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

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

#51

Post by libraryatnight » Wed, Dec 28, 2011, 11:53 PM UTC

earbitscom wrote: post #40

danilocampos wrote: post #38

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. 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…

No, I feel "They enjoy protections from the consequences of their actions," and, "if these people exist outside of due process, what's left?"

They enjoy protections provided by operating in a country where their site is legal. They're not operating outside due process.

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

#52

Post by lallysingh » Wed, Dec 28, 2011, 11:54 PM UTC

grandalf wrote: post #41

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…

Yeah, same here -- I'm a subscriber too.

But, Manning got caught b/c he bragged to someone who turned him in. I don't think Wikileaks was hacked.

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

#53

Post by electromagnetic » Wed, Dec 28, 2011, 11:56 PM UTC

angersock wrote: post #20

danilocampos wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would be unethical if a company properly secured their servers. My guess is that this is the root. It's unethical for you to walk into my house and read my mail regardless of whether I locked the door that morning or not. I'm not losing any sleep over this particular leak, just saying, what I quoted is probably their beef.

I mean, that's an interesting question, right? I've copied the information in your mail to myself without harming the original. If I burned your letter, I've absolutely committed a wrong, but I didn't do that. If you fail to lock your door, you are in effect allowing this possibility. If you communicate over a "clear" channel, without taking steps to encrypt that data, you are again allowing this. That's why I don't…

> I've copied the information in your mail to myself without harming the original.

If you opened mail from my physical mailbox, you'd have committed the federal crime of mail tampering, which faces a fine and/or jail time. If you opened 3.3 million letters from my mail box, you'd probably be the first person to live the remainder of their life in jail for mail tampering... regardless of your age.

My mail is stored in an easily accessible box at the end of my driveway. If it has any form of lock, you're committing a much more serious crime. When you're hacking into a passworded system to steal email, your crime should be treated with just severity. Not only should it be regarded as committing a federal crime, but there should be charges for breaking the lock too (I'm against the DMCA's whole copyright circumvention bullshit, because it hurts the little guy. But no protection against email fraud hurts the little guy.)

> If you fail to lock your door, you are in effect allowing this possibility. If you communicate over a "clear" channel, without taking steps to encrypt that data, you are again allowing this. That's why I don't view this as a valid moral claim.

If I fail to lock my door, it's still immoral to enter my property and steal everything. Just as it's immoral to enter my unlockable mailbox and steal my mail. If you don't find it immoral for someone else to read your mail then honestly you should have no qualms with posting the entire contents of all your email addresses online for us to scrutinize as well.

If there's no immorality about stealing a corporations emails, containing hundreds or thousands of peoples personal emails and information then you should have no morality problems about HN trawling your own emails.

Regardless of if I lock my door or not, I have a right not to have my property looted. Regardless of if I use a strong or weak password for my email, I have the right to not have my property looted.

My problem with this world is people like you, who will be the first to scream fucking murder when some trivial wrong happens to you but you claim everyone else has no moral claim for not doing everything you deem appropriate. Get off your fucking high horse and learn the god damn definition of morals because at least knowing the definition might help you find a set.

I'm giving myself a 99% chance of being down voted, but put your money where your mouth is. I want to see your goddamn emails.

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

#54

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 28, 2011, 11:58 PM UTC

jonshea wrote: post #42

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.

[deleted]

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

#55

Post by danilocampos » Thu, Dec 29, 2011, 12:00 AM UTC

jonhendry wrote: post #47

danilocampos wrote: post #38

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. 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.

Get off this, dude, no one thinks Dick Cheney's running Stratfor. I bet he has friends on their client list, though.

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

#56

Post by jonhendry » Thu, Dec 29, 2011, 12:02 AM UTC

danilocampos wrote: post #50

jonhendry wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 pe…

"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."

If you read it, what makes you think Dick Cheney would be involved? The book apparently contradicts everything the neocons stood for. Cheney would probably prefer that Stratfor were shut down, so that he could control the flow of information.

"No one is saying they're not allowed to do what they're doing."

Really? People are tossing around the word 'evil', but they should be allowed to keep doing it?

"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.""

Ah, so you've gone from justifying it by saying they're evil and up to no good, to justifying it by saying they merely have interesting, secret shit to talk about.

Lots of people have interesting, secret shit to talk about.

So basically it's really just a voyeuristic thing for you and the moralizing is a pose.

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

#57

Post by danilocampos » Thu, Dec 29, 2011, 12:06 AM UTC

jonhendry wrote: post #56

danilocampos wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 pe…

"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." If you read it, what makes you think Dick Cheney would be involved? The book apparently contradicts everything the neocons stood for. Cheney would probably prefer that Stratfor were shut down, so that he could control the flow of information. "No one…

> If you read it, what makes you think Dick Cheney would be involved?

Nothing. Good luck finding anything where I say "Dick Cheney is involved with the operations of Stratfor."

> Ah, so you've gone from justifying it by saying they're evil and up to no good, to justifying it by saying they merely have interesting, secret shit to talk about.

When I say interesting in the context of "how people are running the world," I mean interesting as in "lied to the public about an issue of global importance."

> So basically it's really just a voyeuristic thing for you and the moralizing is a pose.

Nope. I doubt I'm going to read any of what's leaked.

It's just my fervent hope that one of these days a leak can begin to remedy the sorts of injustice that only the well-moneyed and well-connected can perpetrate with impunity. Any entity that needs Stratfor's analysis of global events and decisions seems like a reasonable candidate to deliver an important payload in such a leak.

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

#58

Post by jaylevitt » Thu, Dec 29, 2011, 12:12 AM UTC

jonhendry wrote: post #32

earbitscom wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The post was clear that they did not do this to prove the security flaws. They did it because they believe this information should be made public for the good of the public. Nearly everyone in this forum opposes SOPA's attempt to shut down websites without a trial. Effectively subpoenaing private communication between suspected criminals without a court order and making those emails public requires much the same infr…

" "Do I approve of private citizens and organizations taking actions such as these if they believe they're helping fight crime?"" Crime? If every fringe nutcase gets to decide what is crime, and act on that, then it's likely you've committed somebody's idea of a crime, and so has everyone else. So far the accusations of Stratfor's evil have been about as meaningful as the British people who threatened a pediatrician,…

I think you're in violent agreement, and that this was the point of "if THEY believe they're helping fight crime".

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

#59

Post by steve8918 » Thu, Dec 29, 2011, 12:15 AM UTC

jonhendry wrote: post #43

Joakal wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And regular folks like me who are willing to pay ~100/yr for indepth, unbiased news reporting that you can't find anywhere else because it doesn't concern Kim Kardashian or Lindsay Lohan.

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

#60

Post by ge0rg » Thu, Dec 29, 2011, 12:18 AM UTC

sigzero wrote: post #45

ge0rg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I yield to your well-founded argument.

P.S: I consider publication of information about war cruelty and international political pressure as benefiting for mankind, ethically good and thus conforming to the "hacker ethics".