Wikileaks

[Chops]

As for Gates, it's hard for me to ever listen to that man after what he did in regards to Sergeant Rafael Peralta.

However, he does make good points. Will this make life difficult for us? Not really, not at ground level. High ranking officials will have to answer for things and some ROE's may get some modifications, but how many ground level leaders are going to allow ROE to endanger the lives of their members/ Maybe in the Army, not with us. If your ends truely justify the means, then you will be expected to explain yourself. If you constantly do wrong to accomplish right, then your methods are going to be questioned and your actions are required to be justified through that process. However, that depends on who you are trying to justify it to. If it is to your civilian population who has no real idea of what conflict is and what it takes to truly win then we already lost our case even though we are the ones who give them the freedom to condemm us.

Sorry, we're not Russia, we don't have the luxary of killing who ever we want and then strangling the media to keep our mistakes and actions quiet. We're held to a higher standard, and this is how it happens. Manning crossed the line from hactivism to straight up treason when he sat down with the deliberate intent of searching for stuff to leak. Wikileaks is like communism-fine in concept, but in reality run by a bunch of selfish shits. they serve a useful function for folks who really need to blow a whistle, but they also enjoy the cheap publicity from going and fucking up shit for big players.

All and all I understand the need to keep some things secret and tucked away, but I also see the importance of transparency of information.

It's bad that some things in war are safer not discussed, it's worse if they are deliberatly hidden from anyone to cover up mistakes.

My thoughts are coming off a little jumbled right now, I'll have to try again later. Basically my point is the way the documents were leaked was fucked, just a little kid wanting attention, but in the end I don't fault people for reading them. There are some things that should remain classified, just as some things the American people deserve to know.

[MaxPower]

I don't think anyone is questioning any individual soldiers actions, from what I can tell, they (wikileaks and the news agencies reporting) are trying to hold the people in charge, giving the orders to account. That can't be a bad thing. I guess we probably disagree with what we think the public can and can't handle. Could I do what you do, god know and I respect you for serving your country.

I agree that some things need to stay secret, where I think wikileaks has caused problems, is the timing. Old diplomats, secret service agents, etc, release memoirs frequently that talk about what they did for their country and people don't get upset at them (for the most part). This is because it is from past events that have no bearing on what is happening currently. Wikileaks is releasing things from only months ago, which can have an impact.

I would say so far wikileaks is fine in practice, they really haven't done any damage. More to the point, why is the focus on them and not the news agencies reporting on the leaks themselves.

On a lighter note, apparently Visa and Mastercard aren't processing donations for Wikileaks anymore, but, they're happy to still process KKK memberships payments Link.

[dc20willsave]

On a lighter note, apparently Visa and Mastercard aren't processing donations for Wikileaks anymore, but, they're happy to still process KKK memberships payments Link.

Fucktards... Seriously, I'm neutral on the entire wikileaks thing but this is dumb. I don't want me credit card to decide what I can and can't support.

[JackFetch]

The fact that there are no charges filed against Wikileaks means these companies are just making shit up. Also, no charges against Assange have been filed even though he's in jail with no bail, which scares the crap out of me.

[Molly]

This only confirms the fact that corporations run the world far more than any government.

[KnightWing]

What do corporations have to do with that?

[Molly]

What do corporations have to do with that?

I'm talking about the bit with Visa and Mastercard.

[KnightWing]

Ah. Yeah, that's kinda screwed up.

[Venneh]

His next target was the banks. Not that surprising that all this is happening now.

[JackFetch]

Just hours after MasterCard's website was disabled by WikiLeaks supporters, Visa.com is now down as well.

Via its Twitter account (@Anon_Operation), Anonymous, an activist hacker group, claimed responsibility for the denial of service attack--part of "Operation Payback"--that brought down Visa.com.

Anonymous explains that Operation Payback is "an ongoing campaign by Anonymous against major anti-piracy & anti-freedom entities."

MasterCard and Visa are among many sites that have been targeted--and taken down--by "hacktivists." Websites belonging to Swiss bank PostFinance, Senator Joe Lieberman, PayPal, and Sarah Palin have also been disabled.

Like MasterCard, Visa also announced that it would suspend payments to WikiLeaks, a move that has rankled WikiLeaks supporters.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/08/visa-down-wikileaks-suppo_n_794039.html

[KnightWing]

Right. Because hacking is totally the way to prove that you're not a bunch of criminals.

[JackFetch]

Right. Because hacking is totally the way to prove that you're not a bunch of criminals.

It's Anon. That's all they do is hack.

[Stavros]

Not usually a fan of hackers, but someone needs to show that corporate and government interests cannot win out every time. There needs to be a cost to the way they operate, and I hope this is just the beginning.

[KnightWing]

I'm on the opposite side. I don't think people should declare themselves the Avengers of Corporate Wrongdoing (coincidentally, also the title of an upcoming series by Bendis & Maleev) and hack whomever they deem to be guilty. Isn't that basically the cyber-equivalent of violent protesting and/or rioting?

[Guest]

That's exactly what it is.

It's a bunch of self-entitled white kids that have constructed their entire moral code from anime porn and South Park. This isn't out of character for them.

Honestly, I support the idea of Wikileaks, but having that group of dipshits on their side is only going to make things worse, seeing as they only know how to solve a problem one way.

[JackFetch]

What Anon is doing is wrong and counter productive. All they are doing is bringing the feds down on them.

[MaxPower]

I don't have a problem with Anon in theory, I would argue it's non-violent protesting, the same as getting 1000 people to blockade a gate. This whole thing will be the turning point for the internet. It will either become the new domain for free speech or it will become globally censored.

As for Visa and MasterCard, as a wise investor once said, always back on self interest, it wins everytime

The US lobbied Russia this year on behalf of Visa and MasterCard to try to ensure the payment card companies were not "adversely affected" by new legislation, according to American diplomats in Moscow.

A state department cable released this afternoon by WikiLeaks reveals that US diplomats intervened to try to amend a draft law going through Russia's duma, or lower house of parliament. Their explicit aim was to ensure the new law did not "disadvantage" the two US companies, the cable states.

Source

[KnightWing]

I have a Visa card. What if I needed to access the website, but couldn't because it'd been brought down by hackers?

This kind of thing isn't just proving a point; it's screwing with people. It IS an attack.

[JackFetch]

Bringing down a website using a denial of service attack is illegal. It's not the same as a non violent protest because it's a federal crime.

[MaxPower]

But isn't the card companies denying access to a service based on their beliefs and/or own fears also a screwing with people? It was only their corporate site that was down, all credit card usage was unaffected, so it really didn't affect consumers.

Jack, I know what your saying, which I guess is what I mean about all of this being a potential game changer for the internet and how law makers will view it. One could argue that a DOS is no more disruptive than a protest, especially if it's just a corporate masthead website, not a marketplace website. I don't condone illegal activity, I'm just saying I could see a time in the future, where various forms of online protest could be protected under protest laws.

I'm getting off point though, the Anon stuff is a sideshow and is taking the focus off the main issue. Wikileaks isn't breaking laws. Companies are targeting Wikileaks ability to provide a legal service, either because of fear of the government or to protect their own self interests.

The whole thing just wreaks of hypocrisy from western governments. They sit there and condemn China, Nth Korea, etc for censoring the internet to their citizens, yet come out and try and do the exact same thing.

[KnightWing]

I think there's a difference between literally filtering the internet and trying to stop a known source of leaked information. The govt also takes down pirating sites, too, despite the fact that all they do is re-post media from elsewhere.

[Guest]

[KnightWing]

Goddammit.

[Stavros]

I'm on the opposite side. I don't think people should declare themselves the Avengers of Corporate Wrongdoing (coincidentally, also the title of an upcoming series by Bendis & Maleev) and hack whomever they deem to be guilty. Isn't that basically the cyber-equivalent of violent protesting and/or rioting?

I'm not saying I love violence or criminal acts, but there are very few examples of civil disobedience campaigns working without some sort of illegal edge. In the UK during the early 90's Thatcher attempted to institute the Poll Tax, a flat tax across the board that didn't take into account incomes or residence type. The consequent widespread violence (later discovered to have been largely the result of the police's action) was the chief reason that the tax was rescinded.

The civil rights movement wasn't all happy holding hands and standing as one against white oppression, the Black Panthers used the 2nd amendment to protect themselves, taking up arms against their opponents.

I'm also certainly not approving any of the groups involved in terrorist action, but Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionists are taken a lot more seriously than they would have been without paramilitary groups attached to them.

You know that the student protests going on in the UK right now are largely technically illegal acts? Because the are spontaneous and subsequently when the police ask them where they are going to go no-one can give a clear answer, no-one is filing permission and giving notice to the authorities. Asking permission from the very people you are protesting for the right to protest seems like a society gone insane if you ask me. Blockading parts of a city when it's convenient allows alternative routes and takes away from the impact, it basically allows people to ignore you. Very few anti-authoritarian causes were ever advanced through solely legal and non-violent action.

[KnightWing]

Very few anti-authoritarian causes were ever advanced through solely legal and non-violent action.

That doesn't mean it's the right thing to do, nor does it mean that it'll actually make things better in the end.

Now the government knows that people associated with that site are "dangerous." (Which, technically, they are)

How is a group of people who will illegally force their views of how things should be done any different than an authoritarian government? At the very least, the government has laws, and the ability for future lawmakers to change those laws through safe, legal, and moral means.

These hackers are just dickheads who do whatever they want, under a banner of false moral superiority. They're anarchists, and that's good for no one.