Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 8th Dec 2010 12:16 UTC
It looks like several companies are learning what happens when you mess with the internet - and they're learning it the hard way. Several major companies have been hit by the collective powers of Anonymous after 4chan launched several distributed denial-of-service attacks. What many have been predicting for a long time now has finally happened: an actual war between the powers that be on one side, and the internet on the other. Update: PayPal has admitted their WikiLeaks snub came after pressure from the US government, and Datacell, which takes care of payments to Wikileaks, is threatening to sue MasterCard over Wikileaks' account suspension. Update II: Visa.com is down due to the attack. Update III: PayPal has caved under the pressure, and will release the funds in the WikiLeaks account.
Thread beginning with comment 453006
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2009-02-19
From a legal standpoint, it's irrelevant how "damaging" the data is. The reason for the furor is the simple fact that a large corpus of classified documents have been compromised. Under U.S. law, this is a big deal completely on its own, and any U.S. citizen acting material support of such information release is liable for some life-wrecking criminal charges.
Member since:2010-05-19
Member since:2007-02-17
From a legal standpoint, it's irrelevant how "damaging" the data is. The reason for the furor is the simple fact that a large corpus of classified documents have been compromised. Under U.S. law, this is a big deal completely on its own, and any U.S. citizen acting material support of such information release is liable for some life-wrecking criminal charges.
Wikileaks was founded by Assange in 2006, and it has been operating now for four years.
IMO, the US has only now moved against Wikileaks probably because there is something actually damaging to the government itself, or to a government-sponsored buisness.
http://humantrafficking.change.org/blog/view/wikileaks_reveals_us_t...
From a "government for the people" standpoint, I don't believe it is government concern for the interests of the US people themselves that is driving the issue.
Exclusive: Key FBI whistleblower: Had WikiLeaks existed, 9/11, Iraq war ‘could have been prevented’
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/exclusive-wikileaks-benefits-pub...
Edited 2010-12-10 02:02 UTC
Member since:2007-02-17
From a legal standpoint, it's irrelevant how "damaging" the data is. The reason for the furor is the simple fact that a large corpus of classified documents have been compromised. Under U.S. law, this is a big deal completely on its own, and any U.S. citizen acting material support of such information release is liable for some life-wrecking criminal charges.
What the DoJ's motivation is for stepping in now (as opposed to earlier) is, honestly, an academic question. It's possible that they simply didn't expect WikiLeaks to actually obtain or release a significant body of classified information.
You can be forgiven for finding this hard to believe, but the DoJ doesn't pursue Life-Wrecking Charges for their own amusement. It's entirely possible that they simply held off prosecution until a significant and unambiguous breach of U.S. statutes had taken place - effectively, that they gave WikiLeaks (or, rather, U.S. citizens and businesses working with WikiLeaks) the benefit of the doubt for as long as possible.
You can be forgiven for finding this hard to believe, but the DoJ doesn't pursue Life-Wrecking Charges for their own amusement. It's entirely possible that they simply held off prosecution until a significant and unambiguous breach of U.S. statutes had taken place - effectively, that they gave WikiLeaks (or, rather, U.S. citizens and businesses working with WikiLeaks) the benefit of the doubt for as long as possible.
The deeper question to be asked here is "what if the government itself is acting 'illegally'"? Do you think it is OK for a government to get away with reprehensible behaviour merely by stamping a "classified" rating on something?
U.S. citizens working with WikiLeaks however - for example, who fund WikiLeaks, mirror it, or possess copies of the documents - are significantly more vulnerable to prosecution.
Exactly who is the government supposed to be protecting?
I think the US constitution might have something to say about that ... something about "government for the people".
Edited 2010-12-10 02:30 UTC
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:33 UTC
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.
Linked by Anonymous on 06/18/13 22:26 UTC
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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:25 UTC
"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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:45 UTC
"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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:32 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
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, ...)".
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:58 UTC
"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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:52 UTC
"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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 21:03 UTC
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."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 20:46 UTC
"And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 17:32 UTC
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.More News »
Sponsored Links
Member since:
2007-02-17
IMO the damaging one for the US is the last one.
WikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-us-mani...
This is basically US lies for utterly greedy, selfish purposes. The US shouldn't be playing with the ecological health of the planet all for the sake of the richest 2% of Americans to become even more insanely rich.
However, back to your point, ... if the information revealed via Wikileaks is not an issue, why the furore over it?
It is, after all, the US which is making the claim that Wikileaks is out to damage the US alone. (Clearly this is not so ... Wikileaks seeks to expose corruption and illegal behaviour whoever is perpetrating it.) The US is trying to find a way to bring some trumped-up charge against Assange, and extradite him to the US. The US is the party out to execute whistleblowers and suppress freedom of the press.
So, either the leaks are damaging to the US, and biased against the US, or they are not. Which is it?
Edited 2010-12-09 22:00 UTC