And so the Wikileaks saga continues - with politics once again crossing with the technology side of things. After several DDoS attacks on Wikileaks' website, the organisation decided to move their website over to Amazon's cloud service yesterday. Today, Amazon kicked Wikileaks out of its cloud after being pressured by US Congress. Update: [Kroc] In a Q&A on the Guardian website, Julian Assange drops the bomb--Amazon failed the test: "Since 2007 we have been deliberately placing some of our servers in jurisdictions that we suspected suffered a free speech deficit inorder to separate rhetoric from reality. Amazon was one of these cases.". Stunning.
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Member since:2005-06-29
Member since:2010-03-30
Member since:2010-03-30
I second you as this is what I have been thinking about this whole matter. Exposing videos of crimes and illegal operations is different from leaking diplomatic messages!
Some things are meant to remain secret and prior to that Wikileaks publication, I don't think anyone sane had a problem with diplomacy and the double language it involves.
According to one of the comments, Assange said "You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion." True. But how does the leaking of diplomatic messages affect the decision-making of Wikileaks' target audience? Nobody supporting him in this matter (to the point of nominating him for the Pullitzer price) ever explained what benefit this specific leak brought and to who. My life didn't change and I'm sure no OSnews reader has seen his life change due to this. So... what's the agenda? Have Ms Clinton resign as he reportedly suggested? Nobody talked about the revolting "crimes" that are being denounced either. What are those crimes exactly?
Some things are better left secret. That's the nature of diplomacy as no one, unless deeply stupid, would be fooled about what diplomats say. That's also the point of counter-terrorism and national security agencies. Why not expose the names of undercover CIA or DGSE or MI6 or Mossad agents then?
Expose the truth, yes. Expose anything, no. I wouldn't want any husband and wife privilege violated. I wouldn't want patient and doctor confidential information revealed. I wouldn't want the identities of intelligence agencies agents published. I don't like the content of diplomatic communication disclosed. There are limits to everything, including "good intentions" for the greater number.
In the end, I am wondering if any "leak" from wikileaks ever benefited the general public. From what I can see, the only result of this specific leak was to embarrass governments. Does anyone think governments will stop their wrongdoings because of this leak? If you do, I don't even feel sorry for you.
Member since:2006-12-28
Actually, that's not all those cables speak of. Check out the following article to see what else was uncovered:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/12/wikileaks-cable-obama-quash...
Basically, American diplomats, under orders from the whitehouse, where told to put pressure on Spanish officials in order to have them quash a court case alleging that several members of the Bush administration where in fact guilty of war crimes, something that is pretty self evident and should have gone ahead.
So yeah, some of the stuff to come out of these leaked memos and cables are actually more than just idle gossip.
Member since:2005-10-13
Gee, American diplomats tried to avert what would have become a major international incident between two countries that are allied. What a shocker!
Now, if they had done anything illegal, like blackmailing the Spanish officials, that would be newsworthy. But doing their jobs?
"Microsoft has sensationally abandoned its controversial plans to restrict the sharing of XBox One games, and has also removed daily online authentication requirements for its forthcoming console", reports The Guardian. They had no choice. Still a good move."A snippet of code in the Steam digital distribution platform has revealed that Valve may be planning to let users easily share their games with friends in the future. The Verge has verified the code's authenticity, which was originally spotted by a member of the NeoGAF gaming forum; the code references a 'shared game library' and a notification that would alert a user when their games are currently in use by a borrower." This would change the, uh, game.
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it."I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)"."The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane."MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight."
Member since:
2009-11-05
Wikileaks has shown sheer stupidity in this matter! It is one thing to leak videos or crimes, of soldiers gunning people down and of illegal operations. However it is sheer stupidity to leak confidential information and conversations between diplomats, that no one needs to know. Leaking comments made by diplomats regarding other diplomats that are currently under taking illegal actions is stupid. The comments about Korea by China and the comments about Zimbabwe by South Africa are all well grounded and within reason give the situations that were faced. But to publish them to the world and tell Korea and Zimbabwe (who have both partaken in illegal actions and extensive infringement of human rights) what is being said about them is stupidity!
Whats next? Publishing of legal military operations against enemies before they take place? Leaking of private discussions between diplomats during peace talks that results in them breaking down!?
I have no problem with how wikileaks initially started. And exposing the wrongs of government is very important. However endangering lives and potentially breaking down peace by publishing material they could have kept to themselves is stupid!
WIKILEAKS YOU HAVE TAKEN IT TOO FAR!!!!!!