8 ms·

In Election Hacking, Julian Assange’s Years-Old Vision Becomes Reality

70 points by dankohn1 10y ago

exabrial 10y ago
This is simply fake news. No "election hacking" happened; the integrity of the vote was never compromised. What we have here is a bunch of media organizations throwing a tantrum because they were no longer the primary influencers of the election.
- g_sch 10y ago
  The article actually discusses the DNC email hack, and nowhere in the article does it allege that any election systems were compromised. The lexical ambiguity in the headline is not optimal, true, especially when allegations of the latter sort are being tossed around. But "fake news" (another term that has IMO become pretty loaded) is a rather uncharitable term for this article, which is largely a historical look at Wikileaks' vision in the context of the DNC leaks.
  - exabrial 10y ago
    I disagree, there is no lexical ambiguity about the title. Those two words have a very exact meaning, and it simply is not true, per your own statement. If the title was simply the second half, and the facts were not begrudgingly acknowledged in the article, I'd feel differently about an otherwise interesting opinion piece.
    - dekhn 10y ago
      "Election hacking" is a general term that exceeds your definition of it. Please accept that as a given, regardless of your own tendency to interpret it in a limited way.
      - TheIronYuppie 10y ago
        +1 - the election was an 18 month+ campaign. Constraining it to just the casting of a vote seems too narrow.
        rokosbasilisk 10y ago
        wouldnt we call that campaign hacking ? Isnt there a difference between the campaign and the election? I had to check the dictionary to be sure.
      - snowpanda 10y ago
        I don't believe he exceeded the definition at all. It's naive to think at this point that the media isn't using the term "election hacking" (in a headline), as a means to push the false narrative that "the election was hacked". I think its limited to think that it was simply an unfortunate title, when put into context with 99% of the other headlines they put out. As OP stated, they are throwing a hissy fit because they didn't control the election.
      - digler999 10y ago
        so Hillary and Trump each "hacked" the election by posting negative campaign ads ? how come this pejorative term, "hacking", wasn't used against either of them ?
        euyyn 10y ago
        Because this is about actual computer hacking.
        burkaman 10y ago
        Because negative campaign ads are a conventional, authorized method of affecting an election. For the same reason, getting a job and going to work every day is not considered a "life hack".
        digler999 10y ago
    - CPLX 10y ago
      If you can make up terms like growth hacking (formerly known as marketing) then it seems to me you can make up the term election hacking (formerly known as political advocacy) by the exact same mechanism.
      - 3131s 10y ago
        The person who is the subject of this article claims that it was not a hack at all though, but instead a leak. That seems like something significant that the NYTimes should at least mention.
        Bartweiss 10y ago
        This feels a lot like equivocating between "site X hacked" and "site X DDOS'd", except on a more urgent topic. There's a lot of FUD achieved by failing to clarify when digital attacks are known-and-inescapable risks (leaks, legal harassment, site takedowns) and when they're actual system-level attacks.
    - mynameishere 10y ago
      The title is indeed inaccurate (as far as we know) and I suspect that's due to the strange habit of newspapers having different people write the article and the headline.
  - digler999 10y ago
    > and nowhere in the article does it allege that any election systems were compromised. Apparently you didn't check the headline
- zwerdlds 10y ago
  Is "Election Cracking" perhaps the way you interpreted the title here?
panarky 10y ago
People are confused by Assange apparently attacking one US political party and then switching to attack the other party. What's missing is an understanding of his underlying motivations. This piece hints at it, but it doesn't quite get there. Assange sees the existing power structure as a connected graph that requires secrecy to function. His objective is to sever or degrade the links between nodes in the graph by exposing secrets. Information flows from conspirator to conspirator. Not every conspirator trusts or knows every other conspirator even though all are connected. Some are on the fringe of the conspiracy, others are central and communicate with many conspirators and others still may know only two conspirators but be a bridge between important sections or groupings of the conspiracy. If all conspirators are assassinated or all the links between them are destroyed, then a conspiracy no longer exists. This usually requires more resources than we can deploy, so we ask our first question: What is the minimum number of links that must be cut to separate the conspiracy into two groups of equal number? (divide and conquer). When we look at an authoritarian conspiracy as a whole, we see a system of interacting organs, a beast with arteries and veins whose blood may be thickened and slowed until it falls, stupefied; unable to sufficiently comprehend and control the forces in its environment. https://web.archive.org/web/20070129125831/http://iq.org/conspiracies.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20070129125831/http://iq.org/con...
- devoply 10y ago
  What does Assange want to replace the conspiracy with? A true democracy. There is no such thing. Have you seen the Game of Thrones. That's how the world is without a super power. All that this will end up doing is cause the US to lose its place as a super power. Which will enable other powers play more freely. Which will in the end cause different types of chaos in the world rather than that which the US causes. These things don't go away. Problems are not solved, they just move, wiggle, and multiply.
  - euyyn 10y ago
    But I watched Game of Thrones, and chaos was a ladder...
  - 10y ago
rihegher 10y ago
A bit out of topic but quite interesting the last minute transcript of the last wikileaks PR on periscope: https://www.periscope.tv/WikiLeaks/1YpKkqmkDkmJj?t=4250 https://www.periscope.tv/WikiLeaks/1YpKkqmkDkmJj?t=4250 "Tomorrow I will give an ‘ask me anything’ on reddit where I’ll talk about why it is that many people came to believe that I was dead or missing or kidnapped, quite interesting story, not just an organic phenomenon but people placing deliberately false file report to say that I was dead and then for wikileaks could not be trusted and no one should give us leaks or information."
- cloakandswagger 10y ago
  This is Wikileaks own fault for three reasons: 1) Julian disappeared completely after the internet to the Ecuadorean embassy was cut in October 2016 2) Wikileaks inexplicably changed their policy for insurance file hashes, publishing the hash of the decrypted files instead of the encrypted ones. This meant the hash of the insurance files didn't match the .AES files, giving the impression that they had been altered 3) Wikileaks stopped issuing verifiable proof of life for Assange. A simple PGP signed message would have sufficed. With all that was going on, it was actually very believable that Assange had been abducted/killed during the internet blackout, and that Wikileaks was now being run as a black-ops site for a three letter agency.
  - rihegher 10y ago
    So you think he's not alive and that the press conference of today was a fake? Shouldn't we wait for the explaination he may come up with tomorrow on reddit? I just don't know on which channel this AMA will happen.
    - cloakandswagger 10y ago
      What? No. I'm explaining how the whole theory that he was dead started and has been raging for the past 4 months. On Periscope he implied that it was done maliciously to discredit Wikileaks, I'm explaining how it was completely avoidable for them.
samirillian 10y ago
Antonio Gramsci, in "The Modern Prince," observes that Machiavelli himself was not at all "machiavellian". The information conveyed in "The Prince" was already well-known by those in power. The purpose of "The Prince" was, rather, to give the knowledge of how political power is wielded to the masses. Interesting parallels with Assange's project.
calimac 10y ago
Why is everyone so confused? Maybe because this entire narrative is build on vague ambiguity driven by emotional elitist rants displayed by the media. The politically connected media is being given cover in the form of bullshit reports and talking points from the rouge or politicized elements of the federal administration. Stop the

70 points by dankohn1 10y ago

This is simply fake news. No "election hacking" happened; the integrity of the vote was never compromised. What we have here is a bunch of media organizations throwing a tantrum because they were no longer the primary influencers of the election.

g_sch 10y ago
The article actually discusses the DNC email hack, and nowhere in the article does it allege that any election systems were compromised. The lexical ambiguity in the headline is not optimal, true, especially when allegations of the latter sort are being tossed around. But "fake news" (another term that has IMO become pretty loaded) is a rather uncharitable term for this article, which is largely a historical look at Wikileaks' vision in the context of the DNC leaks.
- exabrial 10y ago
  I disagree, there is no lexical ambiguity about the title. Those two words have a very exact meaning, and it simply is not true, per your own statement. If the title was simply the second half, and the facts were not begrudgingly acknowledged in the article, I'd feel differently about an otherwise interesting opinion piece.
  - dekhn 10y ago
    "Election hacking" is a general term that exceeds your definition of it. Please accept that as a given, regardless of your own tendency to interpret it in a limited way.
    - TheIronYuppie 10y ago
      +1 - the election was an 18 month+ campaign. Constraining it to just the casting of a vote seems too narrow.
      - rokosbasilisk 10y ago
        wouldnt we call that campaign hacking ? Isnt there a difference between the campaign and the election? I had to check the dictionary to be sure.
    - snowpanda 10y ago
      I don't believe he exceeded the definition at all. It's naive to think at this point that the media isn't using the term "election hacking" (in a headline), as a means to push the false narrative that "the election was hacked". I think its limited to think that it was simply an unfortunate title, when put into context with 99% of the other headlines they put out. As OP stated, they are throwing a hissy fit because they didn't control the election.
    - digler999 10y ago
      so Hillary and Trump each "hacked" the election by posting negative campaign ads ? how come this pejorative term, "hacking", wasn't used against either of them ?
      - euyyn 10y ago
        Because this is about actual computer hacking.
      - burkaman 10y ago
        Because negative campaign ads are a conventional, authorized method of affecting an election. For the same reason, getting a job and going to work every day is not considered a "life hack".
        digler999 10y ago
  - CPLX 10y ago
    If you can make up terms like growth hacking (formerly known as marketing) then it seems to me you can make up the term election hacking (formerly known as political advocacy) by the exact same mechanism.
    - 3131s 10y ago
      The person who is the subject of this article claims that it was not a hack at all though, but instead a leak. That seems like something significant that the NYTimes should at least mention.
      - Bartweiss 10y ago
        This feels a lot like equivocating between "site X hacked" and "site X DDOS'd", except on a more urgent topic. There's a lot of FUD achieved by failing to clarify when digital attacks are known-and-inescapable risks (leaks, legal harassment, site takedowns) and when they're actual system-level attacks.
  - mynameishere 10y ago
    The title is indeed inaccurate (as far as we know) and I suspect that's due to the strange habit of newspapers having different people write the article and the headline.
- digler999 10y ago
  > and nowhere in the article does it allege that any election systems were compromised. Apparently you didn't check the headline
zwerdlds 10y ago
Is "Election Cracking" perhaps the way you interpreted the title here?

panarky 10y ago

People are confused by Assange apparently attacking one US political party and then switching to attack the other party. What's missing is an understanding of his underlying motivations. This piece hints at it, but it doesn't quite get there. Assange sees the existing power structure as a connected graph that requires secrecy to function. His objective is to sever or degrade the links between nodes in the graph by exposing secrets. Information flows from conspirator to conspirator. Not every conspirator trusts or knows every other conspirator even though all are connected. Some are on the fringe of the conspiracy, others are central and communicate with many conspirators and others still may know only two conspirators but be a bridge between important sections or groupings of the conspiracy. If all conspirators are assassinated or all the links between them are destroyed, then a conspiracy no longer exists. This usually requires more resources than we can deploy, so we ask our first question: What is the minimum number of links that must be cut to separate the conspiracy into two groups of equal number? (divide and conquer). When we look at an authoritarian conspiracy as a whole, we see a system of interacting organs, a beast with arteries and veins whose blood may be thickened and slowed until it falls, stupefied; unable to sufficiently comprehend and control the forces in its environment. https://web.archive.org/web/20070129125831/http://iq.org/conspiracies.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20070129125831/http://iq.org/con...

devoply 10y ago
What does Assange want to replace the conspiracy with? A true democracy. There is no such thing. Have you seen the Game of Thrones. That's how the world is without a super power. All that this will end up doing is cause the US to lose its place as a super power. Which will enable other powers play more freely. Which will in the end cause different types of chaos in the world rather than that which the US causes. These things don't go away. Problems are not solved, they just move, wiggle, and multiply.
- euyyn 10y ago
  But I watched Game of Thrones, and chaos was a ladder...
- 10y ago

rihegher 10y ago

A bit out of topic but quite interesting the last minute transcript of the last wikileaks PR on periscope: https://www.periscope.tv/WikiLeaks/1YpKkqmkDkmJj?t=4250 https://www.periscope.tv/WikiLeaks/1YpKkqmkDkmJj?t=4250 "Tomorrow I will give an ‘ask me anything’ on reddit where I’ll talk about why it is that many people came to believe that I was dead or missing or kidnapped, quite interesting story, not just an organic phenomenon but people placing deliberately false file report to say that I was dead and then for wikileaks could not be trusted and no one should give us leaks or information."

cloakandswagger 10y ago
This is Wikileaks own fault for three reasons: 1) Julian disappeared completely after the internet to the Ecuadorean embassy was cut in October 2016 2) Wikileaks inexplicably changed their policy for insurance file hashes, publishing the hash of the decrypted files instead of the encrypted ones. This meant the hash of the insurance files didn't match the .AES files, giving the impression that they had been altered 3) Wikileaks stopped issuing verifiable proof of life for Assange. A simple PGP signed message would have sufficed. With all that was going on, it was actually very believable that Assange had been abducted/killed during the internet blackout, and that Wikileaks was now being run as a black-ops site for a three letter agency.
- rihegher 10y ago
  So you think he's not alive and that the press conference of today was a fake? Shouldn't we wait for the explaination he may come up with tomorrow on reddit? I just don't know on which channel this AMA will happen.
  - cloakandswagger 10y ago
    What? No. I'm explaining how the whole theory that he was dead started and has been raging for the past 4 months. On Periscope he implied that it was done maliciously to discredit Wikileaks, I'm explaining how it was completely avoidable for them.

samirillian 10y ago

Antonio Gramsci, in "The Modern Prince," observes that Machiavelli himself was not at all "machiavellian". The information conveyed in "The Prince" was already well-known by those in power. The purpose of "The Prince" was, rather, to give the knowledge of how political power is wielded to the masses. Interesting parallels with Assange's project.

calimac 10y ago

Why is everyone so confused? Maybe because this entire narrative is build on vague ambiguity driven by emotional elitist rants displayed by the media. The politically connected media is being given cover in the form of bullshit reports and talking points from the rouge or politicized elements of the federal administration. Stop the