SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the can't-get-there-from-here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIJBUZm1HoY dept.
Like any techno-political soap opera watcher, I've on occasion wondered why it is so damned hard for Julian Assange to get away from that embassy.
Riddle me this: you've been stuck in a little room in Equador's embassy in London for 8 years. You can't leave without getting arrested and most likely extradited.
A few countries not friendly to the U.S., but most notably Russia, have tried to figure out how to get you out of there
Your crimes are mostly pissing off people in power in the way journalists really should, but there is also compelling evidence of at least one actual crime — that you provided material assistance to someone hacking secret information. If the U.S. gets hold of you, you can pretty much count on paying the piper.
Still, you have hordes of supporters, and even entire countries with not insignificant resources willing to give a hand if only to tweak the nose of the U.S.
Diplomatic vehicles, helicopters, disguises, being made an ambassador yourself, just plain sneaking out... nothing has panned out.
So what are your options? Jetpack? Smuggle in parts of a drone capable of carrying a person? VTOL car? Urban ghillie suit? Rocket skates? Dig a tunnel in the basement? It seems hard to believe that the bored lax surveillance of 8 years on can't be defeated by a motivated technogencia.
You've probably only got one shot...so how would you do it?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday December 27 2018, @01:03AM (10 children)
Have 100 people walk in all dressed the same and looking the same walk in and 100 walk out, one of them being Assange looking and dressed alike...
...are they allowed to just randomly stop people on the street for interrogation and identification?
Have the 100 walk in and out day after day without Assange and see what happens and then spring him? The 100 walk in and out under cover of tarps.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 27 2018, @02:03AM (6 children)
It's Great Britain. They could and would stop every last one.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Funny) by crb3 on Thursday December 27 2018, @02:33AM
So much for the Escape From Privet Drive gambit...
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday December 27 2018, @03:30AM (1 child)
Rudy Giuliani, when he was Mayor of New York City, had a VERY STRONG program of Stop and Frisk, and it went from an unacceptably dangerous city to one of the safest cities in the Country and I think the safest big city in the Country. So it works.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 27 2018, @04:13AM
Is it different from your Stop and Grope program?
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Thursday December 27 2018, @10:43AM (2 children)
Keep trolling until they're tired.
People made up to be badly disguised Assanges leave every so often. Also well disguised and look-a-likes leave.
Sometimes have Assange appear to be visible through a window while this happens like a bad movie. Sometimes it actually is him.
Release video statements obviously filmed from inside the embassy but alter his face slightly so it looks like a double. (alternate between prosthetics and CGI? Keep re-using at least one prosthetic version to call his actual appearance into question)
Release some where his appearance is unaltered, but the location appears to be faked to be the embassy. (CGI him into a different room?)
Record all the interactions when the doubles are stopped outside. Make them performance art designed to make the folks stopping him look incompetent, oppressive or both. Have a PR person plan the types of interactions to go for. Save them for awhile. Then release some where you can predict the PR response from the folks doing the stops, while you've got further videos that'll contradict whatever they say. Try to make that several layers deep to sow mistrust. If any are habitual liars it'll be easy to lead them down that primrose path, just get them into a double down mode before they know they're on the path.
Basically keep doing normal things in a way that looks like planning to get him out, or actually trying in such a way that taking action against the embassy staff would cause an incident and where the staff is squeaky clean in fact. Accuse the UK of targeting the staff in retaliation as part of the pre-recorded PR move, they'll be stopping folks who don't look like Assange if you've trolled enough. Then impugn their mental health if they claim they're looking for Assange, or that they're oppressive if not (lots of surveillance state ground to cover/this is what wikileaks is for etc).
Of course have staff take up an interest in off shore fishing, mail out human sized packages sometimes (with telemetry and video ofc).
No idea if you could make it politically difficult to keep up the PR and financial costs. At the least you might reveal their methods in a way useful to a political gadfly.
If they stop obviously checking, keep up the charade awhile then send someone better disguised. Make the Assange in the embassy evidence all be fake after that. Presumably if you actually make an attempt to leave, you'll want him to look like an obvious fake not well disguised but it'll still be a risk. Someone trying to get him may be competent, patient and by that time pissed off. Still, it's fun to brainstorm silly things. You'd think with years to work on it wikileaks would have much better ideas, I'd like to know why they haven't at least pursued the PR angle.
All of this requires Assange to have friends though. Perhaps he's not likeable and that's the problem?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 27 2018, @06:08PM (1 child)
All requires that his team (of 100s of people) has no leaks...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @06:56PM
They just need to behave as if Assange is actually making an escape attempt and do that every time.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DrkShadow on Thursday December 27 2018, @02:03AM (2 children)
That actually might get the UK police to detain a crowd of 100 people. If they're suspected of committing a crime -- of helping a bond-jumper escape -- then they just might view it as suspicious enough.
Suppose the opposite. One person, every day, comes to work wearing a trench coat, a medical mask, sunglasses, a backpack, gloves, and a hood. (boots pants etc.) Every evening, someone else takes it home. Every day, they bring it back, and someone _different_ takes it home. Every day, Julian Assange goes to the door to wish that person good night. Every single day. Nothing changes, no one knows to tip anyone off. Nothing out of the ordinary. How much will the UK put up with that game? Will they stop the person every time to check? (I assume it has happened before -- _do_ they?)
Suppose not. Then one day at random, Julian shows up, says "Wait a moment," takes the coat, gloves, etc off the coat rack and puts them on himself. He bids the person a good night, asks the person to wait a couple more minutes and sets out the door himself. He's just the guy of the day walking out in the costume of the every-day, and no one knows but himself and the guy he bid good night.
Now what. Now he's "free". In London. He can't board a plane. The only real boats will take him to Finland, Sweden (oops), Denmark, France. What's he going to do? He can't practically travel internationally. It's questionable how much cash he has access to. He won't be able to go anyplace he needs to show ID. (In the US, he couldn't board a Greyhound bus.) Could he rent a car (ID?) to drive the chunnel? Would someone be willing to assist him in these endeavors? Would he be able to board a train once he gets to Europe? The UK was functioning under the same "laws" as Europe, so will any other member states welcome him?
Quite simply, what next? He could be going out to eat twice a week and we just don't know it.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 27 2018, @04:57AM (1 child)
Seriously? Dubya and his puppeteers farked up a simple "buy a bus ticket, get on the bus" for you on top of legalizing sexual assault at the airport? Does anyone inside the US doubt in the slightest that the terr'ists have long since won?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @03:59AM
They say an ID is required, but I've never had to actually present one. That's not to say that the one time you're counting on going somewhere under the radar that they won't want to check it....