4 ms·

They're advocating for radical transparency of governments and corporations, not individuals - there's a significant difference. Releasing these exploits as is

They're advocating for radical transparency of governments and corporations, not individuals - there's a significant difference. Releasing these exploits as is would result in harm to individuals who are unrelated entirely to the CIA or government.

smitherfield 10y ago
> They're advocating for radical transparency of governments and corporations, not individuals I can think of at least one instance where they targeted individuals: publishing the names and addresses of members of the extreme-right British National Party. Of course that is OTOH hard to square with the narrative that they're right-wing Trumpists.
- Eridrus 10y ago
  I think it's pretty clear that they're opportunists, rather than hardcore ideologues. Assange probably has no love for Trump, but certainly hates Hillary and was willing to get in bed with whoever was necessary to hurt her.
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    If he had had some "goods" on Trump (e.g. a video in which Trump had said some rude things) I'm sure he would have released that too. Fortunately for Trump his henchpeople were smart enough not to get phished.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > Fortunately for Trump his henchpeople were smart enough not to get phished. While there was no similar mass disclosure (most likely because of the political goals of those conducting the operation), Republican groups, not just Democrats, were compromised by the same actors behind the DNC attack.
      - jessaustin 10y ago
        Assume I believe that... what horrible skulduggery did such compromises uncover? What did we not know about Trump that these anonymous hackers decided not to release, which had it been released would have thrown the election the other way?
      - problems 10y ago
        Is there even any evidence for that? If I recall correctly the claims said they attempted but failed to get anywhere at least with Trump's RNC.
    - slg 10y ago
      >Top intelligence officials indicated on Tuesday that the GOP was also a Russian hacking target but that none of the information obtained was leaked. Source - http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/comey-republicans-hacked-russia/ http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/comey-republicans-hac... I think you are being naive if you believe that everything that has been hacked has been leaked or that the leaks are motivated be an ideology of transparency rather than political objectives.
      - problems 10y ago
        I think you're missing a key part, there's a difference between being a target and actually losing valuable information. It's entirely possible that either they failed to break in or that they failed to get any significant information.
        slg 10y ago
        >It's entirely possible that either they failed to break in Comey disputes that in the linked article. >or that they failed to get any significant information. Or maybe it is possible that they got more significant information and it was never leaked because it is more valuable as blackmail material. Neither of us know which one of those theories is right. What we do know is that both sides were hacked, probably by the Russians, and data from only one side was released. By wide consensus those releases were timed in order to maximize the damage they did to Clinton. That is exactly the type of action you would expect from someone motivated by politics.
        problems 10y ago
        > Comey disputes that in the linked article. >> "We did not develop any evidence that the Trump campaign or the current RNC was successfully hacked." - Linked Article Seems pretty contradictory to me. Maybe a previous admin's RNC or something, but not the current one... Honestly, these intelligence agencies are pretty clueless. They use the same tactics to identify malware sources that they use to thwart their own identification as a malware source. I wouldn't believe anything they say about the source of malware - or anything anyone says. It's far too easy to make it look like someone else did it - use their or nearby providers, use their malware or slightly modified versions of it, copy their strings, etc. It's pretty easy stuff to do if you've got a bit of assembly skill too. > By wide consensus those releases were timed in order to maximize the damage they did to Clinton. That is exactly the type of action you would expect from someone motivated by politics. Or you know, just someone motivated to make impactful leaks. Despite these emails not being in my political favor, I wouldn't have done anything differently in their shoes. Would you have? and if you would have, would you honestly say that your actions weren't politically motivated? I think _not_ releasing in this case or avoiding impact would have been more clearly politically motivated.
    - smitherfield 10y ago
      > Fortunately for Trump his henchpeople were smart enough Not so much that — we have ample evidence to the contrary — but more conventional media outlets like the NYT, WaPo, CNN and so on are more than happy to publish unredacted leaks themselves, if they embarrass Trump. Wikileaks is whom you bring your story to when nobody else will publish it.
    - scarmig 10y ago
      <deleted>
      - problems 10y ago
        I don't think that's true - many companies have stricter policies about this or simply block it via technical means. No outside emails with attachments or links for example, screening phone calls and strict training. You don't see leaks from 3-letter agencies because someone phished them - while it's definitely possible to contact them. You can do a lot with training - simply frequently attempting phishing on your own employees can do a lot.
ucaetano 10y ago
They didn't seem to advocate for that when they released family, medical and financial information of rape victims, homosexuals and mental health patients in Saudi Arabia. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/wikileaks-medical-files-rape-victims-saudi-arabia-homosexuality-arrest-a7206901.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/wikileak...
- problems 10y ago
  It seems like that is in large part a mischaracterization of what happened. Read the tweets and comments from around https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/768134865049030656 https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/768134865049030656
  - ucaetano 10y ago
    They knowingly relayed and re-published that information. That's like sharing revenge porn, but far worse.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - sarmstr5 10y ago
    They don't seem to contradict each other, am I missing something? The article says WikiLeaks released government information that contained alot of personal information. The tweet says that they released government info and did not give info to the government.
- smitherfield 10y ago
  As others said, that's a bit of a stretch, at least to say that was their intent. It's also worth noting that the Saudi release in question occurred in 2015, but the outrage stories didn't appear until shortly before Wikileaks released the Podesta emails — which suggests the hackers had been pitching them to mainstream news outlets, who rejected the story and instead looked for a preemptive shoot-the-messenger angle on the outlet that did [they assumed?] agree to publish them, Wikileaks.

smitherfield 10y ago

> They're advocating for radical transparency of governments and corporations, not individuals I can think of at least one instance where they targeted individuals: publishing the names and addresses of members of the extreme-right British National Party. Of course that is OTOH hard to square with the narrative that they're right-wing Trumpists.

Eridrus 10y ago
I think it's pretty clear that they're opportunists, rather than hardcore ideologues. Assange probably has no love for Trump, but certainly hates Hillary and was willing to get in bed with whoever was necessary to hurt her.
- jessaustin 10y ago
  If he had had some "goods" on Trump (e.g. a video in which Trump had said some rude things) I'm sure he would have released that too. Fortunately for Trump his henchpeople were smart enough not to get phished.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Fortunately for Trump his henchpeople were smart enough not to get phished. While there was no similar mass disclosure (most likely because of the political goals of those conducting the operation), Republican groups, not just Democrats, were compromised by the same actors behind the DNC attack.
    - jessaustin 10y ago
      Assume I believe that... what horrible skulduggery did such compromises uncover? What did we not know about Trump that these anonymous hackers decided not to release, which had it been released would have thrown the election the other way?
    - problems 10y ago
      Is there even any evidence for that? If I recall correctly the claims said they attempted but failed to get anywhere at least with Trump's RNC.
  - slg 10y ago
    >Top intelligence officials indicated on Tuesday that the GOP was also a Russian hacking target but that none of the information obtained was leaked. Source - http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/comey-republicans-hacked-russia/ http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/comey-republicans-hac... I think you are being naive if you believe that everything that has been hacked has been leaked or that the leaks are motivated be an ideology of transparency rather than political objectives.
    - problems 10y ago
      I think you're missing a key part, there's a difference between being a target and actually losing valuable information. It's entirely possible that either they failed to break in or that they failed to get any significant information.
      - slg 10y ago
        >It's entirely possible that either they failed to break in Comey disputes that in the linked article. >or that they failed to get any significant information. Or maybe it is possible that they got more significant information and it was never leaked because it is more valuable as blackmail material. Neither of us know which one of those theories is right. What we do know is that both sides were hacked, probably by the Russians, and data from only one side was released. By wide consensus those releases were timed in order to maximize the damage they did to Clinton. That is exactly the type of action you would expect from someone motivated by politics.
        problems 10y ago
        > Comey disputes that in the linked article. >> "We did not develop any evidence that the Trump campaign or the current RNC was successfully hacked." - Linked Article Seems pretty contradictory to me. Maybe a previous admin's RNC or something, but not the current one... Honestly, these intelligence agencies are pretty clueless. They use the same tactics to identify malware sources that they use to thwart their own identification as a malware source. I wouldn't believe anything they say about the source of malware - or anything anyone says. It's far too easy to make it look like someone else did it - use their or nearby providers, use their malware or slightly modified versions of it, copy their strings, etc. It's pretty easy stuff to do if you've got a bit of assembly skill too. > By wide consensus those releases were timed in order to maximize the damage they did to Clinton. That is exactly the type of action you would expect from someone motivated by politics. Or you know, just someone motivated to make impactful leaks. Despite these emails not being in my political favor, I wouldn't have done anything differently in their shoes. Would you have? and if you would have, would you honestly say that your actions weren't politically motivated? I think _not_ releasing in this case or avoiding impact would have been more clearly politically motivated.
  - smitherfield 10y ago
    > Fortunately for Trump his henchpeople were smart enough Not so much that — we have ample evidence to the contrary — but more conventional media outlets like the NYT, WaPo, CNN and so on are more than happy to publish unredacted leaks themselves, if they embarrass Trump. Wikileaks is whom you bring your story to when nobody else will publish it.
  - scarmig 10y ago
    <deleted>
    - problems 10y ago
      I don't think that's true - many companies have stricter policies about this or simply block it via technical means. No outside emails with attachments or links for example, screening phone calls and strict training. You don't see leaks from 3-letter agencies because someone phished them - while it's definitely possible to contact them. You can do a lot with training - simply frequently attempting phishing on your own employees can do a lot.

ucaetano 10y ago

They didn't seem to advocate for that when they released family, medical and financial information of rape victims, homosexuals and mental health patients in Saudi Arabia. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/wikileaks-medical-files-rape-victims-saudi-arabia-homosexuality-arrest-a7206901.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/wikileak...

problems 10y ago
It seems like that is in large part a mischaracterization of what happened. Read the tweets and comments from around https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/768134865049030656 https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/768134865049030656
- ucaetano 10y ago
  They knowingly relayed and re-published that information. That's like sharing revenge porn, but far worse.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- sarmstr5 10y ago
  They don't seem to contradict each other, am I missing something? The article says WikiLeaks released government information that contained alot of personal information. The tweet says that they released government info and did not give info to the government.
smitherfield 10y ago
As others said, that's a bit of a stretch, at least to say that was their intent. It's also worth noting that the Saudi release in question occurred in 2015, but the outrage stories didn't appear until shortly before Wikileaks released the Podesta emails — which suggests the hackers had been pitching them to mainstream news outlets, who rejected the story and instead looked for a preemptive shoot-the-messenger angle on the outlet that did [they assumed?] agree to publish them, Wikileaks.