Sorry, but I don't buy it. Military encryption is designed to resist attacks done by enemy governmental agency.
They say thank you for all the $/CPU but lately I've read they were in dire need of cash to continue running the website, yet, they spent that money on cracking some alleged secret material...
Oh, and I'm pretty sure that cracking governmental material is considered an act of war, that would be pretty stupid to admit that publicly.
Sorry, but all of this sounds like kids living in a paranoid delirium or people trying to get attention (to raise money?).
This in itself is probably leak-worthy, in that quite realistically, other organisations with more at stake and more resources will likely have done the same without broadcasting the fact. And the chances are that these others will use this ability with more serious consequences [than posting the footage online].
I've seen many things from Wikileaks that are classified in nature and if they think that it's ok to do that they're mistaken, IMO.
I do however applaud their efforts with respect to net censorship and scientology secrets.
http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
Even went so far as to agree to other point (EDITED out rude comment). Oh well, hey at least you responded with rational discussion. Oh wait you just voted down because you disagreed.
It's pretty easy for our enemies to set up scanners in the field and capture streams of data to analyze later. If the hack is generic enough and the method was used enough I can see how this could be potentially VERY bad.
That being said, I think we're using very simple encryption on our UAVs video feeds. So it's probably the equivalent of locking the front door and not as big a deal as I've made it out to be.
The point I'm really trying to make is that they are actively trying to acquire and release classified information, which is direct disregard for the law. If they were to "go away" I would neither be surprised, nor feel compassion.
What kind of society have we come to where it is revered to break the law in order to exact some change on our government?
It is illegal to who? If I came upon classified DoD information, I would publish it with my own name, and let them have fun trying to figure out how to stick their laws to someone who is not their citizen. Plenty of wikileaks ppl are not Americans -- you cannot expect them to follow your laws.
> What kind of society have we come to where it is revered to break the law in order to exact some change on our government?
You know, the one where the last time the government got too uppity you decided to kill/exile the lot?
> The point I'm really trying to make is that they are actively trying to acquire and release classified information, which is direct disregard for the law. If they were to "go away" I would neither be surprised, nor feel compassion.
So you believe an ordinary citizen shouldn't break the laws against his government, but the government should be allowed to break its own laws against the citizens. At least be coherent, if they "Went away" that would mean a vast array of laws would be broken.
> Plenty of wikileaks ppl are not Americans -- you cannot expect them to follow your laws.
A more than valid point. I had not considered the community nature of the site, nor the state in which it's owners are based.
> You know, the one where the last time the government got too uppity you decided to kill/exile the lot?
I assume you're speaking of the war in Iraq. Hmmm... I see a significant difference between a citizen breaking the laws of his own country (as this is what I was referring to) and a country breaking no laws to stop a tyrant who was slaughtering his own people. Wow I'm sure this will be a popular opinion here.
> So you believe [...] the government should be allowed to break its own laws against the citizens. [...] if they "Went away" that would mean a vast array of laws would be broken.
Well, I was assuming that if the owners/maintainers of the site went to jail then the site would go away. I was not trying to say that the government should reject 1st amendment rights.
Again I was assuming 100% US citizen involvement in this. It was a bad assumption, granted.
No, I mean the American Revolution.
Minor nitpick: you mean consistent.
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
Where the "going away" part would hopefully be against the law too.
The law which they didn't agree to abide by in the first place. Born into a country with a law you don't agree on enforced upon you, why should you stick to it if you both disagree with it and agree to take the consequences?
You seem to be arguing that it's bad simply because it's illegal, which is both circular (it's bad because it's bad), and annoyingly naive (respect authority for no other reason than it's authoritative).
> The ramifications of doing so with respect to hacking the encryption algorithm could possibly cause far greater damage that the release of the video itself
You have a better argument here, but one I disagree with - did you miss the last decade of XP security holes? Security by obscurity isn't a strong defense. If it's weak enough for ordinary people to break, the intelligence agencies of the world who care would make mincemeat of it.
> The point I'm really trying to make is that they are actively trying to acquire and release classified information, which is direct disregard for the law. If they were to "go away"
The hypocritical point you are trying to make is that you respect the law like a good citizen, and because they don't respect the law in the same way as you do that makes them scum who are unworthy of compassion, and as a result you'll happily become like them and disgregard your support for equality and human rights laws so they can suffer, while still feeling superior to them because you abide the law, while at the same time you are not doing so.
> What kind of society have we come to where it is revered to break the law in order to exact some change on our government?
What kind of society have we come to where people are unable to consider that 'law' and 'doing the right thing' might not the same thing?
Disregard human rights? Are you serious? Wow. I read and re-read what I've written and I still don't see that. I guessing you have misunderstood something I've said, but rather point out that I was vague in some way you use diagnosis bias to infer things that I've never said. I'm betting that were interpreting "go away" differently.
Not "arested, tried and sentenced". If that's what you meant then that's different - but it doesn't address whether it's right and fair for that to happen, only that you think it should happen because the current legal system says it should.