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3.3 million e-mails between the most powerful men are about to be released.

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Re: 3.3 million e-mails between the most powerful men are about to be released.

#41

Post by grandalf »

DevX101 wrote: post #7

900 upvotes and 92 comments on the reddit thread, yet not one comment that is critical of this action. To release the emails of private individuals and firms without any a priori evidence that they have committed any sort of crime is distasteful to me. It would be unethical if the tables were turned and ordinary citizens were getting their emails released. And its unethical in this case as well, regardless of whether…

My email was obtained, and my credit card #. I used to subscribe to Stratfor to get another (more in-depth, geopolitical) perspective on the news.

Stratfor has sources whose anonymity (like with Wikileaks) is important.

If indeed the breach does reveal people who have helped Stratfor obtain information for its stories, it will be akin to if the group had hacked Wikileaks and outed Bradley Manning before he was caught by the government.

Re: 3.3 million e-mails between the most powerful men are about to be released.

#42

Post by jonshea »

DevX101 wrote: post #7

900 upvotes and 92 comments on the reddit thread, yet not one comment that is critical of this action. To release the emails of private individuals and firms without any a priori evidence that they have committed any sort of crime is distasteful to me. It would be unethical if the tables were turned and ordinary citizens were getting their emails released. And its unethical in this case as well, regardless of whether…

You mean “without any prior evidence”. The phrase “a priori” means “by reason or deduction alone, without empirical evidence”. The phrase “a priori evidence” is an oxymoron.

Re: 3.3 million e-mails between the most powerful men are about to be released.

#43

Post by jonhendry »

Joakal wrote: post #30
DevX101 wrote: post #7

900 upvotes and 92 comments on the reddit thread, yet not one comment that is critical of this action. To release the emails of private individuals and firms without any a priori evidence that they have committed any sort of crime is distasteful to me. It would be unethical if the tables were turned and ordinary citizens were getting their emails released. And its unethical in this case as well, regardless of whether…

1) The Stratfor seems to have an impression of being a media organisation akin to Wikileaks. They talk to many contacts, don't form any policy except stories. They pass the stories onto governments/corporations. 2) An another Anonymous group says it's not them and they don't support it because Stratfor doesn't appear bad 3) That same other Anonymous group also warned that these are probably hacker [agent] provocateur…

" They pass the stories onto governments/corporations."

And non-profits, and NGOs, and humanitarian organizations, who need or want information about places that don't get much coverage in the New York Times until the shit has already hit the fan. Places where maybe they have people working.

Re: 3.3 million e-mails between the most powerful men are about to be released.

#44

Post by sigzero »

DevX101 wrote: post #7

900 upvotes and 92 comments on the reddit thread, yet not one comment that is critical of this action. To release the emails of private individuals and firms without any a priori evidence that they have committed any sort of crime is distasteful to me. It would be unethical if the tables were turned and ordinary citizens were getting their emails released. And its unethical in this case as well, regardless of whether…

I agree totally. Situational ethics abounds it seems.

Re: 3.3 million e-mails between the most powerful men are about to be released.

#45

Post by sigzero »

ge0rg wrote: post #27
mcphilip wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems the same argument you're making about it being distasteful to release the emails without any a priori evidence of wrongdoing could have been applied to the HBGary Federal incident, although Anonymous was provoked in that case since Aaron Barr claimed to be able to expose the "leaders" of the movement. Was it distasteful to leak the 44,000 emails acquired? If so, was the important information gleaned from the…

IMO the problem here is that this leak will probably make whistleblowers easily identifiable, thus causing legal actions against "the good ones" (think Bradley Manning). This makes the case more comparable to the cables (which were filtered before release) than to hbgary.

Bradley Manning was not one of the "good ones". Sorry.

Re: 3.3 million e-mails between the most powerful men are about to be released.

#46

Post by [deleted] »

DevX101 wrote: post #7

900 upvotes and 92 comments on the reddit thread, yet not one comment that is critical of this action. To release the emails of private individuals and firms without any a priori evidence that they have committed any sort of crime is distasteful to me. It would be unethical if the tables were turned and ordinary citizens were getting their emails released. And its unethical in this case as well, regardless of whether…

[deleted]

Re: 3.3 million e-mails between the most powerful men are about to be released.

#47

Post by jonhendry »

danilocampos wrote: post #38
earbitscom wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So funny, I feel the same way about things like TPB, and yet I bet you think shutting them down without a trial is immoral.

> So funny, I feel the same way about things like TPB, and yet I bet you think shutting them down without a trial is immoral. You feel as though "things like the Pirate Bay" are run by people who are so wealthy and powerful that they've completely subverted criminal justice and international law? I had no idea Dick Cheney was running torrent sites. The bit where he sent those stooges to sit in a Swedish court was a n…

If Dick Cheney were running Stratfor, they wouldn't have said that Iraq probably didn't have WMD.

Re: 3.3 million e-mails between the most powerful men are about to be released.

#48

Post by earbitscom »

JonnieCache wrote: post #35
earbitscom wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So funny, I feel the same way about things like TPB, and yet I bet you think shutting them down without a trial is immoral.

and yet I bet you think That seems slightly unfair. Unless of course you've performed a comprehensive background check on danilocampos' comment history. But I bet you haven't ;)

You're right. That's not cool. But I haven't really run into anyone who thinks we should shut down sites without due process, particularly on HN. Even still, I shouldn't jump to conclusions.

Re: 3.3 million e-mails between the most powerful men are about to be released.

#49

Post by drewblaisdell »

earbitscom wrote: post #28
danilocampos wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. You know what? Your position, on paper, makes a lot of sense. At the same time, there are times where you say "eh, fuck it." And this, for me, is one of them. Assume we live in a world where those who have power exist in a sphere of privilege. They enjoy protections from the consequences of their actions. Their influence and connections exempt them from the standard costs of citizenship. If that's the case, if t…

So funny, I feel the same way about things like TPB, and yet I bet you think shutting them down without a trial is immoral.

The Pirate Bay does not exist outside of the confines of due process. It exists only because it is transparent and complies totally with Swedish law.

No one is doing TPB any favors. If anything, it gets more negative attention than it (legally) should.

Re: 3.3 million e-mails between the most powerful men are about to be released.

#50

Post by danilocampos »

jonhendry wrote: post #39
danilocampos wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The dissemination of information? What's wrong with that? ... Nothing at all? It's a simple matter of the type of information they disseminate. A type of information of particular interest to people with skin in the game of world politics. That is, a guy on Stratfor's secret client list probably has much more interesting email to read than a guy working at a Radio Shack in Sarasota, Florida.

"It's a simple matter of the type of information they disseminate. " And that type of information is? You seem to be one of the people assuming Stratfor is some kind of Blackwater intelligence company. They aren't.

> And that type of information is? You seem to be one of the people assuming Stratfor is some kind of Blackwater intelligence company. They aren't.

Oh, thanks so much, jonhendry! I really appreciate your filling me in. Reading America's Secret War, by Stratfor's founder, had left me entirely in the dark about their mission and capabilities until this very moment. I stand enlightened.

The fact remains, the sort of person who is emailing high-level folk at Stratfor either knows things or wants to know things of geopolitical importance. A source with a compelling piece of data the public doesn't know about, perhaps. Or a business tycoon with a question that, knowing it was asked, completely invalidates the public narrative that company had spun.

So if your mission is to get access to data about how people are running the world, a great place to start is a private global intelligence firm.

No one is saying they're not allowed to do what they're doing. Only that "trades emails with a private intelligence analysts" is probably going to be a pretty good proxy for "has interesting, secret shit to talk about."

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