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Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

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Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#241

Post by TomMarius »

wonderwonder wrote: post #198
0x8BADF00D wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a public figure you cannot have any reasonable expectation of privacy. That’s different from saying what should be done with his private medical records.

That makes no sense, he is not a publicly elected official where disclosing health issues is expected. He is a private citizen running a company, the fact that the company is popular and successful should have no bearing at all. Should everyone who starts a company expect to lose all privacy especially health related, or only those that are successful above a set threshold?

It should definitely be on your list of considerations. It's the sad reality.

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#242

Post by henearkr »

umvi wrote: post #221
henearkr wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an easy one, because spying on France industrial or state secrets by foreign powers happens all the time. For example: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/09/27/business/hacker... So, to answer your question: they do not try to extradite the foreign operators responsible to the leaks, and they do everything to strengthen their IT security. Also, they possibly build or reinforce their cyber-defense team to c…

> So, to answer your question: they do not try to extradite the foreign operators responsible to the leaks Do you think that would change if they had more power? It's like criticizing the response of a super corporation like Microsoft and saying a smaller company like GitLab handles the same scenario better. Probably true, but also if you scaled GitLab to the size and power of Microsoft, maybe they would've had a dif…

I honestly don't know. It really is very difficult to resist the temptation to misuse power, when a lot of it is concentrated in one's hands.

On the other hand, let's analyse:

- on the "means" side: France certainly has a lot of military power. It does drone-killing of terrorist heads in African Sahel. It launches successful intelligence operations abroad. It also succeeds to counter foreign agents on its own soil (ref the identification in 2018 of a GRU cell in France). It has a very solid cyber-defense.

Also, between strengthening the IT, cyber-army, and intelligence services, and just extraditing journalists after-the-fact (or, imagine, abduct them, drone-kill them, etc), which is most resource-intensive? As an engineer, you know that the part where you develop your own system to be more robust and more capable is harder than just band-aid retaliation around past mistakes.

Guess what, US is doing both, so it's seat-belt and airbag at the same time. Very great, France is doing only seat-belt.

- on the "results" side: France tries (currently) to preserve its image, to appear as "good" (not judging if that's true), by playing by the rules internationally, fighting great causes, etc. Whereas US soft power took a huge tall in its (indirect) handling of Assange case. It is now seen as more "evil" as before. More people, especially a lot of intelligent people, are despising US more.

So, supposing the overflow of power hasn't busted the brains out of the government, they should be weighting means and results, and decide in consequence.

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#243

Post by FireBeyond »

dijit wrote: post #212
dx87 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's this from the top level comment. > Stand up for journalists. Real journalists. I wouldn't think that "Real journalists" would selectively choose what to report based on who their friends are.

I want to downvote this for having loaded controversial commentary, but I can't as it's a direct reply. "who their friends are" is an uncharitable interpretation of the situation. You might not like that they didn't report on some information that was Russian, but to assume it's due to friendly relations and not fear of reprisal is spinning a narrative. Just as asserting the exact inverse is also spinning a narrative…

> not fear of reprisal is spinning a narrative

I don't simultaneously fear reprisal _while_ reaching out to Russians for help and assistance.

I don't simultaneously fear reprisal _while_ reaching out to the Trump campaign to coordinate the release of leaks.

I don't simultaneously fear reprisal from a country _while_ seeking asylum in that country.

"fear of reprisal" would be the first time I've heard _that_ particular narrative being spun.

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#244

Post by pc86 »

ShamelessC wrote: post #95
nickysielicki wrote: post #18

> In 2012, Assange communicated directly with a leader of the hacking group LulzSec (who by then was cooperating with the FBI), and provided a list of targets for LulzSec to hack. With respect to one target, Assange asked the LulzSec leader to look for (and provide to WikiLeaks) mail and documents, databases and pdfs. In another communication, Assange told the LulzSec leader that the most impactful release of hacked…

I'm generally on Assange's side in all of this. I agree he shouldn't be charged and this is all a disgrace. Having said that, I once went to wikileaks and found a PDF of Steve Job's supposed STD test which claimed he was HIV positive. That was a surprise to me as my understanding was that he died of cancer. I looked into it and no one could corroborate the story and the general consensus seemed to be that it was fake…

No reasonable person can believe that leaking this kind of information (regardless of [in]accuracy) is appropriate.

HIPAA (1994) enshrined legally what is one of the few moral absolutes in healthcare - your health issues are nobody else's business with few caveats. HIV is reported to the government. Knowingly infecting someone with HIV is a crime. The reasonable safeguards are there and dumping someone's records does nothing to make anyone safer.

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#245

Post by onetimemanytime »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #176
onetimemanytime wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I hope people don't forget that Wikileaks has never published anything that has been proven false. Not once. Assuming what you said is true, don't you think that some things should be secret, at least for a while?

War crimes?

wikileaks published just vids of war crimes right? At some point they lost it. Maybe going against USA drove them to the arms of Russia but they lost their innocence.

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#246

Post by op03 »

kerkeslager wrote: post #122
op03 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valid point about technical changes. But most of the big leaks were sold as if they would lead to social/political/economic changes.

Technology doesn't exist in its own bubble isolated from society, politics, and economy. Changes in mainstream OSs and mainstreaming privacy concerns are absolutely the result of social, political, and economic change. Keep in mind the companies involved in these technological changes make up a huge portion of our economy, and their users affected by their app store changes, for example, touch every sector. These cha…

I was just wondering about effectiveness of large leaks in a environment of info overload. Not in any camp...more like a layman passing through :)) I get your point about it all being interconnected though and thanks for making it.

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#247

Post by timmytokyo »

wazoox wrote: post #27
pell wrote: post #6

I'm not a fan of Assange and I think the allegations in Sweden were credible. But what is currently happening to him is beyond unjust.

They were credible until they were revealed as complete fabrications by no other than the UN human rights reporter: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N... https://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2018/02/13/news/few_documen... https://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2020-05-01/why-julia...

This is a highly deceptive description of the UN human rights rapporteur's report. The report claimed nothing about the veracity of the allegations that led to the Swedish investigation. Instead, it objected to the fact that Assange was detained without formal charges being made by the Swedish government.

To complain that this report reveals the allegations as "complete fabrications" is in itself a complete fabrication, and you ruin your own credibility by saying it.

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#248

Post by dadjitsu »

moomin wrote: post #5

Hang on, did they just accuse Chelsea Manning of attempting to hack computer systems? Is that a new allegation? To the best of my knowledge she only ever used access she already had, not attempted privilege escalation. Correct me if I'm wrong here.

So sad Bradley Manning was psy-opped so badly to go that crazy and then have people like you reinforcing his mental sickness.

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#249

Post by close04 »

BFatts wrote: post #235
ShamelessC wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm generally on Assange's side in all of this. I agree he shouldn't be charged and this is all a disgrace. Having said that, I once went to wikileaks and found a PDF of Steve Job's supposed STD test which claimed he was HIV positive. That was a surprise to me as my understanding was that he died of cancer. I looked into it and no one could corroborate the story and the general consensus seemed to be that it was fake…

I'm generally against Assange on all of this. Hacking is an illegal activity that results in the disclosure of information that the hacker does not own. This is theft of information and a federal offense. Anyone engaging is nefarious hacking should be jailed, if caught, and never allowed to use technology again. We have very lax laws when it comes to hacking - they need to be stronger.

Some of what he leaked showed criminal activity at high levels and yet nothing was done about that. There's no point discussing justice and who should be jailed as long as it's selective justice. It means the justice system has become just a blunt instrument to be used for some criminals and against others.

Having a bigger hammer means nothing as long as it's always selective with criminal interests, protecting some and not others. Just means they have a bigger hammer to use against anyone threatening those interests, criminals or not.

Re: Julian Assange charged in superseding indictment

#250

Post by banads »

strictnein wrote: post #179
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a journalist is not an endorsement of character. You can be a criminal and a journalist, a thief and a journalist, a horrible person and a journalist.

But how you obtain your information definitely does change whether or not you should be called a "journalist". If your information is obtained through blackmail, for instance, you are not a journalist you are an extortionist.

>journalist: a person who writes for newspapers, magazines, or news websites or prepares news to be broadcast.
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