5 ms·

Julian Assange Status – Time since last proof of life: 46 days

107 points by level09 10y ago

nxc18 10y ago
Why do we care?
- nodesocket 10y ago
  Agree, I'm not a big fan of Assange.
jansenv 10y ago
He's dead, Jim.
jansenv 10y ago
He's dead, Jim.
toyg 10y ago
For the record, it looks like things are actually moving, with the Swedish prosecutor finally meeting him at the embassy (and without his lawyer): https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/14/julian-assange-to-face-swedish-prosecutors-over-accusation https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/14/julian-assange...
- meric 10y ago
  The Swedish will only be talking to Ecuadorian embassy staff who will pass questions in written form to Assange. They will not meet Assange himself.
  - sorenjan 10y ago
    The questions are asked by an Ecuadorian prosecutor and was supplied by Swedish prosecutors earlier. The Swedish prosecutor and a Swedish police is present at the hearing and is allowed to ask Assange to clarify his answers but not to ask any new ones. A DNA sample will be taken if Assange agrees to it. Ecuador has not permitted Assange's lawyer to be present against Asssange's wishes. Who knew Ecuador wasn't an ideal country for human rights? Is it possibly even worse than Great Britain and Sweden? https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/14/julian-assange-to-face-swedish-prosecutors-over-accusation https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/14/julian-assange... https://www.aklagare.se/nyheter-press/pressmeddelanden/?newsId=C04E8A0A2B026877 https://www.aklagare.se/nyheter-press/pressmeddelanden/?news...
jlmorton 10y ago
Isn't the simple answer that the embassy of Ecuador in London cut off his access to the Internet? The embassy announced they had restricted his access to the Internet beginning October 17th. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/19/wikileaks-ecuador-julian-assange-internet-access https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/19/wikileaks-ecua...
- lomnakkus 10y ago
  Well, someone like Assange would surely have a Dead Man's Switch, but may be of interest that it hasn't triggered yet. (Honestly, if I were ever in the same situation, I'd probably let it run for quite a long time, just in case I'm incapacitated for a long time by an accident, say.)
  - rando444 10y ago
    The speculation is that the reason the switch didn't get triggered is related to the ddos attack on the dyn dns provider which happened shortly after that.
    - lomnakkus 10y ago
      Oh! ... but wouldn't this still be quite short-term? (Or, is the argument that the DDoS was actually meant to redirect some queries, or...?)
      - rando444 10y ago
        Nobody knows. All anyone knows is that A happened and B happened. Everything else is speculation, including how the switch might operate or whether or not the outage is related. I'd recommend reading the chronology on the website, it's all the facts anyone knows for sure.. but regardless, at the end of the day, some proof that the man is alive would be nice. http://assange.net/chronology/ http://assange.net/chronology/
        10y ago
corey_moncure 10y ago
The poll is missing an option: GPG-signed message with an un-knowable current event.
- x1798DE 10y ago
  I agree that that could be a proof of life, but in Assange's particular situation, that would be putting a good amount of faith in his operational security with respect to his GPG keys. I try to keep good op-sec, but I'm not sure that my GPG keys would be secure if someone had physical possession of both me and my devices and the motivation to try and get at my keys.
- rando444 10y ago
  Yes, but more importantly now, the poll was almost a month ago, and they never bothered to do anything about it. This despite the masses of people calling for proof of life on every twitter post they make.
wbhart 10y ago
The first minute of this interview should clear this up quite quickly. Julian Assange has certainly been seen alive recently, and certainly much more recently than 46 days ago! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sbT3_9dJY4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sbT3_9dJY4
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- wbhart 10y ago
  I'm sorry, but can someone explain to me why this would not be accepted as proof of life? He is asked questions in the first minutes of the interview and gives answers about events that happened this month. Isn't that conclusive? Somehow I must be missing something.
  - rando444 10y ago
    Can you explain what events that you saw referenced in the video that happened after Oct 16? I'm not seeing it.
    - wbhart 10y ago
      In the first minute of the video, he is asked about "this final week of the election campaign". Also, he refers to the following Podesta email that was released on October 10th, which is quite clearly more recent than 46 days. This is nothing more than a silly conspiracy theory. https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3774 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3774
      - rando444 10y ago
        Looking at the video more, I agree with you that this is more recent. However, I don't see any reason to believe that wikileaks itself is not compromised. Wikileaks is saying assange is in control, wants to give proof, does not give proof, releases hashes, releases files that don't match the hashes, and despite all the calls for proof of life, they do nothing.. which if assange is still alive is possibly his way of trying to get people to not trust wikileaks anymore because it's been compromised and he can't say anything about it. (1) because they're not letting him and (2) because ecuador might kick him out for revealing the truth Until the man himself gives some proof that he is alive and in control of the organization, I see no reason to trust wikileaks.
Jamesbeam 10y ago
This would all be super easy to end, for so many smart people in here you guys are acting pretty dumb. Guess making up conspiracy theories is better than actually finding a solution to get PoL. According to the previous photos from Assange and the data that I could find publicly, he's most likely in this part of the embassy. https://www.google.de/maps/@51.4991122,-0.1612139,3a,53.6y,214.36h,88.99t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sDxQ0uuKHq-uKgRtnnErS-w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.de/maps/@51.4991122,-0.1612139,3a,53.6y,2... A Vanity Fair article says: "Assange’s living space, a former embassy office, is located on a ground-floor corner overlooking a small dead-end street.His window sits above one of the hundreds of thousands of security cameras." That is also the part of the building where he talked to the press, and his cat is sitting most of the time. Now that we have established where he is most likely to find we look at how far the office he is staying in is from the building on the other side of the street ( what would be our observation point, I'll come to that later again.) According to Google, that is surprisingly accurate for measurements the distance is: Total distance: 19.67 m (64.52 ft) So let's say about 65 ft or 20m. Now how does that help us to find out if Assange is still alive? There is a technique mostly used by the military called "TTWS" (Through-the-Wall Sensors). The portable devices in the price range up to $80k have a range up to 65ft. While this does not deliver a clear image of Assange if you had this running from a window in the observation point across the street, there is a pretty high chance you will see if someone stays / lives in that room. The better devices also can give you a "signature" and work up to 230ft (70m), so setting this up for a few days you will be able to track pretty precisely who stays in that part of the embassy and if he left and came back to that room. So if you really care if he lives or not, if you start a crowdfunding or find someone with such a device / willing to spend about $150k for a new device, a ticket to London, and a few grand to bribe someone in the building across the embassy to let you stay for a few days you could make a pretty good guess if Assange is still in the embassy / alive. P.S.: Just letting you know that this is a gray area and you'd most likely get arrested if the Ecuadorian embassy finds out you do surveillance on them. Also, I think Assange is well and alive, it plays into his cards greatly to have people believe he got kidnapped / killed / exfiltrated. At least I had a good laugh reading all these bullshit theories. Thanks for the entertainment.
gotofritz 10y ago
Counter-conspiracy: after the Reddit AMA in which most redditors were pissed off and accused WikiLeakas to act in Putin's interests, Assange engineered this drama as a way to regain his previous cult status among the digerati.

107 points by level09 10y ago

nxc18 10y ago

Why do we care?

nodesocket 10y ago
Agree, I'm not a big fan of Assange.

jansenv 10y ago

He's dead, Jim.

jansenv 10y ago

He's dead, Jim.

toyg 10y ago

For the record, it looks like things are actually moving, with the Swedish prosecutor finally meeting him at the embassy (and without his lawyer): https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/14/julian-assange-to-face-swedish-prosecutors-over-accusation https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/14/julian-assange...

meric 10y ago
The Swedish will only be talking to Ecuadorian embassy staff who will pass questions in written form to Assange. They will not meet Assange himself.
- sorenjan 10y ago
  The questions are asked by an Ecuadorian prosecutor and was supplied by Swedish prosecutors earlier. The Swedish prosecutor and a Swedish police is present at the hearing and is allowed to ask Assange to clarify his answers but not to ask any new ones. A DNA sample will be taken if Assange agrees to it. Ecuador has not permitted Assange's lawyer to be present against Asssange's wishes. Who knew Ecuador wasn't an ideal country for human rights? Is it possibly even worse than Great Britain and Sweden? https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/14/julian-assange-to-face-swedish-prosecutors-over-accusation https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/14/julian-assange... https://www.aklagare.se/nyheter-press/pressmeddelanden/?newsId=C04E8A0A2B026877 https://www.aklagare.se/nyheter-press/pressmeddelanden/?news...

jlmorton 10y ago

Isn't the simple answer that the embassy of Ecuador in London cut off his access to the Internet? The embassy announced they had restricted his access to the Internet beginning October 17th. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/19/wikileaks-ecuador-julian-assange-internet-access https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/19/wikileaks-ecua...

lomnakkus 10y ago
Well, someone like Assange would surely have a Dead Man's Switch, but may be of interest that it hasn't triggered yet. (Honestly, if I were ever in the same situation, I'd probably let it run for quite a long time, just in case I'm incapacitated for a long time by an accident, say.)
- rando444 10y ago
  The speculation is that the reason the switch didn't get triggered is related to the ddos attack on the dyn dns provider which happened shortly after that.
  - lomnakkus 10y ago
    Oh! ... but wouldn't this still be quite short-term? (Or, is the argument that the DDoS was actually meant to redirect some queries, or...?)
    - rando444 10y ago
      Nobody knows. All anyone knows is that A happened and B happened. Everything else is speculation, including how the switch might operate or whether or not the outage is related. I'd recommend reading the chronology on the website, it's all the facts anyone knows for sure.. but regardless, at the end of the day, some proof that the man is alive would be nice. http://assange.net/chronology/ http://assange.net/chronology/
      - 10y ago

corey_moncure 10y ago

The poll is missing an option: GPG-signed message with an un-knowable current event.

x1798DE 10y ago
I agree that that could be a proof of life, but in Assange's particular situation, that would be putting a good amount of faith in his operational security with respect to his GPG keys. I try to keep good op-sec, but I'm not sure that my GPG keys would be secure if someone had physical possession of both me and my devices and the motivation to try and get at my keys.
rando444 10y ago
Yes, but more importantly now, the poll was almost a month ago, and they never bothered to do anything about it. This despite the masses of people calling for proof of life on every twitter post they make.

wbhart 10y ago

The first minute of this interview should clear this up quite quickly. Julian Assange has certainly been seen alive recently, and certainly much more recently than 46 days ago! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sbT3_9dJY4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sbT3_9dJY4

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
wbhart 10y ago
I'm sorry, but can someone explain to me why this would not be accepted as proof of life? He is asked questions in the first minutes of the interview and gives answers about events that happened this month. Isn't that conclusive? Somehow I must be missing something.
- rando444 10y ago
  Can you explain what events that you saw referenced in the video that happened after Oct 16? I'm not seeing it.
  - wbhart 10y ago
    In the first minute of the video, he is asked about "this final week of the election campaign". Also, he refers to the following Podesta email that was released on October 10th, which is quite clearly more recent than 46 days. This is nothing more than a silly conspiracy theory. https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3774 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3774
    - rando444 10y ago
      Looking at the video more, I agree with you that this is more recent. However, I don't see any reason to believe that wikileaks itself is not compromised. Wikileaks is saying assange is in control, wants to give proof, does not give proof, releases hashes, releases files that don't match the hashes, and despite all the calls for proof of life, they do nothing.. which if assange is still alive is possibly his way of trying to get people to not trust wikileaks anymore because it's been compromised and he can't say anything about it. (1) because they're not letting him and (2) because ecuador might kick him out for revealing the truth Until the man himself gives some proof that he is alive and in control of the organization, I see no reason to trust wikileaks.

Jamesbeam 10y ago

This would all be super easy to end, for so many smart people in here you guys are acting pretty dumb. Guess making up conspiracy theories is better than actually finding a solution to get PoL. According to the previous photos from Assange and the data that I could find publicly, he's most likely in this part of the embassy. https://www.google.de/maps/@51.4991122,-0.1612139,3a,53.6y,214.36h,88.99t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sDxQ0uuKHq-uKgRtnnErS-w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.de/maps/@51.4991122,-0.1612139,3a,53.6y,2... A Vanity Fair article says: "Assange’s living space, a former embassy office, is located on a ground-floor corner overlooking a small dead-end street.His window sits above one of the hundreds of thousands of security cameras." That is also the part of the building where he talked to the press, and his cat is sitting most of the time. Now that we have established where he is most likely to find we look at how far the office he is staying in is from the building on the other side of the street ( what would be our observation point, I'll come to that later again.) According to Google, that is surprisingly accurate for measurements the distance is: Total distance: 19.67 m (64.52 ft) So let's say about 65 ft or 20m. Now how does that help us to find out if Assange is still alive? There is a technique mostly used by the military called "TTWS" (Through-the-Wall Sensors). The portable devices in the price range up to $80k have a range up to 65ft. While this does not deliver a clear image of Assange if you had this running from a window in the observation point across the street, there is a pretty high chance you will see if someone stays / lives in that room. The better devices also can give you a "signature" and work up to 230ft (70m), so setting this up for a few days you will be able to track pretty precisely who stays in that part of the embassy and if he left and came back to that room. So if you really care if he lives or not, if you start a crowdfunding or find someone with such a device / willing to spend about $150k for a new device, a ticket to London, and a few grand to bribe someone in the building across the embassy to let you stay for a few days you could make a pretty good guess if Assange is still in the embassy / alive. P.S.: Just letting you know that this is a gray area and you'd most likely get arrested if the Ecuadorian embassy finds out you do surveillance on them. Also, I think Assange is well and alive, it plays into his cards greatly to have people believe he got kidnapped / killed / exfiltrated. At least I had a good laugh reading all these bullshit theories. Thanks for the entertainment.

gotofritz 10y ago

Counter-conspiracy: after the Reddit AMA in which most redditors were pissed off and accused WikiLeakas to act in Putin's interests, Assange engineered this drama as a way to regain his previous cult status among the digerati.