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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

#131
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 at this point, large chunks the press are more interested in smear campaigns against Wikileaks than accurate reporting. For example, remember all those breathless headlines about how Wikileaks recklessly leaked the personal information of every woman in Turkey, and how they were putting domestic violence victims in danger through their arrogance? They didn't, a security researcher called Michael Best did; they just took him at his word and tweeted a link to his blog post. The press went on to exonerate the actual reckless leaker of all responsibility whilst continuing to attack Wikileaks for it because no-one really cared about those domestic violence victims except as a way of attacking Wikileaks.

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

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alt-right is what happened when 4chan trolls, MRAs/PUAs, and Stormfront had a baby called 8chan.net/pol/ It's a small group of maybe 10,000, of which 5,000 don't even take the positions seriously, just love to troll millennial college "activist" consumer-types. The Clinton speech about the alt-right will have the same effect as Geraldo Rivera's goofy coverage of Neo-nazi skinheads in the 80s - multiplying their n…

It's a small group of maybe 10,000, of which 5,000 don't even take the positions seriously Then why the fuck is anyone talking about them? Is the left really so terrified of taking positions or believing in anything at all that they have to scrape the bottom of the barrel like this for something to talk about?

You make a good point. Usually when somebody attempts to slander someone by saying they are alt right, they are exploiting our lack of awareness of equivocation fallacy.

There's a tiny group of terrible people who happen to also be alt right. We are supposed to associate any person who is labelled "alt right" with that tiny group even if they have nothing significant in common with them.

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

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alt-right is what happened when 4chan trolls, MRAs/PUAs, and Stormfront had a baby called 8chan.net/pol/ It's a small group of maybe 10,000, of which 5,000 don't even take the positions seriously, just love to troll millennial college "activist" consumer-types. The Clinton speech about the alt-right will have the same effect as Geraldo Rivera's goofy coverage of Neo-nazi skinheads in the 80s - multiplying their n…

It's a small group of maybe 10,000, of which 5,000 don't even take the positions seriously Then why the fuck is anyone talking about them? Is the left really so terrified of taking positions or believing in anything at all that they have to scrape the bottom of the barrel like this for something to talk about?

Probably because questioning whether they're really the big boogeyman is enough to mark you as one of them in the core, outspoken, well-connected parts of the left.

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

#134
post #58
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, Wikileaks has become politicized recently. I like to check the comment section on NYTimes and other news sites around election times. They always seem to be far more partisan than usual. Almost like people are whipped up into a frenzy supporting their sports franchise to the point it almost seems fake. Considering there are hundreds of millions of dollars going into either side of the campaign I'd question the…

> Wikileaks has become politicized recently Recently !!!?

It's mad that people aren't aware enough to realize what's going on with them. WikiLeaks must be good at putting out noise.

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

#135
post #57

> 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 know Jake very well, I've worked with him in the past and he has conned me into bailing him out of several situations. I also know a good number of women he has dated, including two ex-gfs of mine. I have little doubt of his guilt. Anybody w…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12452907 and marked it off-topic.

Weird, I don't see this administrative action happening very often. Any statistics on this?

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

#136
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...

> Until a court has convicted Appelbaum of the crime of rape, he is not a rapist.

Let's be clear that there's a vast difference between "a court has not convicted him of that crime" vs "he did not commit that crime". A statement can be factually true, even if you can't prove it in court and thereby you lack a legal defense against defamation.

Legally, I'm defaming Al Capone right now, because was into racketeering. It might be unwise to say that, as it would open me to prosecution, but it's certainly not untrue for that reason. (I've thoughtfully considered the risk, and will accept any libel charges from his estate.)

In any case, were Al Capone still alive, you would have to be a complete idiot to treat him as anything but a gangster. Feel free to extend the analogy on your own, and conclude what you will about the public figures in tech who face several rape accusations.

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

#137
post #85

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.

My point is that they shouldn't delete the viruses though. Someone going through the archives probably won't open a random executable from a zip file they stumble across, but a security researcher might want to examine the kinds of malware the leak subject might be exposed to. This is especially the case given we have no idea how many parties (and which parties) had access to these servers.

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

#138
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should the malware be removed? Going through government email dumps seems like a great way to locate the next stuxnet. If the detection is as easy to automate as you claim, I'm sure the users antiviruses will take care of it.

>Going through government email dumps seems like a great way to locate the next stuxnet. Which, if everyone reading these dumps was a researcher looking for the next stuxnet, would be a good point. But by that rationale, we might as well not bother with security anywhere on the internet just to maximize the chance of an interesting infection. The malware should be removed because it's malware, no other rationale is n…

I'm sure the same people who get infected by spam emails on wikileaks are the same people who have already been infected by spam emails in their own inboxes.

It really doesn't seem to make much of a difference.

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

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could the anti-Hillary agenda simply be that he has leaks on her? The DNC stuff was damning, as was the reaction. (Bad actor resigns, gets immediately hired without reprimand?) He's said negative Trump stuff - how has he been positive there? If someone brought internal Trump emails, do you think WL wouldn't publish them? If this had been flipped, and he had only published anti-Trump stuff, would you be making the sam…

To answer this honestly, I don't know. It would depend on the quality of the data he leaked, and which hostile foreign enemy he sided with against him. On one hand, I have daughters, and don't want misogynistic defenders of rape-culture having any power over them. On the other hand, I care about fairness and justice. On my third hand (yay radiation!), Clinton is an evil sociopath who is bound to be largely ineffectiv…

I have daughters. Both main candidates have daughter(s). Which one is a "misogynistic defenders of rape-culture"? The angry seeming person, or the one that's been somewhat involved in denying rape accusations?

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

#140
post #51
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikileaks' actions this year have done nothing but prove to me that Wikileaks is just another arm of the alt-right. When you add in Julian Assange's antisemitism and lack of respect for women, it all makes sense.

Claiming someone is alt-right is starting to have the feel of McCarthy era claims of communism. We are supposed to associate that label (and thus the person) with the deeply unsavory, without looking at their actual, specific positions and actions.

Alt-right is basically a fancy label for 'outside of the mainstream, doesn't like political correctness and isn't in favour of Clinton' by this point.

It's basically used like the 'Bernie Bros' thing was when he was still running for president. A near meaningless buzzword to insult people the user disagreed with.

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