Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wikileaks publishes 500k new Stratfor emails

search.wikileaks.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 193 posts

Re: Wikileaks publishes 500k new Stratfor emails

#71

Post by eruditely »

monsterix wrote: post #50
dandelany wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "these kinds of people"? Greedy people? People who say things that are tasteless and mean? I'm pretty sure there's no law against any of that. Please enlighten me re: the law they've broken, otherwise I hope you can see the inherent irony in your statement... edit: I'm not being ornery, I'm really actually curious what people think they should go to prison for. Tastelessness != criminality.

> I'm pretty sure there's no law against any of that. Agreed. Unfortunately there is no recourse until a power center rises elsewhere. They say written history would have been very different in case Germany had won their war.

No I don't really think it would be. I doubt it would have been in recent history after Germans won either, and even if it did dynasties fall. "History is written by the victors" denies the fact that even the victors have their doubts, internal doubts, and some after reflection regret.

Re: Wikileaks publishes 500k new Stratfor emails

#72

Post by ak217 »

sliverstorm wrote: post #68
brymaster wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it does matter. The right thing to do is transparency and that's what's happening here. If Bad Person & Associates are doing evil, they're not going to get a break just because their messages also contain personal love letters.

What great evil, exactly, has been done?

See post by kid0m4n below. It's the worst kind of evil: warmongering.

I had a much better opinion of Stratfor until now. They were plotting how to best sell misinformation. Misinformation that could start a war in which millions could die. They thought they could get away with this shit.

Re: Wikileaks publishes 500k new Stratfor emails

#73

Post by eli »

joshfraser wrote: post #46

It's a weird feeling reading other people's email. I'm sad to see Wikileaks didn't at least do a quick regex pass to remove the credit cards (yup, found some) and the personal love notes. I'm generally a supporter of Wikileaks, but mass dumps like this aren't responsible and only give more ammunition to their detractors.

I think that feeling is guilt.

Re: Wikileaks publishes 500k new Stratfor emails

#74

Post by lukeschlather »

cheald wrote: post #26
jlgreco wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any chance they could get you for downloading copyrighted emails without a license?

IANAL, but copyright violations almost always have to do with distribution rather than downloads. They get P2P users on the technicality that to download, you also end up uploading.

That's not a technicality, and with most clients (e.g. BitTorrent) it's quite possible to download without uploading. There's a fair amount of work focused around penalizing people for downloading without uploading.

All I really torrent anymore is Linux images, and there I usually find I can't seed more than I download if I try.

Re: Wikileaks publishes 500k new Stratfor emails

#75

Post by legutierr »

dandelany wrote: post #64
brymaster wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These "people" are looking to profit from misery ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6742844 ). Wikileaks is attempting to provide transparency in a world where that doesn't much exist so boo-fucking-hoo if somebody's Mastercard gets leaked in the process. Mass dumps aren't adding any more "ammunition" for their detractors than some sort of filtered dump would. Detractors don't need much of a reason to dislike wha…

You know who else profits from misery? Doctors, and funeral home owners. Pretty much anyone in the media. I certainly hope my doctor isn't making terrible jokes about how much money he's going to make from my disease, but even if he was, it wouldn't be illegal nor would I find it a justifiable reason to leak his personal information (let alone his clients' information!). You also assume everyone is already split into…

I might suggest that doctors and funeral home owners profit by alleviating the misery of others.

Re: Wikileaks publishes 500k new Stratfor emails

#76

Post by loceng »

dandelany wrote: post #61
loceng wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws are made up by humans - we could create laws that disallow this kind of behaviour, it's a bit surprising that it's not, no? Oh wait, the for-profit military-industrial complex lobbies politicians who are pro-war ...

Again, what kind of behavior are you talking about? Are you seriously suggesting we pass laws prohibiting saying things that you find objectionable, tasteless or greedy? In a thread defending a whistleblower's free speech?

No, the action of selling weapons to both sides is much different than someone simply talking about it. Giving someone the ability to make money selling weapons has its own problems - which will incentivize those people who are looking to make profit do things they wouldn't normally otherwise do, and then worse - if they have the ability to sell weapons to both sides of a battle or war, what might they be willing to do in order to incite violence of one party against another? Do you not see a problem with this?

Re: Wikileaks publishes 500k new Stratfor emails

#77

Post by legutierr »

sliverstorm wrote: post #68
brymaster wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it does matter. The right thing to do is transparency and that's what's happening here. If Bad Person & Associates are doing evil, they're not going to get a break just because their messages also contain personal love letters.

What great evil, exactly, has been done?

"War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone but affect the whole world.

"To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from the other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

Re: Wikileaks publishes 500k new Stratfor emails

#78

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

joshfraser wrote: post #46

It's a weird feeling reading other people's email. I'm sad to see Wikileaks didn't at least do a quick regex pass to remove the credit cards (yup, found some) and the personal love notes. I'm generally a supporter of Wikileaks, but mass dumps like this aren't responsible and only give more ammunition to their detractors.

It has been quite long enough since the Stratfor data breach for the CC companies to close & reissue new card numbers. This is much ado about nothing.

Re: Wikileaks publishes 500k new Stratfor emails

#79

Post by dandelany »

loceng wrote: post #76
dandelany wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, what kind of behavior are you talking about? Are you seriously suggesting we pass laws prohibiting saying things that you find objectionable, tasteless or greedy? In a thread defending a whistleblower's free speech?

No, the action of selling weapons to both sides is much different than someone simply talking about it. Giving someone the ability to make money selling weapons has its own problems - which will incentivize those people who are looking to make profit do things they wouldn't normally otherwise do, and then worse - if they have the ability to sell weapons to both sides of a battle or war, what might they be willing to…

Please do some research before you make accusations like this. I have seen zero evidence that they're involved in the arms trade whatsoever. Your conclusion to the contrary is based on a misreading of a bad joke taken out of context. See my other comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6743185
Post reply on HN