Malicious ZIP archives found in the AKP leak on the Wikileaks site • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by trendia » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 4:57 PM UTC

leephillips wrote: post #103

grandalf wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the extent that WL is still willing to publish some personal information, it's much the same as the civilian casualties that result from drone attacks. It is deemed to be an acceptable consequence of the action.

I guess this would be a good analogy if it were trivially easy for the President to bring the civilian casualties back to life, but he preferred not to, and said that killing them was "good fun".

I think comparing releasing of personal information to civilian deaths is a bit of a stretch.

Especially when Wikileaks may have the potential to increase transparency and make politicians more reluctant to allow such civilian casualties.

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

#112

Post by grandalf » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 4:59 PM UTC

trendia wrote: post #111

leephillips wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess this would be a good analogy if it were trivially easy for the President to bring the civilian casualties back to life, but he preferred not to, and said that killing them was "good fun".

I think comparing releasing of personal information to civilian deaths is a bit of a stretch. Especially when Wikileaks may have the potential to increase transparency and make politicians more reluctant to allow such civilian casualties.

> Especially when Wikileaks may have the potential to increase transparency and make politicians more reluctant to allow such civilian casualties.

Exactly, that is the actual punchline of my argument.

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

#113

Post by grandalf » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 5:01 PM UTC

varjag wrote: post #110

grandalf wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> He has shown no sign of being unwilling to face the charges, and the new prosecutor has requested them to be dropped. He broke the bail and went on the run. If that doesn't constitute "unwillingness to face charges", am not sure what does. I would agree with you though that Assange persona isn't particularly important in the grand scheme of things.

> He broke the bail and went on the run. If that doesn't constitute "unwillingness to face charges", am not sure what does.

He's been confined in an embassy building for quite some time, which is roughly equivalent to a minimum security prison! He'd likely not have faced this level of punishment for the alleged sex crimes even if he'd been found guilty of them. It's important to recall that he's been forced to seek political asylum. Being labeled a rapist and unable to vindicate himself (for fear of extradition) is also likely quite upsetting to him if he's innocent.

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

#114

Post by varjag » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 5:05 PM UTC

grandalf wrote: post #113

varjag wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He has shown no sign of being unwilling to face the charges, and the new prosecutor has requested them to be dropped. He broke the bail and went on the run. If that doesn't constitute "unwillingness to face charges", am not sure what does. I would agree with you though that Assange persona isn't particularly important in the grand scheme of things.

> He broke the bail and went on the run. If that doesn't constitute "unwillingness to face charges", am not sure what does. He's been confined in an embassy building for quite some time, which is roughly equivalent to a minimum security prison! He'd likely not have faced this level of punishment for the alleged sex crimes even if he'd been found guilty of them. It's important to recall that he's been forced to seek p…

Being unwilling to face justice isn't exactly helping his case. But we are making full circle to my initial point: you are unwilling to contemplate that Swedish prosecution is acting in good faith and in due process. And the reason for that is you like the guy.

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

#115

Post by mschuster91 » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 5:05 PM UTC

ajamesm wrote: post #25

mschuster91 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> His best buddy Jake Appelbaum is a rapist? CIA Seriously. What has "innocent until proven guilty" devolved into? You're bordering on libel. Until a court has convicted Appelbaum of the crime of rape, he is not a rapist. I personally think that the accusations may have a kernel of truth, but are greatly exaggerated by the participants. Only a criminal court is properly equipped with means (both legal and time) to re…

Al Capone was a gangster. Does that unfounded accusation also inflame your sense of justice? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 'Innocent until proven guilty' concerns the court system, but not the rest of civil society. If someone throws up all the red flags of a rapist, nobody is obligated to balk at them.

> 'Innocent until proven guilty' concerns the court system, but not the rest of civil society.

Oh no, it does concern society as a whole, or otherwise libel and defamation would not be classified as crimes...

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

#116

Post by MaysonL » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 5:08 PM UTC

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…

Thousands of instances of malware.

https://github.com/bontchev/wlscrape/blob/master/malware.md

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

#117

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 5:08 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #115

ajamesm wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Al Capone was a gangster. Does that unfounded accusation also inflame your sense of justice? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 'Innocent until proven guilty' concerns the court system, but not the rest of civil society. If someone throws up all the red flags of a rapist, nobody is obligated to balk at them.

> 'Innocent until proven guilty' concerns the court system, but not the rest of civil society. Oh no, it does concern society as a whole, or otherwise libel and defamation would not be classified as crimes...

[deleted]

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

#118

Post by grandalf » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 5:16 PM UTC

varjag wrote: post #114

grandalf wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He broke the bail and went on the run. If that doesn't constitute "unwillingness to face charges", am not sure what does. He's been confined in an embassy building for quite some time, which is roughly equivalent to a minimum security prison! He'd likely not have faced this level of punishment for the alleged sex crimes even if he'd been found guilty of them. It's important to recall that he's been forced to seek p…

Being unwilling to face justice isn't exactly helping his case. But we are making full circle to my initial point: you are unwilling to contemplate that Swedish prosecution is acting in good faith and in due process. And the reason for that is you like the guy.

> you are unwilling to contemplate that Swedish prosecution is acting in good faith and in due process

Not at all. The unknown is why the Swedish government won't offer Assange assurance that he wouldn't be extradited. It's probably because he would be, hence, his position is rational. Both the prosecutor and Assange may be acting rationally, as may the Swedish government -- after all, why would it decide to irritate the US by not extraditing Assange?

I would prefer if Assange's guilt or innocence in the rape accusations were determined, because the accusations generally get in the way of the mission of Wikileaks, which I generally support. I don't have a soft spot in my heart for Assange, and if he does turn out to be guilty it will not impact my view on the important issues (the war logs, etc.) whatsoever.

Who cares if Assange himself is a hero or villain, I'm not the sort of simpleton who needs to pretend that everyone whose actions I support is a faultless model citizen. The important issue is that he (hero or villain) helped reveal some very important information about the US Government which should lead to consequences and accountability.

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

#119

Post by krapp » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 5:16 PM UTC

formula1 wrote: post #91

amazingman wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>but I assure you no one gets paid to set on the computer and check every single email

No one gets paid to to that anywhere, because it's been possible to automate that for a very long time. It doesn't take the resources of a Fortune 500 company, either.

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

#120

Post by devin » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 5:21 PM UTC

trendia wrote: post #88

leephillips wrote: post #82

Since there is much speculation here about Assange's motives, why not at least consider how he himself describes them? In this interview with Bill Maher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-EJAIXdGp8 Assange explains that he found it to be "good fun" to release SS and credit card numbers of thousands of random, innocent people. If we consider that Assange may be one of those (we know they exist, in significant numbers)…

I think you're taking Assange's words out of context. He was talking about the release itself, in that it showed how the DNC actively worked to hamper Bernie's efforts despite being a "neutral" organization. (Neutrality is one of the conditions for the DNC to receive tax breaks for their convention). > Why not delete malware from your servers once a security researcher has located it for you? Assange has repeatedly s…

> Assange has repeatedly said that they do not filter or edit in any way the contents of their leaks. That means that they don't remove credit card information, social security numbers, or malware.

This is not true. They redacted all but the last 4 digits of the credit card numbers.

> They could release an edited version and achieve transparency, but...

They _do_ edit. They removed all but the last 4 digits on credit card numbers. So, they edit in the ways they deem appropriate. I think the consensus is that generally, their extremely limited (and IMO, irresponsible) redaction policy does pose a threat to innocent people. The argument against responsible redaction seems to be: "Well, who knows where that social security number may lead!" Under this line of reasoning, _everything_ is fair game, and I find that abhorrent. If an innocent photo were discovered in those emails of a naked child, say the son or daughter of someone working for the campaign, you're telling me that it should be included in the archive simply to protect the sanctity of the dump? Puh-lease. Transparency is important, but not at the risk of our own humanity.