Live data from Hacker News

Google tags Wikileaks as a dangerous site

google.com

41–50 of 167 posts

Re: Google tags Wikileaks as a dangerous site

#41
post #6

I'm not sure that this is completely tin-foil hat worthy. I was working at a defense contractor in 2010 when the big leak of all the cables occurred, and was forced to learn a lot of things I wouldn't have otherwise, including something that maybe a lot of people don't fully grasp: When stuff like this leaks, if any of the information is considered sensitive/classified/restricted in any manner, the act of it being le…

> When stuff like this leaks, if any of the information is considered sensitive/classified/restricted in any manner, the act of it being leaked does not dissolve its restricted status. In other words, if you are a regular US citizen and you go to Wikileaks and look at something that is classified without having the proper security clearance, then you're now on the wrong side of the law. I'm pretty sure this is wrong:…

If you have secret clearance, you're not supposed to dig into other information outside your clearance, even if the information has been leaked public.

The reasoning behind this was illuminated for me by an ex-contractor recently: your given security-cleared work clears you for some subset of secured information (say, A). There is some other information that is meant to be kept very secret, call it "C". People who know "C" are the kind that can't go to the dentist without the dentist herself having security clearance and a nice person in a black suit standing nearby to make sure the C-knower doesn't blurt out something unfortunate while under anaesthetic.

When security divisons are made, the goal is to prevent someone from knowing A+B, not only because A and B are valuable, but because A+B could allow someone to derive C, which is the real issue. The government doesn't have enough people to follow the whole security-cleared body around to every dental appointment, etc., so they instead need to ask people who have clearances to not go fishing for information they aren't cleared for, even if that information is easily accessible due to Wikileaks.

It's not a philosophy that scales to the Information Age, but there's method to the madness.

Re: Google tags Wikileaks as a dangerous site

#42
post #6

I'm not sure that this is completely tin-foil hat worthy. I was working at a defense contractor in 2010 when the big leak of all the cables occurred, and was forced to learn a lot of things I wouldn't have otherwise, including something that maybe a lot of people don't fully grasp: When stuff like this leaks, if any of the information is considered sensitive/classified/restricted in any manner, the act of it being le…

The good thing is I am an European citizen, so I do not have to take into account at all any American "classified" or "restricted" or whatever label. Or do I?

If you don't have a U.S. security clearance, all this nonsense is basically null and void for you.

Re: Google tags Wikileaks as a dangerous site

#43
More interesting is the debate here in the comments where people are unsure if it's legal for them to read something on the Internet. I doubt Google is censoring Wikileaks. Too obvious. But startling is the chilling effect nowadays.

Re: Google tags Wikileaks as a dangerous site

#44
post #38
post #31

I figure this link needs to stand here somewhere, even if it's just for someone trying to understand the political implications that this could have: https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/

And while I don't take all of the claims at face value, I do wonder why Google supports the TPP.

It requires explanation that a multinational company would support a trade deal?

Re: Google tags Wikileaks as a dangerous site

#46
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And while I don't take all of the claims at face value, I do wonder why Google supports the TPP.

It requires explanation that a multinational company would support a trade deal?

Good question. Do they support every single trade deal? Do they lobby equitably between them? If not, then why this one?

Re: Google tags Wikileaks as a dangerous site

#47
The biggest downside to the NSA revelations is how quickly people accept conspiracy theories.

Wikileaks just released a big email dump. People looked at it with Google Chrome, and it detected malware in the archive. That blacklisted the site it was downloaded from.

There is no big "Google is protecting the Democrats and hates Wikileaks". Wikileaks was serving malware, and Google detected it.

Re: Google tags Wikileaks as a dangerous site

#48

This is technically accurate since I found out myself this week when browsing the AKP email leak. Some of the attachments in the emails were clearly malware of some sort. See for example: https://wikileaks.org/akp-emails/emailid/27482

Hear hear. My bet on the reason for the status ping ponging is the site was auto flagged through some automated scanning, someone at Google contacted wikileaks (maybe after some press was seen!), wikileaks started cleaning up their shit and the Goog kept re-scanning, probably coordinated on a fascinating email chain.

Re: Google tags Wikileaks as a dangerous site

#49
post #47

The biggest downside to the NSA revelations is how quickly people accept conspiracy theories. Wikileaks just released a big email dump. People looked at it with Google Chrome, and it detected malware in the archive. That blacklisted the site it was downloaded from. There is no big "Google is protecting the Democrats and hates Wikileaks". Wikileaks was serving malware, and Google detected it.

Really? The takeaway I got from the NSA revelations was that it's now completely reasonable to assume that Google/FB/Twitter/etc are working directly with the government or politicians.

Twitter removed #DNCLeaks right while it was the top trending topic today. Reddit paid staff has been suspending people who talk about Correct The Record or the DNC leaks. Facebook admitted to filtering certain topics due to political bias. Google just took down Wikileaks links. And while all of this is happening, there's not a single mention of the DNC leaks on CNN, MSNBC, Politico, etc.

You're right, this probably was just a mistake... but is it wrong to question it? Everything I've learned from the NSA leaks and the DNC leaks shows that the media, politicians, the intelligence community, banks, large tech companies, etc are all working together against the public.

Re: Google tags Wikileaks as a dangerous site

#50
post #38
post #31

I figure this link needs to stand here somewhere, even if it's just for someone trying to understand the political implications that this could have: https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/

And while I don't take all of the claims at face value, I do wonder why Google supports the TPP.

Why wouldn't they? Among other things it bans data localization which is important for a cloud operator. There are no downsides from Google's point of view.
Post reply on HN