Multiple sources reporting:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37680411
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2016/10/17/wikileaks-says-assanges-internet-link-was-severed-by-state-party.html
http://time.com/4532984/wikileaks-julian-assange-theories/
Wikileaks has announced that Julian Assange's internet access had been intentionally severed by a state actor. I would assume this means they disrupted a VPN connection he had rather than just cutting all internet access to the Ecuadorian Embassy, but again details are limited.
The announcement of disruption was also preceded by multiple strange tweets of random numbers (likely crypto keys) that appear to be part of a dead man system activated by the disruption.
takyon: The full tweet states "Julian Assange's internet link has been intentionally severed by a state party. We have activated the appropriate contingency plans." Wikileaks recently released Part 9 of the Podesta Emails. Also at CNET and Ars Technica.
Update: Wikileaks says: "We can confirm Ecuador cut off Assange's internet access Saturday, 5pm GMT, shortly after publication of Clinton's Goldman Sachs speechs."
Perhaps the embassy's perennial guest has finally overstayed his welcome?
Related Stories
The Ecuadorean government spent around $5 million to protect and spy on Julian Assange and his visitors, according to The Guardian. The operation evolved over time as the embassy's guest became less welcome:
Over more than five years, Ecuador put at least $5m (£3.7m) into a secret intelligence budget that protected the WikiLeaks founder while he had visits from Nigel Farage, members of European nationalist groups and individuals linked to the Kremlin. [...] Documents show the intelligence programme, called "Operation Guest", which later became known as "Operation Hotel" – coupled with parallel covert actions – ran up an average cost of at least $66,000 a month for security, intelligence gathering and counter-intelligence to "protect" one of the world's most high-profile fugitives. [...] The security personnel recorded in minute detail Assange's daily activities, and his interactions with embassy staff, his legal team and other visitors. They also documented his changing moods.
[...] Worried that British authorities could use force to enter the embassy and seize Assange, Ecuadorian officials came up with plans to help him escape. They included smuggling Assange out in a diplomatic vehicle or appointing him as Ecuador's United Nations representative so he could have diplomatic immunity in order to attend UN meetings, according to documents seen by the Guardian dated August 2012. In addition to giving Assange asylum, Correa's government was apparently prepared to spend money on improving his image. A lawyer was asked to devise a "media strategy" to mark the "second anniversary of his diplomatic asylum", in a leaked 2014 email exchange seen by the Guardian.
The money being spent was unknown to some members of the government, including the Ecuadorian ambassador to the UK, who learned of the operation in 2015. Ecuador's financial controller's office also investigated payments related to the operation.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @07:41PM
This is current year. Everyone has internet on a mobile phone.
Assange is living in the middle of London. There is mobile coverage.
The guy has no excuse not to have multiple burner phones and VPN servers.
Even I have four burner phones and two VPN servers. And I am lowly AC.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @07:44PM
Idiot moron!
EMF jammers exist and if someone is really serious about cutting another person's internet access then of course they will add one of those.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @07:52PM
And take out the surrounding city block. Most people don't care about one person in an embassy, but cut their ability to use Pokemon Go and Facebook and there will be riots in the street.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @07:56PM
What part of "middle of London" is confusing you?
Here, have a map to see what you'll be jamming. https://goo.gl/maps/MVmPWJEYetM2 [goo.gl]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @08:00PM
I understand your point, but would also add that jammers have undoubtedly been improved over the years and can be selective about their radius. If Ecuador is complicity with cutting off his internet they could jam him from the next room! However, it is also quite likely that the telcos were served with what amounts to national security letters and have simply disabled any service he might get.
Or he's dead.
Either way, the OP is stupid to think that the people behind this would not account for a burner phone....
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday October 17 2016, @08:08PM
For all we know, the shutoff was a ham-fisted move by Ecuador (or not by Ecuador), and Assange is already back online (note "the appropriate contingency plans"). Or never was offline. Or there was a technical issue.
We can't take a Wikileaks Twitter account's word as gospel. But I'm interested to hear more.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Monday October 17 2016, @08:47PM
For all we know, the shutoff was a ham-fisted move by Ecuador
The ONLY place I've seen this mentioned is soylentnews...
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Monday October 17 2016, @08:57PM
Scratch that - was looking in the wrong place.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday October 17 2016, @08:57PM
Explain? You mean everywhere else has gone full infowars conspiracytard and assumed the NWO is cracking down?
Small governments aren't known for having great technical prowess or making truly rational decisions. Whatever happened to Assange, it clearly has had little or no effect on the organization's ability to get those emails out. They probably learned to make lots of backups after Daniel Domscheit-Berg [wikipedia.org] screwed the org over and deleted some documents.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 18 2016, @01:54AM
I don't know anything about anything - but the fact that Assange is not mobile may be a factor in cutting his internet access. If most of our cell phones get bad signals, we can walk across the street, or find a better spot in the yard. We have mobility on our side. On a really bad day, I can drive a couple miles up or down the road, and find a better signal. Or, I can drive into town. Cellular service really is that bad around here.
But, if Assange steps outside the embassy, the constabulary will whisk him up, and he will go directly to jail, he will not collect $200, and there is no 'get out of jail free' card in this game.
Stationary targets are much easier to hit than moving targets.
(Score: 4, Funny) by takyon on Tuesday October 18 2016, @04:07AM
That's the trick: get him on the balcony when he's trying to get 2 bars.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @04:12AM
That is the saddest and funniest sounding arrest :)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 18 2016, @06:26AM
He did cancel his balcony press release. He likes theater and drama, and made some allusions that might be interpreted as an assassination attempt. If the man spoke more plainly, he'd make more sense. Maybe.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday October 18 2016, @02:51AM
For all we know, the shutoff was a ham-fisted move by Ecuador (or not by Ecuador)
Either that or Ecuador has just found out that a £14.99/month Plusnet account with bundled Huawei router isn't really enough to run an embassy off. Sheesh, only Assange could turn an internet outage into a global news event.
(Score: 4, Funny) by isostatic on Monday October 17 2016, @08:57PM
If Ecuador wanted to stop his internet traffic they could simply kick him out the door.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @09:23PM
They wouldn't need to use a jammer, per se. The government could simply require the cell companies to refuse service. Even if he could get a supply of cell phones to change to whenever his current account is blocked, I don't think it would take more than a few calls for the British authorities to ID the next phone and disable access for it. If they didn't want to bother the cell phone companies, they could use a modified StingRay device. I'm pretty sure that they could order one that could be used to disable specific phones. It would surprise me a little if they don't have this already.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jdavidb on Monday October 17 2016, @07:45PM
The guy has no excuse not to have multiple burner phones and VPN servers.
Right, it's easy for him to just step out to walmart for an extra phone.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @07:48PM
He can't possibly be doing his own shopping. The same people who shop for his food can shop for his phones.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Monday October 17 2016, @07:52PM
He can't possibly be doing his own shopping
That was my point.
The same people who shop for his food can shop for his phones.
And the same people who have cut off his internet are the same people who are hosting him, and therefore they are the same people who have the power to decide what he is and isn't allowed to have brought to him.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @07:59PM
You're implying the Ecuadorian government cut off his internet but do you have any proof?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Francis on Monday October 17 2016, @08:52PM
That's the last link in the summary. Wikileaks is confirming that the embassy cut his access, not anybody else.
I'm not sure why they did that as they knew what he was doing previously.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @09:00PM
Summary, who reads the summary, or the headline?
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Monday October 17 2016, @09:12PM
You're implying the Ecuadorian government cut off his internet but do you have any proof?
Proof by process of elimination? /shrug
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Monday October 17 2016, @07:45PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday October 17 2016, @08:27PM
Possible? Yes. Likely? I doubt.
If Julian was dead in the embassy, why would they try to conceal it?
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by Username on Monday October 17 2016, @08:13PM
Not sure if burner phones have data now, but dialup over voice circuits is the hardest form to block, or capture. Might run out of minutes trying to RX/TX files in the gigabit range over dialup though.
PS: whoever’s the dick that keeps moding posts they disagree with as troll, knock it off. Pretty sure OP honestly believes what he said and isn’t trying to troll. Assange should have multiple means to continue to do his work. Even if it is carrier pigeons with sd cards.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @08:21PM
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=How+to+Get+Free+Internet+On+Vodafone [duckduckgo.com]
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday October 17 2016, @11:58PM
That doesn't seem correct at all :)
A 56Kb modem can only do ~200MB per day in data transfer at full rate the entire time. You would need to bond many together to have a reasonable amount of bandwidth to work with. Upstream is still hampered around 33.6Kb, even with v90.
Blocking it is hilariously simple. Just pick up the line and ask Assange, "Are you on the Internet!? I told you to take out the trash first!". The embassy could introduce some static noise and fuck it all up, but then again, is it VoIP? There is a reason why t38 fax support sucks ass, and that we've pretty much given up on sending faxes over the Internet (FoIP). I've never seen it work properly and reliably either.
VoIP uses special codecs and it is simply not an analog circuit. It can be so problematic that hold music is affected, as g729 is a speech conjugate algorithm that works better with speech than it does rhythm and beats.
It's just plain difficult to establish an analog connection over VoIP equipment. Any point along the way that doesn't perfectly recreate the analog signal will fuck it up, and that can be done with a single transcoding event.
Capturing them? Easy. Trivial. Millions per day.
It's an analog voice circuit. Here in the U.S, Verisign makes billions operating what they call "Mediation switches" which do exactly that; Capture analog voice traffic in bulk for later surveillance.
That traffic is really just a different Layer 1 than is typically used, but its Layer 2 looks awfully darn familiar, and the Layer 3 is still the same TCP stack that most of us use. Faxes have long been traditionally considered secure in corporations, but that is so laughably stupid that only c-suites keep repeating it. The IT departments just roll their eyes when they hear a fax is required for "security".
A fax is practically no different than a modem transmitting data packets between another modem, and they can be captured and replayed in real time. I've never even heard of an endpoint-to-endpoint encrypted fax setup, but I've heard plenty of times how a corporate fax line was penetrated and that thousands of confidential documents were intercepted.
To give you an idea of just how stupid fax security was, I could've penetrated a Forbes 400 company from their telephone CO out on the street. There is a scene in the movie Sneakers where they're under the street intercepting the emergency circuits at a bank. Same thing. Almost every corporation was vulnerable at the dmarc, and 66-blocks were effective "keys to the kingdom" if there ever were any.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Tuesday October 18 2016, @01:03AM
Am I missing something? 60 seconds/minute *60 minutes/hour *24 hours/day *56000 bits/second /8 bits/byte /1024 bytes/kB /1024 kB/MB = 576.8 MB/day
200 MB/day works out to 19418 bits/second.
Even 200 MB/day of uncompressed plain text is far more than anyone can read or write. With a mastery of meditation--or under sufficient sedation--one might have the patience to even view a few Web pages.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday October 18 2016, @01:29AM
No, I missed the difference between bits and bytes. That 200MB mark is what I was effectively pushing through a 56K modem on a moderately crappy connection 17k ft from the CO. It may have been suboptimal speeds :) (although never underestimate the speed of 4GB hard drives doing 60mph between a data center and a house)
Even still, 576.8 MB is not the much. While it still may be more than what can be read or written by a person, that doesn't mean it's suitable for data transfers, or that it can suffer the overhead of encryption and document formatting. Not with recent data, that tends to be pretty bloated.
Some of us older guys are laughing quite a bit right now. The "Internet" used to be pretty slow, and protocols that could let you view the data while you downloaded it were cutting edge and pretty cool.
Download speeds used to be slow enough that you needed to pace yourself viewing porn. So you could last till the bottom of the image, or perhaps even go through a couple of them in "real time". The funniest pranks I've ever heard of was replacing a girls pussy with a big ol' dick or Bozo the Clown, as the dude was wanking furiously for a few minutes till the "big reveal". Older BBS's had a sense of humour.
Porn in ye olden times was an adventure where you earned the reward. Dudes these days with the Internet and 40 thumbnails loading in less than a second are so spoiled :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday October 19 2016, @04:18PM
> although never underestimate the speed of 4GB hard drives doing 60mph
The speed is therefore 60mph. :)
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 18 2016, @01:38AM
The math doesn't tell the whole story. Years ago, when all I had was dialup in Outback Nowhere, downloading an ISO of a few hundred megabytes might take all week. We didn't have bittorrent, there were just FTP and browser downloaders, and a couple download managers. You got about half the ISO, and got a message that the file was corrupt, do you want to start over. FTP was far more reliable than any other choice of downloaders, but not all sites supported FTP.
Long story short, dial up sucked the llama's ass.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Tuesday October 18 2016, @02:32AM
Rsync was released in 1996; for those who had a shell account it could make such things relatively painless.
https://groups.google.com/forum/?_escaped_fragment_=msg/comp.os.linux.announce/tZE1qtTcQaU/IF8GhGQ_uTsJ [google.com]
Aside from that, there were (are) ways of resuming an interrupted download, or failing that, breaking a file into smaller files, to be combined after they all arrived.
zipsplit - split a zipfile into smaller zipfiles
[...]
-n size
Make zip files no larger than "size" (default = 36000).
--
http://www.info-zip.org/mans/zipsplit.html [info-zip.org]
split — split a file into pieces
[...]
-b, --bytes=SIZE
put SIZE bytes per output file
-- https://www.mankier.com/1/split [mankier.com]
ZMODEM supports enormous block sizes and, following a communication failure, allows transfers to resume from where they stopped.
-- https://www.techopedia.com/definition/1805/zmodem [techopedia.com]
The NcFTP client can reget files which have only partially downloaded.
-- http://www.linuxmisc.com/3-solaris/8399fba0726d9e39.htm [linuxmisc.com]
One fellow, however, had difficulty downloading such an FTP client:
Please, tell me where I may get an FTP client for
Windows 3.11, which has "restart" or "reget" option. I was
given a PPP connection (for free) from George Soros'
International Scientific Foundation (ISF, Kiev Branch). But
their name server is overrun by users' calls during most of
the day and I can access it only from 01.00 to 07.00.
Generally, there is only 300-800 bps speed of transfer,
which makes files larger then 500k almost unaccessible for
me. Last night I tried to pull out a 1.8M file from the USA.
That was very stupid. I went around my PC all night long
like a hungry jakal around a dying elephant but, alas. The
transfer was aborted at around 08.00 after I got a 0.7M
portion. Well, someone's surfing -- someone's "snailing".
:-(
I found a utility from ftp.download.com, which can
retrieve files in several sessions ("GetRight" shareware)
but again, it is too large for me (1.140M zip) and it
requires Windows95. I also tried to download an evaluation
copy of WS_FTP from Ipswitch.com (both "Profesional" and
"Limited Edition") but all transfers (6 attempts) were
aborted after approx. 100K had been done.
I shall appreciate it highly if somebody tell me where I can
get a "reget" (not very large and for Windows3.11).
-- https://lists.purdue.edu/pipermail/cytometry/1997-March/006699.html [purdue.edu]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 18 2016, @02:44AM
Informative, but I needed you to tell me this over 20 years ago. ;^)
Back then, FTP was a "new" technology to me. Not to the computing world, but to me. I certainly can't tell you which client I was using then, but it could and would fail to resume. The resume feature was there, it simply failed as often as not. And, at that time, I had no idea what rsync was. My "support" consisted of people who had relative "broadband", trying to help some country hick out. They didn't seem to understand my problems, and I certainly didn't understand how they managed to download the entire internet on a daily basis.
(Score: 2) by Username on Tuesday October 18 2016, @02:26AM
I was thinking more about the inception level of encapsulation going on. Even if it’s recorded they still need to convert the analog signal to digital through some kinda virtual modem or something. Probably doable, yeah, but far harder and tedious than sending an already digital capture to a server farm to crack. Then finding it through all the other voice data, and figuring out it’s not just a fax of some guys asscheeks but assange’s secret 56k line. They would most likely be looking for already digital data.
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Monday October 17 2016, @08:23PM
> Even I have four burner phones . . .
Don't you think it dangerous to have that many Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones?
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @08:25PM
I believe AC said "burner" not "exploding" . . .
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @08:46PM
Sounds like a terrorist either way.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday October 17 2016, @09:37PM
They are not likely to go 'bang' at the same time...
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Tuesday October 18 2016, @07:22AM
I don't have a need for a smart phone - so I don't own one. My internet arrives via a fibre optic cable. Don't make assumptions about what other people have or have not.
And the mobile coverage is controlled and monitored by whom? Oh, that's right, possibly the same 'state actor' that has just disrupted his VPN.
The burner phones are useless once they pinpoint where the phone is - which will not take GCHQ very long. See also my comment about who controls the mobile network. GCHQ will, I suspect, have been monitoring his communications since day 1, and I imagine they have it pretty well covered by now. He might have a billion VPN server accounts, but there are a limited number of connections in to and out of the Embassy. If he cannot connect to his VPN server - which is exactly what is currently happening - then it doesn't really matter how many he might have.
You can wear the AC badge with pride, but that doesn't excuse you from thinking the problem through.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @07:45PM
Ecuador knows who is coming.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @07:45PM
Quick, somebody nuke Twitter! Now we know the idiots have a single point of failure, and it's social media!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @07:47PM
I downloaded the torrent so I could be another mirror for the insurance file but it stopped at 4.9mb and pegged my CPU at 100% and listed only 48 other seeders. Has anyone else had success / trouble? Also, I tested a linux distro torret which worked just fine so it wasn't my ISP throttling torret traffic.
(Score: 2) by Username on Monday October 17 2016, @08:01PM
Config the server to work on one port and set it to 80. Seems like the simplest solution.
(Score: 2) by pendorbound on Monday October 17 2016, @08:34PM
That's still blockable. VPN connections differ from http (even http/s) traffic in a predictable way. Networking hardware can be configured to detect and block that traffic even if it's sent over well-known ports that are usually allowed through.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @08:42PM
No need to block anything. Just throttle everything to dialup speed and watch the social tards react. Slow internet is worse than no internet, they scream.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday October 17 2016, @09:43PM
No need to throttle anything. Just change his ISP to Comcast, through a VPN. Or to some other country with internet service equally as bad as the US.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Monday October 17 2016, @08:04PM
Hey, there's a smudge on my screen!
https://news.google.com/news/section?q=wikileaks+clinton [google.com]
22 toxic days for Hillary Clinton [politico.com]
WikiLeaks Exposes Clinton’s LGBT Support as Scripted Political Expediency [observer.com]
‘Remember, it’s illegal to possess’ WikiLeaks Clinton emails, but ‘it’s different for the media,’ says CNN’s Chris Cuomo [washingtonpost.com]
WikiLeaks emails show Clinton campaign collected data to discredit Bill Clinton accuser [washingtonpost.com]
WikiLeaks: Podesta lamented that a Muslim, not a white man, named as killer in 2015 massacre [foxnews.com]
Hillary Clinton Liked Covert Action if It Stayed Covert, Transcript Shows [nytimes.com] (Syria)
Hillary Worried About Jihadists Entering With Refugees In Private Speech [dailycaller.com]
This reminds me a lot of the Wikileaks release of diplomatic cables. There were new, minor stories daily back then. It's hard to say there is a "smoking gun", but there are plenty of stories in here that do not reflect well on Hillary Clinton. And whereas "Cablegate" smeared various countries as much as the U.S., these emails are focused mostly on Clinton (and Podesta). So the damage accumulates. Is it enough to affect the election? That remains to be seen, but I doubt it. Wikileaks needs to pull out a real big scandal, or something unrelated has to happen. I guess there's also the third debate, but I expect it to be similar to debate #2.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @08:13PM
This whole mysterious "state level actor" thing doesn't help either. The embassy he was in cut him off, why didn't he just say that? Instead he went with a deliberately ominous message implying the NSA got up in his internetz, a message that he must of known would be blowback once the actual state was named. Its like he's peppermint patty and we are all charlie brown. How many times does he think can yank that ball away before everybody just wanders off to watch a real football game?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @08:32PM
Actually, it was Lucy but, whatever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @08:57PM
> Actually, it was Lucy but, whatever.
Not in Bizarroworld Peanuts!
But thanks, you are right, I just brainfarted.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @01:03AM
In one instance it was Violet. (This was actually the very first time the ball was pulled away from Charlie Brown, in the early days of the strip.)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday October 17 2016, @08:44PM
Ominous messages are a Wikileaks forte, that's for sure. They have just the right (or wrong) balance of attention whoring and fulfillment.
It doesn't make sense for them to "know" (since this is all still unconfirmed) that a "state party" cut it off without knowing it was Ecuador. The first tweet comes off as a hype-y attempt to sound cool and mysterious, especially with the "We have activated the appropriate contingency plans" bit. Maybe someone else here can try to explain how they could be sure it was a state party without being sure it was Ecuador.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @08:34PM
‘Remember, it’s illegal to possess’ WikiLeaks Clinton emails, but ‘it’s different for the media,’ says CNN’s Chris Cuomo
Putting aside the question of if it is illegal to posess Clinton's leaked emails (I *think* it is not illegal to merely locate and possess them, but I am not a lawyer), the sad thing is that this statement that "it's different for the media" is true.
The government has several times taken illegal action (either accidentally, or nefariously), and much like in international politics, might-makes-right. In a very real sense, media are different, much like the powerful are different just by nature of being powerful. It's very much a realpolitik idea that being part of the media, with a large organization with proven deep pockets and willingness to raise a fuss, does make things different (not more or less illegal, just different in practice).
For example, consider "protecting sources." If Congress calls an ordinary person to reveal a confidential source, and the person refuses to do so, the person is thrown in jail for Contempt of Congress and forgotten about until they give in. If Congress calls on a reporter to reveal a confidential source, and the reporter refuses to do so, the reporter is also thrown in jail for Contempt of Congress just the same. The difference is that their media organization, and probably all media organizations, herd together to raise awareness and a fuss (not to mention pay legal bills), until the person is released.
Moreover, given past history of fighting and the deeper pockets, it is much more likely Congress would give up faster because they know there is less chance of outlasting the media. Plus the ability to stonewall requests better through staff-lawyers, plausibility deniability, and numerous other advantages large organizations have that individuals don't.
You don't have to like it (and probably shouldn't)... but it is true. :(
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday October 17 2016, @08:51PM
My take is that once Wikileaks, considered a media organization even by the U.S. government, processes and releases leaked information, it is legal to look at even if it is classified (with the exception of federal employees and members of the military who may be subject to policy restrictions). The Podesta emails are mostly personal emails with no classification involved AFAIK.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday October 17 2016, @10:35PM
" During her service as secretary of state, Clinton supported every war demanded by the military industrial complex"
That ONE line from http://observer.com/2016/10/wikileaks-exposes-clintons-lgbt-support-as-scripted-political-expediency/ [observer.com] tells so much: people think Hillary would do less harm internationally than Trump, but already Obama is making noise against Russia and Hillary will take you into war with them because.... good for mil/Ind is good for Hillary.
Come on wiki-leaks... before she gets elected and they start finding;
'weapons of mass hacker Assange whateverHillaryneedstostartaWarwithRussiaorWhoever.....'
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @01:16AM
Oh yeah, we already had a Cablegate, didn't we? If Hillary cut the cable it would have been a good name for this. Scissorgate? Slashpocalypse?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @02:21AM
Slashpocalypse?
Already had that. Fuck Beta. :)
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Monday October 17 2016, @08:13PM
This comes right after the announcement that Salesforce won't buy Twitter, is this a move to remain relevant?
I highly doubt Twitter is involved in this beyond being the platform, but it is a funny / interesting possibility.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday October 17 2016, @08:27PM
Hah. Wikileaks could be on a pending permaban list.
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(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @08:15PM
Did he rape the ambassador?
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday October 17 2016, @08:43PM
You're thinking of the future us president (who gropes women and whose name literally means "expel noisily via the anus"
(Score: 4, Touché) by dyingtolive on Monday October 17 2016, @10:15PM
I need citations here. No one I'm yet aware of has claimed Clinton gropes women.
I mean, I believe the latter part though.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 18 2016, @12:20AM
No, he just rapes them. No groping was reported.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @01:52AM
Subconscious sexism FTL.
No surprise for you though.
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 18 2016, @02:51AM
You ascribe subtlety to me? Sweet mother of fuck. Are you new here?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Monday October 17 2016, @08:18PM
No phone? I'd have a thought a guy like him would have several, on different networks, all PAYG. London's hardly lacking in mobile comms.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @08:50PM
I got two phones, one for the bitches and one for the dough
Think I need two more, line bumpin’ I’m ring, ring, ringin’
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @09:32PM
I use two phones in the morning
I use two phones at night
I use two phones in the afternoon
And it makes me feel all right
I use two phones in time of peace
And two in time of war
I use two phones before I use two phones
And then I use two more.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @09:18PM
That Clinton hit squads, dispatched from their secret lair [duckduckgo.com] have taken President Rafael Correa [wikipedia.org] hostage in Quito.
He is being held incommunicado at a Clinton Foundation [clintonfoundation.org] safe house outside of the capital.
The first set of demands from the terrorist Hillary Clinton was to deprive Assange of his internet access and confine him in a broom cupboard.
It is believed that this is just the beginning, and that Correa will be gang raped and then tortured unless all demands are promptly met.
Those Clinton scum can't hide their murderous and sinister ways any more. They've been caught this time, and Ecuadorian Police [wikipedia.org] SWAT teams have been deployed to extract their beloved president before HIllary can don her strap-on and begin the festivities.
Anyone who had any doubt before should now realize just how crooked Hillary is.
Since she's hopped up on goofballs, she's lost all contact with reality and that will be her downfall.
Believe me folks, she is a disgusting cow and like I said, I wasn't impressed with her caboose at all!
In fact, I wouldn't fuck her with Rudy's dick and Chris pushing!
If that's not enough, I don't know what is!
Let's Make America Great Again!
Trump/Pence 2016
#MAGA
@RealDonaldTrump
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday October 17 2016, @09:40PM
I can confirm.... that Trump thinks about Hillary naked with a strap-on. That's one sex tape I think the Internet can do without.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @09:54PM
I can confirm.... that Trump thinks about Hillary naked with a strap-on. That's one sex tape I think the Internet can do without.
Rule 34 my friend, Rule 34 [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Funny) by edIII on Tuesday October 18 2016, @01:31AM
Actually, I think Trump dressed up as the Gimp with Hillary going after him in a backroom sporting a huge strap-on , is exactly what this election needs :D
Fuck, if I could make that into a t-shirt and not be killed or sued into oblivion, I might be able to make some money :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @09:32PM
Falling, and fast.
There are only two possibilities I really see as to why this is happening, and I'm not sure which is more likely.
a) President 2016 has really just frayed people's mental states and they search for every opportunity to spew crap that is rarely even the tiniest bit relevant to the story.
b) SN has gathered enough attention and now the astroturfers and spin doctors troll us for fun.
Anyone else notice this trend? We seem to be following the ./ route where jokes are the norm, obvious statements of dubious worth derail the conversation with ad hominem arguments. Basically it feels like this place has turned into an echo chamber for nerd rage. Maybe I'll just turn up the filter to 3 and see if that helps out.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday October 17 2016, @10:35PM
Clinton isn't exactly irrelevant to the story, so you can dismount your high horse:
"We can confirm Ecuador cut off Assange's internet access Saturday, 5pm GMT, shortly after publication of Clinton's Goldman Sachs speechs [sic]."
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @11:09PM
Was a general comment, it just seems that we dive into arguments about bullshit. I see a bunch about cell phone / phone line internet (only a valid point if this is a PR stunt to get publicity, but that was hardly even addressed), a bunch of mostly lame jokes, one comment about a torrent file, and an offtopic twitter post. Your screen smudge and Notsanguine's post are the only decent conversation pieces, and one request for feedback that was on topic. Basically it feels like the level of discussion is more on par with Reddit, the occasional useful tidbit and a whole lot of bullshit joking/flaming.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 18 2016, @12:23AM
My take on it? It's just people letting off some steam with a bit of gallows humor. We're all fucked. We all know it. You can either laugh about it or cry about it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday October 18 2016, @07:42PM
You know what you did. ;^(
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(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Monday October 17 2016, @11:32PM
It's an election year. It's still better than most places at the moment, all things considered.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @11:39PM
MmmmHmmm, says the Moose Wang Lover :P j/k it is sadly true... Hubski.com looks like some decent discussions, but there isn't a whole lot of movement there (haven't used it long). Reddit is basically just an arm of the propaganda machine now. Haven't checked slashdot in a long time, maybe I'll check it out but not engage... Or better yet, unplug from the Net as much as possible! but who am I kidding... Oh right, myself!
(Score: 2) by gidds on Wednesday October 19 2016, @12:35PM
Well, yes, but that was months ago, and many more relevant things have happened since...
— Oh, you mean you're yet to have an election where you are? Good for you, but the world is rather larger than just the USA. And so (more relevantly) is the world of tech.
I'd be annoyed if every story got hijacked with divisive comments spewing bile about the issue of Brexit or Scottish independence, but at least those have some direct relevance to me. The same doesn't apply to the US election, and I'm sure I'm not the only person here to find all this mention of it extremely tedious.
[sig redacted]
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Wednesday October 19 2016, @01:50PM
My US-centrism aside (sorry to microaggress you brah) I think you're being a little myopic if you don't accept that the US election affects you as well. Maybe not to the extent that it does the people actually living here, but certainly as much as brexit will affect us, at least, in a few years when you guys actually figure out what that means and how to implement it. Now is the world of globalism and secret trade agreements, and we've only hit the tip of the iceberg as far as that level of bullshit goes.
For what it's worth though, I find it tedious as well, and I'm fucking trapped in the country to which it's directly relevant. I was simply trying to explain it, not excuse it.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @01:50AM
Anyone else notice this trend? We seem to be following the ./ route where jokes are the norm, obvious statements of dubious worth derail the conversation with ad hominem arguments. Basically it feels like this place has turned into an echo chamber for nerd rage.
You expected different for a group of 'refugees' from a site that ragequit over a redesign of their GUI? The people who were into tech sorts of stuff moved on LONG ago. They come back and visit once and awhile but rarely stay.
Maybe I'll just turn up the filter to 3 and see if that helps out.
Do not expect to see much.
There are 3 things you really shouldn't talk about. Religion, politics, and money. Yet the only stories on this site and the other one that gain any traction are of those 3. That becomes self reinforcing. As the people who post that sort of thing get into it. Those who do not care for it move on and stop posting.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Tuesday October 18 2016, @07:41AM
I, for one, would be more than happy to concentrate on our science and technology roots. But your final sentence in the quote explains the problem. We do publish far more STEM stories than the others but it seems as if our community has changed. There is less intelligent discourse and more trolling, abuse, and inappropriate moderation. And the only stories that attract significant interest are often a few intelligent comments buried in rubbish.
When this site first started we had a number of highly qualified people in our community who were able to explain what was happening in STEM in terms that we could all grok. An intelligent exchange of ideas would then take place. Many of them have either moved on or remain silent. We have also attracted a fair number who see this site as another version of /. We are not, we aspire to much better things. Unfortunately, a small number of the more recent arrivals are bringing all that is bad about the other site and trying to duplicate it here. I fervently hope that they don't succeed.
(Score: 2) by SubiculumHammer on Tuesday October 18 2016, @04:57AM
I visit SN, but have mostly moved on to more dedicated forums of my interests where signal to noise is higher.
(Score: 2) by SubiculumHammer on Tuesday October 18 2016, @04:59AM
I do like the community as a whole however.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 18 2016, @02:53PM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Monday October 17 2016, @09:45PM
But Wikileaks has already released Part 10 [t.co] of the Podesta emails, so this hasn't slowed these guys down at all.
Who knows? But it seems like this is another publicity stunt (like Wikileaks offering a reward to find Seth Rich's killer) to try and stay on the 24/7 news cycle radar.
I imagine we'll find out later that the Ecuadorians were doing maintenance or some moron with a backhoe cut their links.
Regardless, we have to pillory Clinton over this, because it's obviously her fault!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1) by Francis on Monday October 17 2016, @10:15PM
I'm not sure why anybody would assume that he has the only copies of the materials that Wikileaks reviews for publication. I'm also not sure why anybody would assume that he's the only person doing anything at Wikileaks. Losing the connection mostly means that he can't publish or receive things directly over the internet and there's all sorts of reasons why they may have shut the connection.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @03:59AM
Regardless, we have to pillory the Russians over the contents of the leaks, because it's obviously their fault!
(Score: 2) by goody on Tuesday October 18 2016, @01:28AM
He probably just needs to reboot his cable modem.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 18 2016, @02:34AM
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-wikileaks-idUSKBN12H2E9 [reuters.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by isostatic on Tuesday October 18 2016, @06:21AM
The whole world is behind Clinton because of the alternative.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2016, @10:51AM
So to be the next president you just have to stink slightly less than the alternative. lovely system...
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday October 18 2016, @07:48PM
Well in reality there's a bit of choice, it's a multi stage system. On the D side, the country rejected Bernie Sanders for being too "extreme", probably somewhere in the Tony Blair 1997 range. On the R side the party was unable to put any real opposition candidates up.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by arulatas on Wednesday October 19 2016, @02:12PM
I don't think the country rejected Bernie. I think that political maneuvering inside of the democrats caused him to lose. Not everything was Kosher in the primaries as was discovered.
----- 10 turns around
(Score: 2) by Bogsnoticus on Tuesday October 18 2016, @06:38AM
Ecuadorian security services needed to give a "secret" level briefing to various staff members, and shut down all comm links during said briefing.
Assange being assange, immediately took it to mean that the evil entities had ordered his access be cut in retaliation for his "freedom fighting".
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.