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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.

#121
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…

I like how people blame agent provacateurs when someone on their side does something wrong.

Not to defend the practice of claiming sabotage or subterfuge when accused, but it's a time-honored tradition held by all "sides," including the likes of the RIAA/MPAA, governments, etc.

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

#122
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…

In my opinion, just like politicians are worthy of public scrutiny, the people in power should be too. If a person's actions and views affect population, they should be known to the people who it effects.

Having said that, it becomes difficult to draw the line. Stuff like this does have potential to create anarchy, which doesn't benefit anyone.

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

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Right, yes, it's illegal , but that's more an accident of legislature than anything else. Don't pretend…

Jesus dude stop fucking trolling. Mail tampering isn't illegal through an accident of legislature, it's illegal because even a hundred years ago they realised its a serious deal. As long as I only copy your social insurance number, credit card numbers, banking information, etc, what does it matter? I'm just copying!

Reading between the lines, I gather that angersock's underlying point was just that technological solutions are superior to legislative solutions, with the twist that technical capability equals moral acceptability. Apologies to angersock if I interpreted incorrectly.

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

#124
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"On the other hand, because of Strafor's mission" The dissemination of information? What's wrong with that?

I still don't get what was wrong with Stratefor. I subscribed to their newsletter a long time ago and the content was somewhat on the Foreign Affairs magazine level. Sure, some military and secret service personal were among the subscribers, but they are most likely among the subscribers of the Wired magazine as well. I am truly looking forward to the email leak and what kind of secret in formations they are able to…

Stratfor was essentially labeled as a form of collateral damage. The self-described Anon spokesperson basically said they weren't one of the "offenders" but were "of interest".

I don't feel sold on the merits of going after Stratfor - it's almost as if it was merely a convenient and vulnerable target. It's not too hard to envision just about any company or organization being targeted because of some vague affiliation or "interest".

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

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Powerful actors must be held accountable for the use of their action. To believe otherwise means that might makes right. Private actors, whether they be firms or well-connected individuals are (and always have) attempted to influence those holding power. It is in the public interest to expose power and influence-mongering. Government, by virtue of its power over individual citizens needs to be held to a higher standa…

So hack lobbyists. Hack Halliburton. Hack Wall Street. Hack the MPAA. But Stratfor? One of the highest quality unbiased news sources available to the public? One of the only news outlets free from mainstream media spin, with a fanatical devotion to a just-the-facts reporting style?

Yours is the first post on the topic to make me think that the _agent_provocateur_ accusation might in fact be true.

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

#126
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What they could, and are discussing doing, is defining Hacking as terrorism. I heard this from my own congressman's mouth and that's why this scares me. Because there were a log of Senators and Congressman subscribed to Stratfor and this is exactly the type of incident that might push them to act. I'm not a US citizen and I don't live in the States, even though I am a huge admirer of how your political system was f…

He's not saying he's scared of "terrorism", he's scared that they'll call it terrorism and use it as a club against People They Don't Like.

English is my mother tongue, but that's what I wanted to say, actually, that we shouldn't be afraid of people tagging random stuff as "terrorism", we should do something about it, otherwise we're just potatoes or vegetables waiting for bad things to happen.

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

#127
I have higher hopes for hacker news. There is more to this than the morality of publishing emails.

http://pastebin.com/8yrwyNkt

Specifically, of interest (at least to me), as the post claims that Stratfor themselves said this (I haven't actually checked/found external verification, please post URL if you do): "In the past month Stratfor has drawn attention to a carefully assembled open-source report that asserted that last month's attack on Iraq wasn't intended just to punish Saddam Hussein for blowing off U.N. weapons inspectors. By sorting through thousands of pieces of publicly available data--from Middle East newspapers to Iraqi-dissident news--Stratfor analysts developed a theory that the attacks were actually designed to mask a failed U.S.-backed coup. In two striking, contrarian intelligence briefs released on the Internet on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, Stratfor argued that Saddam's lightning restructuring of the Iraqi military, followed by executions of the army's Third Corps commanders, was evidence that the coup had been suppressed. Predictably, U.S. officials said the report was wrong."

Is everyone here happy with the claim that Anonymous hacked in and copied emails; is it too hard to imagine that it's a false flag op? Neither side can prove themselves, that is true, but there should be more trepidation before making claims or assuming we are being handed the truth.

Also, take a look at http://anonanalytics.com/ if you haven't, the PDF they published recently is a pretty good read. That's a faction of Anon that I have high hopes for.

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

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The parent didn't state that about Manning. He wrote "if".

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

#129
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…

This is due to one of my least favorite traits about reddit: the hivemind criminalizes the rich and powerful by defining them as naturally evil. I don't know how this mindset got started on reddit; I would love to find out. It seems to be their way of justifying being middle/lower class by saying the reason the rich/powerful succeed is due the rich/powerful not having a heart and gaming people of their money.

It's called tall poppy syndrome.
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