WikiLeaks

Six66Mike - 12-7-2010 at 12:55 AM

Nobody made a thread yet so I will

What are your thoughts on this site? Not the founder, just the site. What they release, the attention it gets, the fact other news sources are using the information released to publish articles they otherwise would have ignored because journalism is dead?

And the attacks against the site? The DNS being revoked, Amazon dumping them, PayPal refusing their account... the US censorship of the Internet and undoubtedly DDoS attacks sponsored/carried about by the US Govt to try & stop the leaks.

US web control and censorship is a scary thing & it's being done on a fairly large scale today.

barc0debaby - 12-7-2010 at 01:54 AM

I think the entire thing is overblown. The information that has been released really isn't groundbreaking, the effect on journalism/government transparency (I hate that word) is going to be minimal, and the speculation of US Government attacks is a conspiracy theorist wet dream. And you can't censor the internet, just put up roadblocks.

Check out the Deep Web
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Web

"Estimates based on extrapolations from a study done at University of California, Berkeley speculate that the deep Web consists of about 91,000 terabytes. By contrast, the surface Web (which is easily reached by search engines) is about 167 terabytes; the Library of Congress, in 1997, was estimated to have 3,000 terabytes.[3]"

You can access the craziest shit imaginable on the Deep Web through Tor drugs are sold, contract killings are made, governments are doing dirt, pedophiles are lurking. There are also alot of mundane documents, i.e. legal cases, car manuals, etc. You definitely have to be computer savvy if you jump into the Deep as a lot of people don't want you accessing their information and there are plenty of hackers floating around there.

Six66Mike - 12-7-2010 at 02:36 AM

Deep web is just non-indexed pages and swarms of data which would include torrent & P2P content and other troves like they say Library of Congress and other online journals, research sites etc.

But censoring the web is very real and countries in the G20 have been pushing for a global spread of resources. Right now the web is entirely controlled by the US through ICANN and domain services. The story below of ICE/Homeland Security shutting down websites including Torrent-Finder which is a search engine no different to Google is a glowing example of this. http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22219

The US currently controls most of the major Internet resources and tools. BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India & China) have been pushing hard as has the EU to spread out these resources, give greater access and control outside the US. COICA gives the US power to shutdown any site anywhere in the world and the DMCA has already shown US sites can be closed without warrant or any presentation of criminal activity.

Not to mention the net neutrality debate.

The Internet is currently going through it's biggest changes and organizations like EFF are doing their part to help educate people on these changes. Just wait til WikiLeaks releases it's banking documents, a whole new round of Internet censorship will begin.

And all this not from China or some Middle East country, but US, the self-proclaimed land of democracy & freedom of speech. Yeah, freedom of speech as long as nobody is offended.

More about the site/domain seizures:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/11/us-government-seizes-8...
http://rapfix.mtv.com/2010/11/26/onsmash-rapgodfathers-websi...

Torrent-Finder was a search page, nothing more.
RapGodfathers was a blog linking to Rapidshare/Megaupload files.

Takedowns should have been issued to the hoster of the content, not the sites that link to it or reference it.

And a ton of good articles are mentioned/linked from PBS Newshour online - http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/12/-wikileaks-still...

Mark Lind - 12-7-2010 at 10:31 AM

I'm usually a lib but this whole thing has brought out the conservative American part of me. I think the people behind the site should go before a firing squad.

barc0debaby - 12-7-2010 at 12:02 PM

Torrent-Finder was a search page whose main purpose was to provide people access to illegal downloads. Blogs linking to Rapid share for illegal downloads. People are freaking out because the law is preventing them from continuing their illegal activity. Taking down these torrent sites is not censorship whatsoever. The American people have not had their ability to access information infringed by any of these actions.

Six66Mike - 12-7-2010 at 05:40 PM

Torrent Finder works no different to Google, which can also be used to search and locate millions of illegal files. It wasn't a torrent site. It didn't host .torrent files, it didn't run a tracker, it was a search engine that searched third party sites, presented the results and opened new pages when people followed the link. A search engine isn't illegal, though Homeland Security seems to think it is.

http://torrent-finder.info You can still see the site and try it for yourself. There's nothing illegal about that. And if you wanna hunt down illegal content, why not shutdown rapidshare & megaupload instead of blogs that talk about & link to the files?

DaveMoral - 12-7-2010 at 06:30 PM

Meh, I hate the government generally so anything that exposes the bullshit is tops in my book.

Murk - 12-7-2010 at 10:29 PM

Wikileaks is no different than a person who raises a concern about alleged wrongdoing occurring in an organization or body of people, aka a whistleblower.

it's just that the technology, climate and landscape are on a larger scale.

Six66Mike - 12-7-2010 at 10:48 PM

http://sowhyiswikileaksagoodthingagain.com/

Colin - 12-8-2010 at 04:56 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DaveMoral
Meh, I hate the government generally so anything that exposes the bullshit is tops in my book.

tireironsaint - 12-9-2010 at 12:02 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Mark Lind
I'm usually a lib but this whole thing has brought out the conservative American part of me. I think the people behind the site should go before a firing squad.

Seems like a bizarre stance to take. Why are you so offended by someone exposing our government for pulling dirty, underhanded shit that they would condemn any other government for doing?

Six66Mike - 12-9-2010 at 07:12 AM

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/12/09/3089114.htm

These stories are currently aggravating me so hard.

"There are warnings today that a cyber war over the WikiLeaks cable dump could intensify, after hackers targeted the websites of credit giants Visa and Mastercard."

Hackers, hacktivists... some moron on the news said they were computer guru's from Anonymous.

Sorry folks. It's a bunch of 4chan kids probably not even old enough to drive with little or no programming experience, none of them capable of cracking the parental lock on their TV let alone hacking anything. It's a simple program that ping floods, that's it, and when you have thousands of them running it at the same time sites go down. Atleast you had the brains to call it a denial of service attack, but when people call DDoS' hacking it just drives me up the fucking wall.

However the brighter side that came out in the past 24 hours.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/12/08/3088461.htm

Kevin Rudd says the blame for the leak is the US, not Assange of WikiLeaks. Finally someone in the global community, an ex-PM and current foreign affairs minister who can see past all the bullshit & tell it straight. WikiLeaks didn't go out & get the documents, Assange was not an individual behind it. Someone from within the US Government leaked it, and WikiLeaks happened to be the recipient. I bet it comes out in the future the leaker tried to contact other media outlets as well and was denied.

Other highlights today were the people saying Assange is no different to the Editors of all the major newspapers who are printing the cables & providing them attention. Some were exclusives to these major outlets. By publishing them and dispersing them to a wider audience these people are no more guilty or innocent than Assange & the rest of WikiLeaks.

Mark Lind - 12-9-2010 at 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by tireironsaint

Quote:

Originally posted by Mark Lind
I'm usually a lib but this whole thing has brought out the conservative American part of me. I think the people behind the site should go before a firing squad.

Seems like a bizarre stance to take. Why are you so offended by someone exposing our government for pulling dirty, underhanded shit that they would condemn any other government for doing?

The figurehead of the site isn't a US citizen but he's just a figurehead. There are obviously other people involved and some of them must be Americans feeding the documents to be published. And by definition they're committing treason. I haven't looked at the documents and I'm sure there are policies that are being put in place that I don't agree with but I don't think treason should be anymore legal just because it's some dork behind a computer screen instead of a 1950's Soviet spy.

DaveMoral - 12-9-2010 at 06:27 PM

^The guy that gave these most recent documents was a Private First Class that smuggled it out on a cd labeled "Lady Gaga."

Also, treason schmeason. The very last thing I could possibly be called is a patriot. I just don't care. The more the lies, and unethical bullshit are exposed the happier I am and the more I hope people wake up from their stupor and take to the streets to really "throw the bums out." Not just replace them with new career politician bums or bought men/women.

Six66Mike - 12-9-2010 at 06:37 PM

I can buy it that a Private FC released some Afghanistan & Iraq logs but how would someone like that get access to diplomatic cables? Those were leaked by someone else, someone in the military wouldn't possibly have access to that sort of information.

Mark Lind - 12-9-2010 at 06:57 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DaveMoral
^The guy that gave these most recent documents was a Private First Class that smuggled it out on a cd labeled "Lady Gaga."

Also, treason schmeason. The very last thing I could possibly be called is a patriot. I just don't care. The more the lies, and unethical bullshit are exposed the happier I am and the more I hope people wake up from their stupor and take to the streets to really "throw the bums out." Not just replace them with new career politician bums or bought men/women.

The thing is that that's never gonna happen. No one is gonna get thrown out of their government position and it's just gonna prompt violence abroad. We all know that governments are unethical...... this website isn't telling us anything we don't already all suspect.

Anyway, it's not really important to me. Just some knee jerk thoughts.

spyderdog - 12-9-2010 at 10:42 PM

he needs to release the shit hes got on bank of america

the military shit hes been releasing is no bueno though

Six66Mike - 12-9-2010 at 11:06 PM

Based on the last few posts the US Govt & media seem to be doing a good job. They (WikiLeaks) released it, not he (Assange). It's an organization. And what about the multitude of newspapers making front page stories out of the leaks every day? They are no more innocent or guilty either.

Julian Assange != WikiLeaks.

JawnDiablo - 12-9-2010 at 11:12 PM

yawn

BDx13 - 12-14-2010 at 04:00 PM

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/why-im-p...

Six66Mike - 12-15-2010 at 06:32 AM

lol Michael Moore is a retard and a week late. John Pilger, Jemima Khan and others already offered money the first time around and it was more than what Moore is offering for far more respected people like Pilger lol.

I can't even read the Moore thing, so many people have probably already said what he did and in a much better way. The fairweather leftist who jumps in late whenever the temperature is right. I bet he's starting a WikiLeaks documentary now that it's all the hype. Just wait til Assange is Time Magazine's person of the year, Moore will be all over his nuts then.