News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by marpstar on Monday January 07, 2019 @11:43AM (#18846735)
WikiLeaks has almost certainly been compromised by global intelligence agencies and is operating as a front.
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by smacktoward on Monday January 07, 2019 @12:09PM (#18847112)
It's not clear to me that intelligence agencies would have ever needed to compromise WikiLeaks-the-organization. WikiLeaks' whole methodology was to publish, unedited and unredacted, any documents anyone handed them. Any intelligence agency that wanted a clean way to get some illicitly-obtained documents out into public view could therefore do so just by handing them to WikiLeaks, without needing to subvert the organization in any way. WikiLeaks made a perfect front just by working the way it was designed to work.
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by hannasanarion on Monday January 07, 2019 @12:36PM (#18847519)
We can tell that wikileaks is now a front precisely because they have stopped operating in the way you describe.

They no longer publish everything they have been given (Assange once claimed to have documents embarassing to Russia but they are as yet unpublished).

They no longer publish documents indiscriminately (Podesta emails trickled out over the course of October 2016 for maximum political effect on the election)

If that wasn't enough, everyone should've been convinced that wikileaks is compromised when Assange refused to demonstrate that he held the wikileaks signing private key during his reddit AMA

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by deiznof on Monday January 07, 2019 @06:14PM (#18851282)
This lie that Wikileaks never published that stuff needs to die.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-cabl...

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by asudosandwich on Monday January 07, 2019 @04:52PM (#18850551)
I just assumed it was a false flag put out by Wikileaks, but what is their motive?

What is Assange’s motivation for not releasing proof of the signing key, because he can’t, but keeping that a secret?

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by Varcht on Monday January 07, 2019 @01:00PM (#18847888)
"It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have not published critical information on Russia, Syria or Donald Trump [in fact, WikiLeaks has published hundreds of thousands of documents on Russia, millions on Syria, and thousands on Donald Trump, see https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/russia/, https://search.wikileaks.org/?query=russia%7Cputin%7Cmoscow#..., https://wikileaks.org/syria-files/ & https://search.wikileaks.org/?query=trump#results]."
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by jeremy7600 on Monday January 07, 2019 @03:05PM (#18849414)
Not one trump release since he announced his candidacy. Hmmm.
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by 8note on Monday January 07, 2019 @04:20PM (#18850243)
isn't that a different statement?

releasing some doesn't mean he released everything, or stuff Russia wasn't okay with him releasing.

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by hannasanarion on Monday January 07, 2019 @01:05PM (#18847968)
ooooOOOOOOooooOOOO is Julian going to sue me for defamation now?

Allow me to amend: Wikileaks now publishes Russia and putin related material long after they aquire them and only after they are called out on it.

They sat on the "spy files" for a full year, and only published them after their source went around telling other publications about them. https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-l...

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by taylodl on Monday January 07, 2019 @01:36PM (#18848390)
Are you suggesting Wikileaks may have had a hidden agenda? Say it ain't so! </sarcasm>
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by davvolun on Monday January 07, 2019 @05:26PM (#18850884)
I did not interpret the parent comment to be arguing against you, rather, I thought it was supporting your case -- Wikileaks is fully aware of their hypocrisy and is trying to stifle internal (and external) discussion about it.
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by elif on Monday January 07, 2019 @02:36PM (#18849099)
No... but your argument was defamed of its basis.
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by zozbot123 on Monday January 07, 2019 @02:35PM (#18849093)
That's all Assange's doing, though. He's doing the political equivalent of s--tposting, same as the foreign "trolls" you hear and read about, because he's independently pursuing very similar goals.
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by lkdjjdjjjdskjd on Monday January 07, 2019 @06:06PM (#18851219)
So if he is just "shitposting", why pursue him?
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by cjhopman on Monday January 07, 2019 @12:21PM (#18847287)
If wikileaks treated all documents handed to them equally, maybe that would be the case.
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by lawnchair_larry on Monday January 07, 2019 @05:35PM (#18850963)
WikiLeaks' whole methodology was to publish, unedited and unredacted, any documents anyone handed them.

Based on this statement, you don’t seem to be familiar with WikiLeaks and didn’t read the linked article that specifically addresses this claim.

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by porphyrogene on Monday January 07, 2019 @11:56AM (#18846920)
> almost certainly

What are you criteria for near certainty and what evidence-supported claims are there that satisfy those criteria?

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by mywittyname on Monday January 07, 2019 @12:08PM (#18847111)
If there were solid evidence of this fact, the statement wouldn't need a qualifier.

Their behavior is consistent with what you'd expect from an intelligence agency. Such as well-timed releases during the 2016 US Presidential Election which seemed to heavily favor a candidate with strong ties to a foreign government well known for their intelligence capabilities.

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by porphyrogene on Monday January 07, 2019 @12:23PM (#18847322)
I think you are confusing a conceivable narrative for a well-reasoned explanation.
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by hannasanarion on Monday January 07, 2019 @12:38PM (#18847556)
Why else would the podesta emails be trickled out over the course of the 30 days prior to the election, each time with a promise that the juciest ones are yet to come? Wikileaks has never done a trickle-release like that with any other document dump.

Why were the podesta emails different if not to influence the election?

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by elif on Monday January 07, 2019 @02:39PM (#18849142)
You don't have to invent an answer to that question, they have provided their own explanation. Wikileaks believed the theft of the democratic party seat would be downplayed, refuted, or ignored by the 24-hour news-cycle.

Unfortunately, it seems to have happened anyway.

Also wikileaks has done multi-part staged releases on many occasions before and after, including the russia files and vault 7.

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by asdfasgasdgasdg on Monday January 07, 2019 @02:53PM (#18849306)
> Unfortunately, it seems to have happened anyway.

If by "theft" you mean "the person who got the most votes got the nom," sure. That's not really news though. I mean, it is, but not for the reason you think it should be.

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by elif on Monday January 07, 2019 @03:20PM (#18849558)
The DNC does not function as a popular vote, but with a complex system of campaigning, finance, and ultimately delegate voting.

The DNC seat was stolen through illegal redirection of funds, manipulation of public debates, and a deliberate media smear campaign which led to the DNC chairwoman's forced resignation.

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by fixermark on Monday January 07, 2019 @03:44PM (#18849858)
> The DNC does not function as a popular vote

You could have stopped there. The major disconnect between public perception of the political parties and actual party function is the party ultimately nominates who it chooses. Votes are cast because it's assumed Americans wouldn't support a party that simply nominated a candidate via authoritarianism or autocracy, not because either party believes in the wisdom of the mob structurally. If anything, "wisdom of the mob" voting is more reflective of the Republican party's process (and with the nomination of Trump, it kind of showed).

You claim there was illegal redirection of funds. Was it actually illegal? Or merely in apparent violation of the party's charter (which could make the party less trustworthy but is not otherwise automatically illegal)? The best I can dig up is that there is a lawsuit alleging the DNC violated campaign finance law.

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by dragonwriter on Monday January 07, 2019 @04:02PM (#18850034)
> Votes are cast because it's assumed Americans wouldn't support a party that simply nominated a candidate via authoritarianism or autocracy

No, the modern candidate selection process in each of the major parties isn't an abstract response to theoretical concerns about what Americans would respond to, but a concrete response to real issues identified through previous nomination processes.

> If anything, "wisdom of the mob" voting is more reflective of the Republican party's process

No, it's not; the Republican Party process is designed to artificially create an insurmountable perception of momentum for the early leader because of experience about how early lead usually favors the institutional candidate, and the set of early primaries and caucuses favor, more than the country generally, the establishment faction of the party, so that this provides both the right candidate and a short competitive part of the primary with an early shift to general election campaigning. The Democratic system through 2016 (changes are planned for 2020 in response to 2016) in general design (pushing committed superdelegate counts into horserace delegate coverage hasn't historically been the norm) favors a longer competitive period and broader geographic competition but provides a safeguard against a hung convention. Each of these has failure modes—if superdelegates commit early and the media included them in horserace coverage, the Democratic system gets the same kind of artificial inevitability as the Republican system. If a celebrity candidate sucks up early attention with a large but weak field where establishment support is divided, the Republican method work against the establishment and lock in the same kind of advantage for the celebrity it is designed to for an establishment candidate. And if a well-funded establishment decides to take that fight down to the wire with whoever it has standing after the early winnowing, it can drag out into a long primary fight if the type the system is designed to avoid.

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by jessaustin on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @10:51AM (#18856373)
Haha the best-laid plans...

Very few people would have considered Trump "the institutional candidate", although I guess the GOP conspiracy has maybe fooled us. Even fewer people would have considered all the DNC superdelegate crap to have been a broad geographic democratic competitive scenario.

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by elif on Monday January 07, 2019 @04:02PM (#18850032)
It is my view of the law that if you collect money under a stated intention of nonbiased party-backing and subsequently redirect those funds to Hillary Victory Fund, fraud has been constituted. Washing transactions between 50 different organizations to subvert campaign finance laws, as you referenced, also seems like an illegal redirection of funds. (federal lawsuit) Using DNC party funds for activities such as paying ex-intelligence operatives to manufacture deliberately infactual reports seems like a multi-part illegal redirection of funds. (steele dossier)
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by fixermark on Monday January 07, 2019 @04:35PM (#18850396)
> deliberately infactual reports

You may want to spot-check your data.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/12/a-new-report-puts-mi...

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by elif on Monday January 07, 2019 @05:04PM (#18850655)
The first two words of your link are "If true," and the report it is using four anonymous sources...

Keep in mind, the company contracted to produce this report, Fusion GPS, was also paid to produce "evidence" that north korea was responsible for hacking Sony in 2014... so you may want to spot-check your evidence.

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by fixermark on Monday January 07, 2019 @05:57PM (#18851146)
It's international espionage. Four anonymous sources is all we're ever going to get.

And the consensus appears to generally be that NK did hack Sony in 2014, so I don't know what you're on about. There are suggestions of alternatives but nothing concrete or in accordance with the known evidence.

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by jessaustin on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @10:53AM (#18856392)
Every detail of the consensus must be policed mercilessly, else the whole edifice crumble...
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by briffle on Monday January 07, 2019 @09:16PM (#18852502)

  The DNC does not function as a popular vote, but with a complex system of campaigning, finance, and ultimately delegate voting.
That part confuses me, since my tax dollars paid for my states primary election. Why are we subsidizing an internal party process?
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by jessaustin on Monday January 07, 2019 @02:56PM (#18849329)
Hey man WL shouldn't get credit for predicting the actions of the media, just because the media happened to act exactly as they predicted! Anyone could have predicted those actions, just by assuming that MSNBCNNWaPoFox was all-in for a war in Syria. It didn't take a rocket surgeon...
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by asdfasgasdgasdg on Monday January 07, 2019 @02:52PM (#18849295)
Well I mean another consistent explanation is that Assange and/or the decision makers in Wikileaks are just reactionaries and wanted Donald Trump to win the election for that reason (as opposed to because they have been owned by the KGB).
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by dwd on Monday January 07, 2019 @06:57PM (#18851585)
Even that may not be true as the DNC leaks primarily focussed on the campaign to favor Clinton over Sanders.

An anti-Clinton stance rather than pro-Trump would be more likely.

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by mywittyname on Monday January 07, 2019 @01:56PM (#18848647)
I suppose you'll just have to wait for Mueller to wrap up his probe into the matter.

Several GRU officers have been brought up on charges related to the hacking of the DCCC and DNC, the subsequent dissemination of their findings to Wikileaks, and related payoffs. This suggests that there is concrete evidence that the GRU was collaborating with Wikileaks, it's just not yet publicly available.

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by lawnchair_larry on Monday January 07, 2019 @05:44PM (#18851039)
That doesn’t suggest anything that could be called collaboration, nor that the publication had any knowledge of GRU involvement.
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by jessaustin on Monday January 07, 2019 @02:58PM (#18849343)
Wait, sure, but don't hold your breath. This investigation has taken much longer than we were led to expect.
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by InitialLastName on Monday January 07, 2019 @05:50PM (#18851085)
The investigation has taken very little time as yet relative to other investigations of sitting presidents (chart is ~4 months old, but we still have only possibly reached the end of the next shortest investigation) [0]

[0] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-manaforts-flip-may-...

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by mywittyname on Monday January 07, 2019 @04:15PM (#18850169)
Mueller's been pretty good about getting evidence put into public record via the court system.
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by pacerwpg on Monday January 07, 2019 @04:19PM (#18850230)
Led to believe by whom? People who have a vested interest in people believing it would be a short investigation.
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by SlowRobotAhead on Monday January 07, 2019 @12:21PM (#18847289)
>Their behavior is consistent with what you'd expect from an intelligence agency. Such as well-timed releases during the 2016 US Presidential Election which seemed to heavily favor a candidate with strong ties to a foreign government well known for their intelligence capabilities.

Alright... Help me understand how this does not reflect WaPo, CNN, NYT, and others in an identical way.

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by hannasanarion on Monday January 07, 2019 @12:49PM (#18847740)
Did any of those sources make a big announcement that they have super-duper incriminating emails about a candidate and then slowly release them in a trickle over the course of 30 days leading up to the election?

Emails which, by the way, were so boring and mundane and contained so little evidence of misconduct that people determined to hate Clinton needed to treat "pizza" as secret code for "child sex slaves", to extract a scandal from them.

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by zozbot123 on Monday January 07, 2019 @02:41PM (#18849153)
> which seemed to heavily favor a candidate

And that's surprising how, exactly? Guess what, 4chan /pol/ supported the exact same candidate, rare pepes and all, purely "for the lulz". Would you expect Assange to behave any differently?

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by jessaustin on Monday January 07, 2019 @02:53PM (#18849302)
Not to mention, that candidate had been on every channel of TV news 24 hours a day every day for 1.5 years leading up to the election. Holy crap the guy that was on TV got elected! Wow that's a conspiracy if I ever heard of one. /s
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by soundwave106 on Monday January 07, 2019 @12:41PM (#18847596)
I don't think we have any document released yet that describes any full picture.

We do have this statement (and a little more detail inside) in a report by a joint report by the US Intelligence Community (regarding Russian interference with elections):

"We assess with high confidence that Russian military intelligence (General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate or GRU) used the Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com to release US victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets and relayed material to WikiLeaks."

Source: https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf

But that doesn't explain whether Assange is either a "compromised front" for the GRU or someone else, or more a "useful idiot" to Russian intelligence for their goals.

Nonetheless, I will say, at minimum, Wikileaks and Julian Assange can no longer be seen as a neutral player, at minimum. And not a reliable narrator, either. For example, some of their tweets on the Panama Papers, which in theory I would think would be something they would in theory support, were rather strange, and actually stooped into ridiculous conspiracy theory involving USAID and George Soros (eg https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/status/7176700566505308... and https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/status/7174580643249643...). I generally don't treat sources that delve into conspiracy theory with a whole lot of respect...

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by dragonwriter on Monday January 07, 2019 @12:44PM (#18847658)
> the US National Intelligence Agency

It's a joint report by the US Intelligence Community. There is no “US National Intelligence Agency”; the position of Director of National Intelligence was created to specifically split the role of overall head of the intelligence community (the DNI) from the head of a particular agency (the overall head of the IC used to be the Director of the CIA.)

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by soundwave106 on Monday January 07, 2019 @12:50PM (#18847755)
Thanks for the clarification, I have corrected the text.
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by mrguyorama on Monday January 07, 2019 @01:03PM (#18847934)
>and actually stooped into ridiculous conspiracy theory involving USAID and George Soros

Just using the "George Soros" dog whistle should disqualify them as a reliable source

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by Smithalicious on Monday January 07, 2019 @10:36PM (#18852910)
George Soros is a billionaire and very prolific political activist. Just mentioning his name does not make a dog whistle, since he legitimately does have a lot of influence. Of course, I do think that people acting as though he controls the world is a dog whistle, but we shouldn't act like he never has a finger in the pie.
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by enraged_camel on Monday January 07, 2019 @11:58AM (#18846955)
I don't see why you are downvoted. It's a very valid question. Wild claims made without evidence are essentially conspiracy theories. Surely HN has higher standards than that?
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by ucaetano on Monday January 07, 2019 @12:11PM (#18847153)
> I don't see why you are downvoted

There are views which are verboten on HN: supporting AMP, supporting ad-based business models, telling people not to use free services if they don't like them, and criticizing certain public figures. You might voice them, but prepare for the downvotes.

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by justtopost on Monday January 07, 2019 @02:41PM (#18849155)
Oh, the bubble is real. Anyone not annoyingly vegan, anti-car, urban yimby-yuppie who still rents and making at least 300k making socially regressive technology, badly, with the newest popular framework is going to have to make sure to not only be relevant, but tickle the egos of the great majority while making their soon to be buried point.
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by reaperducer on Monday January 07, 2019 @11:57AM (#18846933)
Irony from the memo: It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is, or has ever been, an agent or officer of any intelligence service
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by excalibur on Monday January 07, 2019 @12:20PM (#18847282)
Okay, but that's kind of overshadowed by the massive irony of Wikileaks asking that this memo be kept secret and it promptly leaking.
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by jessaustin on Monday January 07, 2019 @03:01PM (#18849377)
Maybe that was the best way for them to get our attention? After all nobody seems to care about their actual releases anymore...
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by ohithereyou on Monday January 07, 2019 @07:03PM (#18851633)
Julian Assange doesn't have to be an agent or officer of any intelligence service for Wikileaks to be used as a front. He could just be a useful idiot.
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by ucaetano on Monday January 07, 2019 @11:55AM (#18846899)
But the real question is: has Assange/WL ever been any different? Has it ever not been a tool sponsored/handled by some intelligence agency?
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by paxys on Monday January 07, 2019 @02:46PM (#18849221)
It's more likely that the organization realized just how much influence they had, and wanted to be a force in global politics rather than just a dumping ground for data.
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by fixermark on Monday January 07, 2019 @02:37PM (#18849115)
That's precisely the kind of conspiracy theory that, were it true, we'd expect Wikileaks to publish a document describing.

... except that they couldn't, because they would be compromised and operating as a front. Wheels within wheels... ;)

Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by lawnchair_larry on Monday January 07, 2019 @05:33PM (#18850943)
We can be quite certain that this is not the case.
Re:Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks by marknutter on Monday January 07, 2019 @11:59AM (#18846980)
What are you basing this wild claim on?