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Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by Aqueous on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:05PM (#13830641)
Once you admit that keeping secret and controlling the release of sensitive information has some 'harm minimization effect' - and therefore that releasing information in the wrong way or to the wrong people is potentially harmful - exactly where does that take the philosophy of 'radical transparency?'
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by problems on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:14PM (#13830728)
They're advocating for radical transparency of governments and corporations, not individuals - there's a significant difference. Releasing these exploits as is would result in harm to individuals who are unrelated entirely to the CIA or government.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by ucaetano on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:58PM (#13831234)
They didn't seem to advocate for that when they released family, medical and financial information of rape victims, homosexuals and mental health patients in Saudi Arabia.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/wikileak...

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by smitherfield on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:28PM (#13831622)
As others said, that's a bit of a stretch, at least to say that was their intent. It's also worth noting that the Saudi release in question occurred in 2015, but the outrage stories didn't appear until shortly before Wikileaks released the Podesta emails — which suggests the hackers had been pitching them to mainstream news outlets, who rejected the story and instead looked for a preemptive shoot-the-messenger angle on the outlet that did [they assumed?] agree to publish them, Wikileaks.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by threeseed on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:51PM (#13831870)
Of course it was their intent. You don't just accidentally release information like that.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by problems on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:03PM (#13831301)
It seems like that is in large part a mischaracterization of what happened. Read the tweets and comments from around https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/768134865049030656
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by sarmstr5 on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:14PM (#13831439)
They don't seem to contradict each other, am I missing something? The article says WikiLeaks released government information that contained alot of personal information. The tweet says that they released government info and did not give info to the government.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by ucaetano on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:07PM (#13831350)
They knowingly relayed and re-published that information. That's like sharing revenge porn, but far worse.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by smitherfield on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:29PM (#13830907)
> They're advocating for radical transparency of governments and corporations, not individuals

I can think of at least one instance where they targeted individuals: publishing the names and addresses of members of the extreme-right British National Party. Of course that is OTOH hard to square with the narrative that they're right-wing Trumpists.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by Eridrus on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:32PM (#13830939)
I think it's pretty clear that they're opportunists, rather than hardcore ideologues.

Assange probably has no love for Trump, but certainly hates Hillary and was willing to get in bed with whoever was necessary to hurt her.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by jessaustin on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:45PM (#13831090)
If he had had some "goods" on Trump (e.g. a video in which Trump had said some rude things) I'm sure he would have released that too. Fortunately for Trump his henchpeople were smart enough not to get phished.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by slg on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:02PM (#13831297)
>Top intelligence officials indicated on Tuesday that the GOP was also a Russian hacking target but that none of the information obtained was leaked.

Source - http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/comey-republicans-hac...

I think you are being naive if you believe that everything that has been hacked has been leaked or that the leaks are motivated be an ideology of transparency rather than political objectives.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by jessaustin on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:20PM (#13831512)
At your link, we hear Comey say: "We did not develop any evidence that the Trump campaign or the current RNC was successfully hacked."

I probably am naive, but at least I'm not so naive as to hear anything from Comey other than CYA over his own "election-affecting" but now-forgotten Clintonian email releases.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by slg on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:25PM (#13831584)
He uses the terms "old" and "current" to describe the hacks. The "old" RNC was hacked. The "current" RNC was not. We have no idea what those terms mean or why the data collected from the "old" RNC wasn't leaked.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by jessaustin on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:38PM (#13831725)
In my ignorance, I assumed those words meant the same thing they mean in everyday English language conversation. If one had to guess, the "old" RNC might have been the one that never imagined Trump would kick their asses to the curb, while the "current" one might be the one that Trump hired after he did that? Which would be more likely to have dirt on Trump?

As I said above, however, we're really in the dark when we're reading tea leaves of nuance in testimony about an open investigation, by an effectively independent civil servant who has given directly-misleading testimony within the last year.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by problems on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:07PM (#13831351)
I think you're missing a key part, there's a difference between being a target and actually losing valuable information.

It's entirely possible that either they failed to break in or that they failed to get any significant information.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by slg on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:22PM (#13831555)
>It's entirely possible that either they failed to break in

Comey disputes that in the linked article.

>or that they failed to get any significant information.

Or maybe it is possible that they got more significant information and it was never leaked because it is more valuable as blackmail material. Neither of us know which one of those theories is right.

What we do know is that both sides were hacked, probably by the Russians, and data from only one side was released. By wide consensus those releases were timed in order to maximize the damage they did to Clinton. That is exactly the type of action you would expect from someone motivated by politics.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by problems on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:26PM (#13831588)
> Comey disputes that in the linked article.

>> "We did not develop any evidence that the Trump campaign or the current RNC was successfully hacked." - Linked Article

Seems pretty contradictory to me. Maybe a previous admin's RNC or something, but not the current one...

Honestly, these intelligence agencies are pretty clueless. They use the same tactics to identify malware sources that they use to thwart their own identification as a malware source. I wouldn't believe anything they say about the source of malware - or anything anyone says. It's far too easy to make it look like someone else did it - use their or nearby providers, use their malware or slightly modified versions of it, copy their strings, etc. It's pretty easy stuff to do if you've got a bit of assembly skill too.

> By wide consensus those releases were timed in order to maximize the damage they did to Clinton. That is exactly the type of action you would expect from someone motivated by politics.

Or you know, just someone motivated to make impactful leaks. Despite these emails not being in my political favor, I wouldn't have done anything differently in their shoes. Would you have? and if you would have, would you honestly say that your actions weren't politically motivated?

I think _not_ releasing in this case or avoiding impact would have been more clearly politically motivated.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by slg on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:45PM (#13831800)
>Seems pretty contradictory to me. Maybe a previous admin's RNC or something, but not the current one

I mentioned this in my other post. The RNC was hacked, but we don't know the timeline due to Comey's vague terminology.

>Honestly, these intelligence agencies are pretty clueless.

This is incredibly patronizing. They have a much greater expertise on these things than two doofuses like us debating on the Internet.

>Or you know, just someone motivated to make impactful leaks. Despite these emails not being in my political favor, I wouldn't have done anything differently in their shoes. Would you have?

It isn't just the timing of the leaks, go back and read what they were saying about them. They stoked the flames of Pizzagate. Assange was quoted as saying the leaks would guarantee Clinton's arrest. Those aren't the actions of someone who is politically neutral.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by dragonwriter on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:49PM (#13831134)
> Fortunately for Trump his henchpeople were smart enough not to get phished.

While there was no similar mass disclosure (most likely because of the political goals of those conducting the operation), Republican groups, not just Democrats, were compromised by the same actors behind the DNC attack.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by jessaustin on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:55PM (#13831201)
Assume I believe that... what horrible skulduggery did such compromises uncover? What did we not know about Trump that these anonymous hackers decided not to release, which had it been released would have thrown the election the other way?
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by problems on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:58PM (#13831230)
Is there even any evidence for that? If I recall correctly the claims said they attempted but failed to get anywhere at least with Trump's RNC.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by smitherfield on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:18PM (#13831497)
> Fortunately for Trump his henchpeople were smart enough

Not so much that — we have ample evidence to the contrary — but more conventional media outlets like the NYT, WaPo, CNN and so on are more than happy to publish unredacted leaks themselves, if they embarrass Trump. Wikileaks is whom you bring your story to when nobody else will publish it.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by scarmig on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:19PM (#13831508)
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Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by problems on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:24PM (#13831575)
I don't think that's true - many companies have stricter policies about this or simply block it via technical means. No outside emails with attachments or links for example, screening phone calls and strict training.

You don't see leaks from 3-letter agencies because someone phished them - while it's definitely possible to contact them.

You can do a lot with training - simply frequently attempting phishing on your own employees can do a lot.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by knieveltech on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:14PM (#13830739)
Harmful to whom may be the important question here. I thought the underlying premise of radical transparency was to make it sufficiently difficult to maintain state and corporate secrets that they either give up trying to keep secrets entirely or at least learn to avoid conducting truly shady activities because secrecy is no longer a guaranteed. If that's true then I'd say that admission is a strong endorsement that the practice is at least on sound theoretical ground.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by 0xfeba on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:10PM (#13830697)
> He added that while Wikileaks maintained a neutral position on most of its leaks, in this case it did take a strong stance.

Uh huh. After the US Election debacle, I'm not so sure of that.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by xienze on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:41PM (#13831051)
How quickly we forget that Wikileaks was the darling of the left when all those Iraq War documents were released several years ago.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by brainfire on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:38PM (#13831731)
They've always seen support and revulsion on both sides of the aisle. Your partisan retcon is dishonest and shameful.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by WillyOnWheels on Thursday March 09, 2017 @01:51PM (#13831866)
Feeling disgust while viewing the "Collateral Murder" video(good job with the title, wikileaks!) should not be a 'left' or 'right' thing.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by 0xfeba on Thursday March 09, 2017 @03:18PM (#13833090)
And Trump, Palin, Hannity have all done the same. Called for practically drone striking Assange during the Bush era, but now that he's released Clinton's emails, they've literally apologized [1] and done 180s.

1 - http://www.cbsnews.com/news/key-trump-surrogates-once-led-fi...

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by devy on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:57PM (#13831224)
Wikileaks did take a strong stance because they "want to secure communications technology because, without it, journalists aren't able to hold the state to account". (one paragraph below your original quote)
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by 0xfeba on Thursday March 09, 2017 @03:21PM (#13833121)
And I can agree with that. I don't agree they they are impartial politically.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by Nutomic on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:17PM (#13830763)
You think they should have kept the emails back? Why?
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by 0xfeba on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:27PM (#13830885)
No, I doubt he was responsible for obtaining them, I'm just saying he's not impartial. He's repeatedly criticized Clinton on multiple occasions.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by k-mcgrady on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:54PM (#13831192)
>> Wikileaks maintained a neutral position

>> I'm just saying he's not impartial

Assange != Wikileaks

Having documents on both sides and releasing one and not the other would be a break with impartiality. Having personal political opinions has nothing to do with Wikileaks impartiality.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by 0xfeba on Thursday March 09, 2017 @03:20PM (#13833111)
> Having personal political opinions has nothing to do with Wikileaks impartiality.

No, but it is real suspicious.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by k-mcgrady on Thursday March 09, 2017 @03:33PM (#13833268)
In what way? Everybody has personal political opinions. Wikileaks has released information damaging to all parts of the political spectrum.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by snowpanda on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:16PM (#13830752)
Right because they should never publish anything that might harm the left, that automatically means they must be supporting the right.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by 0xfeba on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:30PM (#13830923)
No, not publish. Assange has repeatedly criticized Clinton and yet there's not a peep about Trump.

And funnily enough, those who called for death warrants against Assange have literally apologized (Palin) and done a complete 180 (Trump, Hannity) and praise him.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by lechiffre10 on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:34PM (#13830965)
Clinton held public office for years, she's a career politician so it only makes sense he'd scrutinize and criticize her considering how corrupt she is. As for Trump, Assange has stated many times that if anyone has anything to provide that Wikileaks would share it. Maybe wait a few months or years ?
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by 0xfeba on Thursday March 09, 2017 @03:36PM (#13833308)
I don't understand this "Clinton is corrupt" thing. You imply that career politicians are corrupt. Ok, I accept that. But how is Hillary, specifically, any worse than other politician? And how is Trump not any worse than Hillary when he spouts nonsense and blatant falsehoods on a daily basis?

But yes, now that Trump is a politician, I imagine it's only a matter of time.

Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by lechiffre10 on Friday March 10, 2017 @02:54PM (#13841541)
watch the documentary Clinton Cash and you'll understand the whole Clinton is corrupt thing.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by M_Grey on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:10PM (#13830690)
It tells you that the person advocating that philosophy has given themselves license to wield all of that enormous power you're describing, without check or balance.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by iaw on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:30PM (#13830913)
Wikileaks stopped being about 'radical transparency' when Julian Assange felt personally threatened by Hillary Clinton and Google. Since then the Wikileaks agenda appears to be more about attacking and undermining US policy and standing wherever it can.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by tssva on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:23PM (#13830832)
WikiLeaks believe in radical transparency has never applied to WikiLeaks itself.
Re:Wikileaks is offering tech firms CIA files first by Iv on Thursday March 09, 2017 @12:42PM (#13831056)
Wikileaks has always defended responsible disclosure and censored crucial names. They simply have a different notion of who or what is crucial.