Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy • Hacker News Board

Re: Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

#81

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 9:29 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #66

chx wrote: post #12

How ... convenient all of Wikileaks were damaging to the government of the USA and somehow never to the government of Russia. And, of course, Mr Assange had his show on RT (Russia Today). No way he is a Russian agent. No way.

No, he definitely wasn't/isn't a Russian agent. You'd have known because then he would have fled to the Russian embassy instead. Assange basically did what he could to damage the interests of the USA, and probably succeeded wildly beyond his dreams. He's made a whole bunch of stupid calls and he's blown his own credibility and that of WikiLeaks by showing an overt agenda instead of just being a 'dumb pipe'. Funny tho…

> No, he definitely wasn't/isn't a Russian agent. You'd have known because then he would have fled to the Russian embassy instead.

If Assange is a Russian asset, he is one that it is critical for Russia to conceal it's connection to if he is to continue to have value. Not running to Russia's embassy has helped him continue to spread propaganda that serves Russian interests, so it's not incompatible with him being an (even actively managed) Russian asset.

Re: Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

#82

Post by Sangermaine » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 9:31 PM UTC

Sag0Sag0 wrote: post #78

Sangermaine wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concern isn't fabrication. The concern is that the information is being intentionally selectively provided to influence events.

How terrible. They’re telling us the truth at inconvenient times. Disgusting.

No, they're telling us selective elements of the truth (e.g., releasing only information on one political party during an election to sway that election) to destabilize our society and government to increase their own power and shield themselves from scrutiny and criticism. Yes, that is pretty disgusting.

Re: Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

#83

Post by dleslie » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 9:32 PM UTC

alasdair_ wrote: post #47

dleslie wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two books from his earlier self, Cypherpunks and When Google Met Wikileaks, are well worth the read for anyone who comments here on HN, I think. I agree, he changed dramatically sometime around or during the Trump campaign; I hardly recognize him any longer.

When he disappeared from view for a few weeks before the election and the wikileaks twitter drastically changed tone was what did it for me. There was something really weird going on there - as an example, the twitter refused to sign anything with their public key to prove it was still controlled by the same group.

I suspect that at some point he met the nasty end of a rubber hose.

Re: Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

#84

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 9:34 PM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #80

chx wrote: post #12

How ... convenient all of Wikileaks were damaging to the government of the USA and somehow never to the government of Russia. And, of course, Mr Assange had his show on RT (Russia Today). No way he is a Russian agent. No way.

You realize that they can only release what is given to them, right? This criticism only makes sense if they are sitting on a pile of leaked material that is unflattering Russia. There’s no reason to believe that is the case.

> You realize that they can only release what is given to them, right?

So, you mean, WikiLeaks is merely a useful-but-innocent tool of Russian intelligence, rather than an active collaborator?

Re: Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

#85

Post by crdoconnor » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 9:35 PM UTC

Sangermaine wrote: post #26

tway923423 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But to say it doesn't matter where a leak came from, is to also say that whistleblowers are no different from foreign spies. Well I guess we have to agree to disagree then. If a "foreign spy" reports that Dow Checmial is dumping pollution in the river, I'm gonna question Dow first, not the spy.

You're being either extremely naive or intentionally obtuse. No one is saying the information is false or should be ignored. To use your example, if there were reason to believe that this spy was revealing this information on behalf of Dow's competitors to influence the market and shield/draw attention away from their own malfeasance, that's a concern. The source and the intent of the source does actually matter.

>No one is saying the information is false or should be ignored.

That was precisely the intention behind characterizing Assange as a Russian spy during the election.

Re: Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

#86

Post by avs733 » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 9:35 PM UTC

tonysdg wrote: post #71

CNJ7654 wrote: post #41

Here's the plan. We form a large enough mob of people who are dressed to look exactly like Assange (wigs and all), then he can just run into the mob and disperse, make contact with sympathizers, and flee to a less oppressive country.

Isn't that basically what they did in Atomic Blonde with the crowd and the umbrellas?

Yes but real police are generally superior to movie police.

They are also a much better shot than crime movies would lead you to believe.

Re: Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

#87

Post by grzm » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 9:36 PM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #80

chx wrote: post #12

How ... convenient all of Wikileaks were damaging to the government of the USA and somehow never to the government of Russia. And, of course, Mr Assange had his show on RT (Russia Today). No way he is a Russian agent. No way.

You realize that they can only release what is given to them, right? This criticism only makes sense if they are sitting on a pile of leaked material that is unflattering Russia. There’s no reason to believe that is the case.

Once you start down this hole it can be hard to know what to believe by it's very nature. Hard evidence is hard to come by, and absolutes like "no reason to believe" become hard to justify. There are at least some reports that Assange turned down leaks related to the Kremlin.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-le...

Re: Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

#88

Post by avs733 » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 9:37 PM UTC

drinchev wrote: post #9

> The move came after Assange tweeted on Monday challenging Britain’s accusation that Russia was responsible for the nerve agent poisoning of a Russian former double agent and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury earlier this month. So it's actually not so wrong to think that Russia is not >proven I doubt that here, on HN, most of us would go so deep with conspiracy, but rational thinking did not lead me to…

>I doubt that here, on HN, most of us would go so deep with conspiracy, but rational thinking did not lead me to the conclusion that Putin is responsible this time.

Please lay out evidence supporting this claim. Given you're being rational about it, you should be able to do so.

Re: Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

#89

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 9:39 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #81

jacquesm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, he definitely wasn't/isn't a Russian agent. You'd have known because then he would have fled to the Russian embassy instead. Assange basically did what he could to damage the interests of the USA, and probably succeeded wildly beyond his dreams. He's made a whole bunch of stupid calls and he's blown his own credibility and that of WikiLeaks by showing an overt agenda instead of just being a 'dumb pipe'. Funny tho…

> No, he definitely wasn't/isn't a Russian agent. You'd have known because then he would have fled to the Russian embassy instead. If Assange is a Russian asset, he is one that it is critical for Russia to conceal it's connection to if he is to continue to have value. Not running to Russia's embassy has helped him continue to spread propaganda that serves Russian interests, so it's not incompatible with him being an…

Sure, but it overcomplicates something that doesn't need to be made more complicated to be understood. If the simplest explanation works then that is usually the right one.

In this case: Assange/WikiLeaks have an agenda: to hit America where it hurts, by exposing their actions on the world stage and by creating as big a rift between the different political sides in the United States as they could manage. In that they are no different from Al Queada or the Russians, their goals align and so you get some pretty strange bedfellows.

Assange is a 'useful idiot' to Russia when he's go between for content hacked from US servers by the Russians that they can't be seen to release directly.

I agree with you that it is not incompatible but it is too paranoid for me to take into account until there is some actual proof. He could be a double agent too, he could be anything. But my money is on him being an idealistic, narcissistic hacker with a political agenda that amounts to 'Reduce American Influence in any way possible'. And if that involves cooperating with the Russians (knowingly or otherwise) that does not necessarily mean he is a Russian agent.

By contrast, Paul Manafort, who made many millions of dollars working for the Russians and who has his hands all over the 2016 election cycle and the damage done to Ukraine to me would qualify as a Russian agent.

I'm pretty sure if there was any proof that Assange was an actual Russian agent it would have been used to pressure Ecuador to turn him over since the Ecuadorians would definitely not want to be seen as 'harboring a Russian agent' versus 'harboring a left wing anti-American hacker'. The former doesn't play nearly as good at the home front as the latter.

Re: Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy

#90

Post by dleslie » Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 9:41 PM UTC

XorNot wrote: post #61

roenxi wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the Russian wetworks division, under Putin's authority, has its fingerprints all over the Salisbury attack. There is strong circumstantial evidence, but proof is a slightly different game. It would be nice, for example, to have a clear motive for why Russia might have poisoned the man. According to the wiki article the Russian justice system had sentenced him to 13 years in a penal colony in 2006, and then hand…

An assassination attempt is made with a nerve gas only Russia is known to have been developing and suddenly we should give them the benefit of the doubt? Seriously? After they did the exact same thing already, in the same country, with polonium?

It's sort of a weird story, on the one hand it's apparently not hard to make and it's been known about for some time[0], and it has a clearly Russian name with a clearly Russian pedigree. It makes for a poor assassination agent if you care about being traced.

On the other hand, having a clearly Russian pedigree may be precisely the reason it was used; either to send a strong message to would-be dissenters in the Russian intelligence sphere or to make it look like a Russian hit.

Spooks doing what spooks do, it seems.

0: https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/556148/