

    Of course, they won't be widely called conspiracy theorists, despite being conspiracy theorists. Words aren't used based on whether they are true, but whether they are useful, and only sometimes is it useful to label a conspiracy theorist as that.

  • Good thing that the article states that "American officials say Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks probably have no direct ties to Russian intelligence services." In the same spirit I can also state that probably, Glenn Beck didn't rape and murder a young girl In 1990.

    Anybody else has the impression that the Slashdot editors are trolling us?

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Just another example of Russia being infinitely better at influence operations and utilizing modern tools to wage low-level conflict. Take notes...Putin's putting on a clinic.

    Even if the U.S. is using these tactics to some degree, the Russians are gaining practical experience that is tough to match.

    • by Maritz ( 1829006 )
      He even weaponised refugees from Syria to destablise the EU. Big hearted guy. It's working a treat too, seeing how stupid most of the various electorates are. UK in particular. If the US votes Trump in, Dear Leader Putin will be one of the most pleased peeps around.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02, 2016 @08:24AM (#52814385)

    Hey kids, remember when nazi-Bush was president and Wikileaks was great because "truth to power"?

    Well, that's all gone away now that the president happens to have a "D" next to his title and Empress Hillary needs to be coronated!

    One reason to elect Trump is that if he's president "speaking truth to power" will be OK again. If Hildabeast takes over then we are right back to censorship being a great thing and Slashdot's "editors" doing their part to be useful idiots for the "cause".

    • by Maritz ( 1829006 )
      Another clever-clog who's seeing behind the curtain. Well done you. Give yourself a 'not sheeple' medal.
  • Classic McCarthyism (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sbrown123 ( 229895 ) on Friday September 02, 2016 @08:26AM (#52814391) Homepage

    I wonder what they are worried Wikileaks will reveal next about Hillary? Media is putting up its deflector shields to max just in case. Anything released by Wikileaks will result in reporters trying to steer every conversation to talking about this conspiracy they are fabricating.

    • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      Oh, I'm gonna bet it'll be good. Especially since a judge just slapped the Clinton handlers and State Dept., around again saying "no you'll release those emails now" after they tried pulling a "but we're so far behind, we'll release them after the election" BS.

      And in all of this, the media continues to wonder why their trust rating by the public is under 10% now. Gee I wonder why, it couldn't have anything to do with you acting as an arm for a political campaign and it pissing people off whether they be d

  • by sciengin ( 4278027 ) on Friday September 02, 2016 @08:28AM (#52814397)

    More proof that despite being a huge jackass in general, Assange is probably onto something.
    They would not squeal this loud if he were not effective or if the documents he keeps releasing were in any way fake.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      As a person with closer ties to the Greatest Generation, rather than Millennials, I have no problem treating Assange as the jackass that he is, all the while identifying Russia as an enemy and the U.S. as bumbling bunch of neo liberal socialists with overbearing totalitarian tendencies.
      You just have to learn to shoot the bastards in the right order.

  • Russia isn't exactly in a position to really threaten us strategically. At most they can annoy and frustrate or policy in the middle east and eastern Europe.

    As far as the middle east goes they are a lot closer to it than we are. If they want to take on those problems, I'd argue for letting them. The bulk of the oil money has already been made, the minor loss of influence over there in exchange for giving up the cost of responsibility for it is worth it.

    As far as eastern Europe goes, that might be a diffe

    • by Algan ( 20532 )

      As far as the middle east goes they are a lot closer to it than we are. If they want to take on those problems, I'd argue for letting them. The bulk of the oil money has already been made, the minor loss of influence over there in exchange for giving up the cost of responsibility for it is worth it.

      Actually, a good swat of Eastern European countries are NATO members, to the infinite dismay of Russia.

      • As far as the middle east goes they are a lot closer to it than we are. If they want to take on those problems, I'd argue for letting them. The bulk of the oil money has already been made, the minor loss of influence over there in exchange for giving up the cost of responsibility for it is worth it.

        Actually, a good swat of Eastern European countries are NATO members, to the infinite dismay of Russia.

        Obvious solution; invite Russia to join NATO.

  • by chriskovo ( 1011723 ) on Friday September 02, 2016 @08:54AM (#52814573)
    It was rather well put together and the pieces connected If you thought about it. This guys ego was always out of control but it seems to be getting worse lately. Everyone praises what this guy did but with all the stuff he released the Middle east has turned into a shit show. It wasn't great before but at least they didn't have at least 2 failed states there and chaos. That's all that has occurred their from the diplomatic releases he threw out there. Not freedom and civilization but just chaos and a degeneration into tribalism. The entire middle east is worse off now than what it was a few years ago. And im sorry Russia at this point is an enemy and threat to everyone. Its gobbled up parts of two countries in the last few years and threaten others to try to get its way. Its now an autocratic state run by a guy that wants to grab anything he can. In what bizzaro politically correct world do you live in that you cant see that? There are people out there that don't give a shit about law or civilization. They just will try to take as much as possible from you just cause they like having power. The only way to protect yourself from that is to have your threat and to protect your own people. That's just how the world is and its not going to change.
  • by anyaristow ( 1448609 ) on Friday September 02, 2016 @08:58AM (#52814603)

    There are two things we are being prepared for:

    1) The Department of Homeland Security wants to secure our elections for us [politico.com], aka power grab.
    2) The leaks are being discredited with the suggestion that the Russians are modifying or fabricating the documents, aka cover up.

  • The amount of info on the US Government can either be Assange's hatred for it or the sheer amount of questionable things the USG does coupled with how insecure the information is.

    In the "Wealth is everything " nation, getting your hands on incriminating information is simply a matter of how much financial backing you can bring to bear on the target. Throw enough money at someone at they'll give you anything you want.

    Besides, MSM is trying to paint Wikileaks as a Russian thing in order to discredit current a

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02, 2016 @09:16AM (#52814745)

    Really. Not reliable. Don't quote "the Mail". It's a good way of finding yourself ridiculed in the UK.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI

    • Really. Not reliable. Don't quote "the Mail". It's a good way of finding yourself ridiculed in the UK.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI

      Except its very widely read. Almost all my relatives and old school friends literally do get all their news from the Daily Mail.

  • This comes out exactly when Putin denies any Russian involvement in the DNC leaks. Let's see who shouts louder. In the meantime the guy ("Guccifer") who was arrested for allegedly hacking Hillary's email server, but then wasn't charged for it because the US couldn't actually prove it, has been sentenced on other charges. By the way he's from ROMANIA not Russia, but I understand that Americans will have trouble with the two countries that start with R.
  • by shaitand ( 626655 ) on Friday September 02, 2016 @09:32AM (#52814849) Journal
    It would make no difference to me if Assange rolled out of Putin's bed each morning. The information leaked has proven to be true time and time again which is the only credibility that messenger needs.

    Nothing leaked about those other nations, including Russia, would make the information leaked about Western governments and US suddenly be less bad.

    Screaming "The Russians are coming!" and running around like your head is cut off isn't going to distract me from the content of the leaks any more than it distracted me when they revealed Hillary Clinton was guilty of a DNC conspiracy worse than anything Nixon even attempted. I certainly don't think anyone missed the part where the very morning this terrible scandal was revealed instead of questioning whether the delegates were going to do their duty and change the outcome on behalf of the disenfranchised voters they represented had nothing but a stream of major news outlets questioning whether Sanders was going to get his "supporters in line" or could "control his people" in a tone that very much said you "better get your bitch on a leash."
  • So Russia is going to try to hack the US.
    And the US isn't taking measures to protect itself from hackers.
    So the obvious problem is that Wikileaks exists as a convenient place to dump the info. Right.
  • by Gavagai80 ( 1275204 ) on Friday September 02, 2016 @11:53AM (#52815889) Homepage

    Who's going to waste time publishing "shocking" allegations of Putin's ill-begotten wealth or deep-rooted corruption at all levels of Russian government when everyone both inside and outside Russia has known about it forever? You might as well publish "water is still wet".

    Wikileaks did do some good work exposing specific corruption in some African nations, but didn't get a lot of media attention for it since nobody was particularly shocked by the allegations.

  • Obviously, we can't rely on US politicians or the US civil service to keep the US public informed about their misdeeds. Russia has the money and the power to do so, so why shouldn't they?

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