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Malicious ZIP archives found in the AKP leak on the Wikileaks site

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Re: Malicious ZIP archives found in the AKP leak on the Wikileaks site

#91

Post by formula1 »

amazingman wrote: post #76
kps wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And this is newsworthy why? Because Wikileaks suggested that when browsers show(ed) a malware warning, it was some kind of conspiracy to censor them. https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/756618117875376129

Not to mention it provides further evidence of Wikileaks' complete lack of scruples in vetting their leaks, or really processing it in any way whatsoever. I was largely on board with Wikileaks at first, but kept their mishandling of personal information flagged in my mind for future reference. Since then they've shown basically zero ability to identify and admit mistakes, let alone learn from them.

Not sure who you think works at wikileaks but I assure you no one gets paid to set on the computer and check every single email. I doubt anyone gets paid at all. This isnt some fortune 500 competitor, this is a group of people that are attempting to give power to the commoners.

Re: Malicious ZIP archives found in the AKP leak on the Wikileaks site

#92

Post by grandalf »

varjag wrote: post #80
grandalf wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am beginning to feel like he has his own political agenda This is the position of some of the people/groups he's embarrassed. As if to say "Yes, I've been caught, but the person who helped catch me has it out for me, let's just ignore this". Also, as the US Army intelligence service underscored a few years ago, Wikileaks is ripe for propaganda use, since information can be provided to WL to suit political goals,…

> Sweden has a particular definition of rape that is far more encompassing of conduct that in most jurisdictions constitutes fully consensual activity. Since the claims against Assange would be considered claims of consensual sex in the US, it's hard for me to take them entirely seriously, yet the label of "Rapist" persists. This phenomenon is truly bizarre. What's truly bizarre is the crowd who's first to invoke "in…

> You are willing to excuse him things that you'd find inexcusable to anyone from the "establishment".

Not at all. Please recall that Assange has a legitimate concern about extradition and has had to seek political asylum. In spite of this he has offered to face the charges if some assurance could be made that he would not be taken into custody and extradited.

Since Assange is a political refugee, I take his concerns seriously. He has shown no sign of being unwilling to face the charges, and the new prosecutor has requested them to be dropped.

What I find most upsetting is that there appears to be some sort of strategy going on where the governments are trying to ensnare Assange and get him extradited (and imprisoned for espionage).

While it is possible that Assange did commit espionage, the bigger problem is that the US Government has not faced any accountability for the revelations in the Iraq or Afganistan war logs. We're talking about pretty serious illegal behavior if not war crimes that were revealed, and there have been zero consequences. Bush got re-elected and Obama continued and escalated Bush's policies!

Wikileaks is a tiny "institution" that has focused scrutiny on some very large and powerful institutions. As an American citizen who values transparency and the proper functioning of the checks and balances (and democratic process) as well as the appropriate and desirable adversarial relationship between the press and government, I am profoundly disappointed at the lack of consequences or accountability both for the war logs and for the Snowden revelations.

In terms of the total harm caused by these situations, allowing the US Government to survive these sorts of revelations unscathed and unaccountable is terrifying, and goes strongly against the core principles on which our nation was founded.

In general, Assange is a very minor player who happens to have (boldly, foolishly, selfishly, or whatever) helped to reveal some information that we simply must act on. The messenger is simply not important, nor are his personal failings.

So to correct your misapprehension, the story never should have been about Assange at all, at any point. The story should always have been about the misdeeds and corruption revealed by Wikileaks.

Re: Malicious ZIP archives found in the AKP leak on the Wikileaks site

#93

Post by at-fates-hands »

varjag wrote: post #86
protomyth wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I laughed too.... He actually has a pretty consistent agenda - reveal shocking stuff that people don't want revealed, and do it with a dramatic flair. Yes, a couple years back his releases on Iraq / Afghanistan had some things that enraged Republicans and were praised by Democrats. Now he's exposing their house. He's an agent of chaos with a self promotion streak. Saying his agenda is anything beyond that ignores his…

His agenda can be best described as anti-American (yes I realize it's a very loaded term). He would release whatever hurts American interests most, regardless of who represents the USA at the moment.

I would agree with that.

Although I'm not sure if that is because the majority of the documents he gets are from the US, or if the US has been, and always will be, a place where secrets are so tightly guarded anybody that has an avenue to expose some of them are going to do so.

Does Wikileaks get documents from other countries? Has he gotten the amount of publicity in other countries from those leaks that he has on his US documents?

Re: Malicious ZIP archives found in the AKP leak on the Wikileaks site

#94

Post by CWuestefeld »

somenomadicguy wrote: post #69
jshevek wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say the exact opposite. Politically motivated speculation about someone's motives are irrelevant, it is the content of the leaks that matter.

OK then. The AKP leak exposed nothing, but rather added to an incredibly stressful and precarious situation in Türkiye. It carelessly aided in doxing most women in Türkiye. It helped spread malware. It was a good opportunity to co-opt the press around the coup.

The AKP leak exposed nothing

You're assuming that the goal is to expose something - that is, you're starting your argument with the idea that he's got some political agenda to achieve.

But he's stated that his goal is to weaken the powerful by making it so that they can't trust anyone to keep their secrets. In that context, any uncovering of a leader's secrets is work toward his goal.

You can argue that the costs of what he's doing exceed the benefits, but I think your claim doesn't support the argument you're trying to apply it to.

Re: Malicious ZIP archives found in the AKP leak on the Wikileaks site

#95

Post by varjag »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #93
varjag wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His agenda can be best described as anti-American (yes I realize it's a very loaded term). He would release whatever hurts American interests most, regardless of who represents the USA at the moment.

I would agree with that. Although I'm not sure if that is because the majority of the documents he gets are from the US, or if the US has been, and always will be, a place where secrets are so tightly guarded anybody that has an avenue to expose some of them are going to do so. Does Wikileaks get documents from other countries? Has he gotten the amount of publicity in other countries from those leaks that he has on h…

I believe it's self-selection by and large. E.g. Wikileaks was decidedly negative on Panama Papers, as much of it implicates the enemies of America. And being an enemy of the USA by default makes you a friend of Assange. Consider this nugget:

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/717458064324964352

Re: Malicious ZIP archives found in the AKP leak on the Wikileaks site

#96

Post by mynewtb »

Twirrim wrote: post #85
moolcool wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a lack of attention? I don't think a virus in a collection of leaked emails is a major threat since you'd be a fool to execute it. On the other hand, it might be useful for researchers if the virus was written to specifically target somebody.

It would hardly take any time to run the trove through a virus scanner, and it wouldn't even need someone to be sitting over it nannying it through the process.

A dump should not be tampered with. How are you going to verify what truly is malware and what is not, and how malware in itself is not of importance?

Re: Malicious ZIP archives found in the AKP leak on the Wikileaks site

#97

Post by grandalf »

somenomadicguy wrote: post #78
grandalf wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The past year or two, however, wikileaks has failed to produce anything of substance. Is this due to Assange? Or due to the war on whistleblowers? Given the resource constraints of WL, Assange must choose between publishing unredacted information and not publishing at all. If Assange had not reached out to the worldwide mainstream press, I'd fault him for releasing unredacted material. But the press (and shamefully…

> Is this due to Assange? Or due to the war on whistleblowers? Given the resource constraints of WL, Assange must choose between publishing unredacted information and not publishing at all. Again, your argument is yet another conspiracy theory. You can't argue against this, because no matter what, it's the Cigarette Smoking Man in the background. And the resource-constraint argument is an excuse for sloppy, irrespons…

> your argument is yet another conspiracy theory

Not at all, neither of us knows what information was submitted to WL, so perhaps the issue is that nothing as significant as the war logs was submitted. We know for a fact that the US has significantly tightened up its infosec policies since Chelsea Manning's revelations. These are facts and no conspiracy theorizing is involved whatsoever. My friends who work for the Federal government would never even read this HN thread while at work, so there has been a legitimately chilling effect on the culture as well.

> sloppy, irresponsible journalism

Holding WL to some imaginary journalistic standard is absurd. It would be one thing if the NY Times got the story and overshadowed WL by publishing a carefully redacted, professional piece. But the major news outlets do not for the most part have systems in place for anonymous drop off of data, and simply do not report on much of what WL gets access to. If you ask me, that is the major journalistic failure. Can Assange, with a tiny team, copy edit and responsibly redact everything? Of course not, but we know from his previous releases that he strongly prefers to and that he is operating WL in survival mode at the moment due to harassment from some of the parties he's leaked information about.

> It seems that every time Assange has a bowel movement, all of the major news sources write about it as front-page news, and immediately every comment is about how no major news outlet is reporting on wikileaks.

This statement does not make sense. Assange is not Wikileaks, and Assange's personal failings are not Wikileaks. The stories which don't see much reporting are the actual factual content about corruption and misdeeds by government officials! The problem is that we get stories about Assange's personal details but not any real substance.

I'd rather not sidetrack this discussion into the content of the DNC emails, but would be happy to do so in a different thread.

Re: Malicious ZIP archives found in the AKP leak on the Wikileaks site

#98

Post by grandalf »

soundwave106 wrote: post #81
grandalf wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, however it is not typically labeled "rape" when the sexual contact aspect is consensual. It seems to constitute some sort of wrongdoing, but potentially also a misunderstanding. In any case, headlines and comments omitting this information and highlighting rape accusations are certainly intended to create a specific impression.

One of the charges as I understand it is Mr. Assange had sex with one of the accusers while she was asleep. That definitely seems to qualify as rape in Sweden penal code ( https://lagen.nu/1962:700#K6P1S1 -- note I'm relying on Google Translate so corrections welcome). Sweden is not the only country that considers sex with someone sleeping or otherwise unconscious as rape; a quick look at UK law for instance seems to…

Do you know the current status of the cases? I believe one or both was dropped at the behest of the accuser(s) or prosecutor.

Re: Malicious ZIP archives found in the AKP leak on the Wikileaks site

#99

Post by a3n »

CM30 wrote: post #23

When you've got a small organisation with limited resources and less help from others (like say, media groups), it's not surprising stuff like this will slip through. And hey, it's also not surprising a bunch of email sent to powerful figures would have scumbags trying to infect their PC with malware in the process. If Obama had a public email, a large percentage of that would be either infected by something or tryin…

> And hey, it's also not surprising a bunch of email sent to powerful figures would have scumbags trying to infect their PC with malware in the process.

I doubt it was consciously sent to specific powerful figures. "Invoice attached" spam is just shotgunned to the world.

> If Obama had a public email, a large percentage of that would be either infected by something or trying to steal credentials via phishing.

It would, not because he's Obama but because it's email. I see a lot of this in my spam folder, and I'm not important at all, I'm just a reachable address.

Re: Malicious ZIP archives found in the AKP leak on the Wikileaks site

#100

Post by grandalf »

mtgx wrote: post #19
dmix wrote: post #14

So a spammy email in one of the thousands leaked happened to contained malware? And this is newsworthy why? People here are using this to question Wikileaks integrity but it seems like a minor mistake given the contents of the dump. This has happened before in hacker dumps on a number of occasions but this one isn't even malicious (targeting wikileaks users). I don't open random zips from spam emails on my machine an…

Because there's a growing campaign trying to paint Wikileaks as a the "bad guys" (again). Combine that with the fact that most people don't want Trump to win, so they're automatically on Clinton's side, and with Clinton's deflection of the DNC hack documents that pointed to election rigging towards who hacked the DNC, and that anti-Wikileaks campaign is suddenly a lot more effective. So now when other sites write abo…

> I so wish the U.S. moved to a proportional representation/multi-party system sooner rather than later. I'm so sick and tired of their extremely partisan crap. It seems to make everything worse off. The partisan reality-distortion fields are getting bigger and more powerful than Apple's in the Steve Jobs era.

True. I don't advertise this, but I really have a difficult time respecting anyone who would vote for a major party presidential candidate (unless they live in a swing state). It's either a misunderstanding of the longer-term game theory involved or a lack of willingness to risk being on the losing side.

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