Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut' • Hacker News Board

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#91

Post by mythz » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 9:33 AM UTC

cmdkeen wrote: post #61

mythz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to believe the Ecuadorian government is complicit with helping a rapist escape justice. Rape allegations also fall neatly into NSA/GCHQ's playbook for character assassinations. Seems more likely the reasons for taking political asylum in a non-US alliance embassy, is, political.

For crying out loud. He went to the UK Supreme Court arguing that he shouldn't have to face extradition and that the crimes he was accused of weren't crimes in the UK and didn't warrant extradition. The Supreme Court disagreed vehemently and he jumped bail before he could be extradited to Sweden.

Which doesn't prove guilt only that he wanted to avoid extradition. If he is innocent and believes the allegations were manufactured whose purpose was to eventually extradite him to the U.S. (plausible given their convenient timing), he'd have every reason to want to avoid extradition.

Assange has always been opened to being questioning over the allegations (within the Embassy) and the Swedish prosecutors only recently agreed to allow him to be interviewed within the Embassy, which is strangely set to happen today (17 October 2016).

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#92

Post by ubernostrum » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 9:35 AM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #15

Oh man! Whats the upcoming Monday Surprise going to be! They have been hyping it up. Leaks for everyone! Freaking leak Christmas over here.

Well, so far we've had shocking revelations -- like the fact that the Clinton campaign pays attention to polls and tries to craft advertising and messaging campaigns to match what likely voters want.

I'm astonished she's still a viable candidate after such unbelievable information was disclosed.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#93

Post by amelius » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 9:43 AM UTC

appleflaxen wrote: post #83

countingteeth wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Bluffing." It takes zero effort to distribute a a few hundred gigabytes of encrypted random data, relative to the amount of investigation and speculation as to what if anything is in those files. They are called "insurance." Assange/Wikileaks wanted to deter actions being taken against him. Seems to me as likely as not that there is nothing really there.

the good news is that you don't even need to encrypt your data, if they are random to start with.

That might be tricky. An encrypted file may have some properties a random file does not have in general.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#94

Post by ebcode » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 9:43 AM UTC

Chris2048 wrote: post #78

Xylakant wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can't all be rapists, right? Why not? Considering that not too long ago it was deemed legal to rape your wife? It's not too long ago that rape wasn't exactly treated as the crime it is now. Without wanting to apologize any of the behavior, it's less than my lifetime ago that the man who took a woman against her will wasn't considered a rapist but rather a role model in large chunks of the population. So yes, it's q…

> wasn't considered a rapist but rather a role model in large chunks of the population Pop history. Be specific (time, place, evidence) or stop with the demon-haunted characterisations of the past.

1. Howard Roarke (The Fountainhead) 1943 Novel

2. Stanley Kowalski (A Streetcar Named Desire) 1947 Play

Just two that spring to mind. I'm sure a diligent person could find plenty of other examples of rapist protagonists in 20th century literature.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#95

Post by JoachimS » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 9:44 AM UTC

seanhunter wrote: post #85

AvenueIngres wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Calm down. No one is saying this is what happened. No need to get on your high horses. 2. At the time the Internet got cut-off it was 6:40am in the UK. Pretty early. 3. The British government has the power to issue DA-notice to media outlets. 4. "Storming" the Ecuadorian embassy would not take a lot of manpower. This isn't a raid of a Mexican cartel. There is no resistance to expect, the adversarial repercussions…

Many people have their internet service go down from time to time (I know I do) and most of the time it isn't caused by state-sponsored action/governments storming their place of residence. I've already said why I think such a storming would provide evidence that even state-sponsored actors would not be able to suppress. The Brompton Road and Sloane street both have plenty of pedestrians and vehicular traffic at 6:40…

Sounds very much more probable.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#96

Post by influx » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 9:44 AM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #92

stale2002 wrote: post #15

Oh man! Whats the upcoming Monday Surprise going to be! They have been hyping it up. Leaks for everyone! Freaking leak Christmas over here.

Well, so far we've had shocking revelations -- like the fact that the Clinton campaign pays attention to polls and tries to craft advertising and messaging campaigns to match what likely voters want. I'm astonished she's still a viable candidate after such unbelievable information was disclosed.

You're right, there's nothing wrong at all in any of those emails. Sure is strange why so many people in the democratic national committee resigned over them.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/dnc-ceo-resigns-amid-t...

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#97

Post by imron » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 9:45 AM UTC

mythz wrote: post #91

cmdkeen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For crying out loud. He went to the UK Supreme Court arguing that he shouldn't have to face extradition and that the crimes he was accused of weren't crimes in the UK and didn't warrant extradition. The Supreme Court disagreed vehemently and he jumped bail before he could be extradited to Sweden.

Which doesn't prove guilt only that he wanted to avoid extradition. If he is innocent and believes the allegations were manufactured whose purpose was to eventually extradite him to the U.S. (plausible given their convenient timing), he'd have every reason to want to avoid extradition. Assange has always been opened to being questioning over the allegations (within the Embassy) and the Swedish prosecutors only recent…

'strangely'. That's some amazing coincidence.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#98

Post by TazeTSchnitzel » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 9:47 AM UTC

mythz wrote: post #91

cmdkeen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For crying out loud. He went to the UK Supreme Court arguing that he shouldn't have to face extradition and that the crimes he was accused of weren't crimes in the UK and didn't warrant extradition. The Supreme Court disagreed vehemently and he jumped bail before he could be extradited to Sweden.

Which doesn't prove guilt only that he wanted to avoid extradition. If he is innocent and believes the allegations were manufactured whose purpose was to eventually extradite him to the U.S. (plausible given their convenient timing), he'd have every reason to want to avoid extradition. Assange has always been opened to being questioning over the allegations (within the Embassy) and the Swedish prosecutors only recent…

The “the rape allegations were made up so Sweden can extradite me to the U.S.” line never made sense. The UK is even friendlier with the US than Sweden is, there's no way he couldn't be extradited from the UK.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#99

Post by imron » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 9:52 AM UTC

Shank wrote: post #2

Seems to me like whichever "state party" this was didn't consider the implications behind their actions. Wikileaks has released insurance files in the past, and I wouldn't be surprised if this doesn't, automatically or not, trigger a dead man's switch for more leaks. If you're a state party trying to prevent leaks, silencing Julian is probably the worst way to go about it. It would be arcane not to think of this scen…

> It would be arcane not to think of this scenario and plan for it.

And following on from this line of thought, it is therefore not unreasonable to conclude that they did think of this scenario, but feel that the risk of calling Assange's bluff (see the speculation that the insurance files are just random data meant to seed misinformation) is less than the risk of whatever they think he knows about them being leaked.

Which makes you wonder, what are they afraid of to consider such action?

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#100

Post by happosai » Mon, Oct 17, 2016, 9:58 AM UTC

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #38

mythz wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which is?

I'm assuming parent is referring to the sexual assault and rape allegations against him. Depending on which side you're on you may believe they're made up charges to get him locked up or you may think he's a criminal hiding from doing said things to multiple women (2 IIRC). FYI, at the moment the statute of limitations have ended for the sexual assaults and the rape statute ends in 2020.

Assanges version is "The rape charges are fake smokescreen used to extradite me to USA via sweden". Now this fails the Occam'ss razor. If USA cared they would extradite Assange directly from UK, Swedish detour adds nothing of value. Only makes things much more complicated. The relationship between UK and USA spooks have much warmer relation than USA and Sweden, and Sweden would still needs UK's permission to to extradite to USA. Wikileaks is now become all about Assanges inflated ego, where he believes world revolves around him and Hillary is personally targeting drones against him. Meanwhile in real world, if Assange weren't, someone else would be publicizing leaks.

The great irony of it all is that Max penalty Assange faces is 6 years in comfy swedish prison. He chooses instead to lock himself in an embassy for 4 years so far...