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Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

bbc.co.uk

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

#101
post #87
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He needs good friends who host VPNs for him then the state actors would just bug that good friend.

which would require infecting the VPN machines themselves? Just wiretapping isn't sufficient because of public key encryption Assuming the nodes themselves are not compromised (big ask) and identity can be confirmed(like via key exchange), state actors can listen as much as they want to the wires, they won't be getting much. Except if some private key were out there...

What if they are able to wiretap the traffic exiting the VPN server. With the help of the server ISP for example ?

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

#102
post #44
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What it would confirm is that Assange has made himself more trouble than he is worth the the Ecuadorian's and they have decided to simply kick him out of their embassy. They have no moral obligation to continue providing shelter for someone who thinks their protection is some untouchable perch from which to play political games and are simply asking them to leave. Assange is that guy you once knew from high school wh…

I think if this election cycle has taught us anything, it's that allegations of the worst kind can be created for political reasons. Surely Bill Clinton AND Donald Trump AND Julian Assange AND Anthony Weiner can't all be rapists, right? What kind of a world do we live in if they all are?!

Are you being obtuse ? Of course they can.

People in positions of power often feel like they can get away with sexually aggressive behaviour. Just like Trump unequivocally stated on tape. And you have selectively chosen a handful there but there a lot of politicians e.g. Obama, Bernie, Biden, Ryan, Romney etc who haven't had charges of rape labelled against them.

And remember there are many successful leaders, visionaries and pillars of society with fatal personality flaws. You only have to look at Trump using the argument that "she was ugly" to dispute a rape charge as an example of this.

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

#103
post #91
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…

If he is guilty he also has every reason to avoid extradition - there are plenty of possible motivations. Regardless of what he believes criminal complaints have been made and demonstrated, to the satisfaction of the highest court in the UK, that he has a case to answer in Sweden and that justice is best served by extraditing him. Questioning him in the Embassy does nothing to mean that he would be available to be tried in Sweden, that is a simple enough reason for Sweden to want to question him in Sweden.

To add - the Swedish Supreme Court has also ruled against him last year, and a Swedish court in September ruled against him as well following the UN report. That is an awful lot of court rulings against him...

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

#104

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.

Pop history in particular artistic works are reflective of society.

Look at early Bond movies for example. Quite a lot of behaviour in those movies would be considered sexual assault if happened today.

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

#105
post #43

A little more unsubstantiated info from Reddit [0]. [0] https://np.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/57vu5l/red_alert...

Don't forget this is the subreddit that has believed every bizarre, alt-right conspiracy theory under the sun. You do nothing but make yourself look ridiculous posting that nonsense.

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

#106

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…

> 3. The British government has the power to issue DA-notice to media outlets. Surely they can suppress all blogs and all of twitter and facebook at the same time. Oh, hold - why didn't they suppress the tweet we're discussing. > 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 would be diploma…

Firstly D-notices are only advisory, while the media tend to comply with them they are in no way legally enforceable.

Secondly central London has rather good wifi and 4G coverage. Presumably the "appropriate contingency plans" are to switch his phone's personal hotspot on and carry on as normal. Though there might be a nasty phone bill coming down the line.

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

#108
post #22
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given current trends with Wikileaks-distributed Russian intel dumps, the upcoming 'surprise' will be another big fat nothing-burger. Most likely case is that Assange went a step too far in using the Ecuadorian's hospitality just to become a Russian cut-out and at some point his ongoing attempts to influence the election (and failing miserably at that) reminded the Ecuadorians that they were gaining nothing by hosting…

> Russian intel dumps Has there been any evidence of this yet? I trust the government and main stream media to accurately report the geographic source of technical transactions about as much as I trust Facebook with privacy.

There is no hard evidence that Russia is involved. Representatives of well-known internet security firms have stated that they believe the attack comes from the Russian government, but have nothing to provide other than their professional opinion (which is not based on specific data afaik).

The Russia myth comes from everyone repeating each other and pretending like it's fact. I don't really think Americans think of Russia as the big boogeyman anymore so that whole propaganda spiel is of dubious advisability.

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

#109
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Russian intel dumps Has there been any evidence of this yet? I trust the government and main stream media to accurately report the geographic source of technical transactions about as much as I trust Facebook with privacy.

There is no hard evidence that Russia is involved. Representatives of well-known internet security firms have stated that they believe the attack comes from the Russian government, but have nothing to provide other than their professional opinion (which is not based on specific data afaik). The Russia myth comes from everyone repeating each other and pretending like it's fact. I don't really think Americans think of…

It's not just company reps, the US government issued a statement to the effect:

https://www.dhs.gov/node/23199

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

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no hard evidence that Russia is involved. Representatives of well-known internet security firms have stated that they believe the attack comes from the Russian government, but have nothing to provide other than their professional opinion (which is not based on specific data afaik). The Russia myth comes from everyone repeating each other and pretending like it's fact. I don't really think Americans think of…

It's not just company reps, the US government issued a statement to the effect: https://www.dhs.gov/node/23199

Yeah, the unifying theory here is that they're all taking orders from the administration and pushing the baseless narrative that Russia is the source of everything anti-Clinton to try to discredit all of the dirt that's out there on her. It's no surprise that the government is following its own orders.

I think they also do this because they don't want people to know how simple it is to conduct this kind of cyberattack. If they tell everyone you have to have your own KGB to do it, there will be less people looking into it. I believe this same strategy is why North Korea was blamed for the Sony Pictures leak.

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