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It seems to me that Wikileaks is disruptive to Governments in the way that Napster was disruptive to the Music Industry. While Wikileaks may not survive in the
by zemaj 16y ago
It seems to me that Wikileaks is disruptive to Governments in the way that Napster was disruptive to the Music Industry.
While Wikileaks may not survive in the mid term, I believe what it represents may have far reaching, long term consequences. The internet has democratised information to the point that an unhappy individual with mid level trust in an organisation can expose the organisation's "sensitive" information globally with very little effort and thought.
Before the internet an individual could expose this information, but the barriers were much higher. To be a whistle blower you could only influence people immediately near you socially. To reach higher you had to filter your information through news organisations. While there are cases of this happening, the information was still continually at risk of being censored. Would this cable information have been released if a whistle blower took it directly to the NYT, or even a collection of newspapers?
With our current online structure of Twitter, Blogs and peer file sharing it makes sensitive information immediately accessible to millions with no chance of it being censored. To me Wikileaks represents the start of something hugely disruptive to our way of life. It's not possible to scale an organisation beyond several people while maintaining complete trust in each of them. When every piece of information is at risk of being exposed, what position does this place governments in? Is it possible for the current structure of the us government with its extensive lobby groups, international secrets and security through obscurity to continue?
I think its still too hard to see how the bits will fall here, but I do think we're in for an interesting decade :)
- skore 16y ago> but I do think we're in for an interesting decade Very much agree with this. Every time I see what Assange and Wikileaks are doing, I cannot help but think: "Hey, looks like this decade just got a whole hell lot more interesting". The biggest challenge right now is how the sheer amount of information and the responsibility of having access to it will change our society. Many of those in the "there is a reason for all this secrecy" camp border on blissful ignorance and while I disagree with them, there is something to be said for the human desire for just that. So, to me, the most interesting thing is not that all this information sharing is happening, but whether or not the people will be up to the challenge.
- wslh 16y agoI don't think so. WikiLeaks is mainly targetting US because their infrastructure and their culture enables the society to uncover this kind of activities. I am waiting WikiLeaks for the other hundreds of countries around the globe.
- blaines 16y agoThe front page has articles in various languages from many countries... http://mirror.wikileaks.info/ http://mirror.wikileaks.info/
- wslh 16y agoPlease, count the number of countries targetted by WikiLeaks...
- foffen 16y agoWikileaks has leaked all sorts of interesting documents like scandals related to the economic collapse of Iceland etc. It's just that this current affair is of such a magnitude that it overshadows all other leaks. It's also a matter of global interest. If these where cables leaked by Belgians written in German they wouldn't have received the same attention because no one really cares about Belgium, and Belgium certainly has little to offer on the matter of global politics that could be of interest and have implications for all other western nations.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- motters 16y agoIt's also a function of the transition from paper based storage to primarily electronic storage of documents - something which has only occurred in most organisations within the last 10-15 years. Probably governments will try to tighten up their security in response to the Wikileaks, and I'm anticipating more internet authoritarianism such as government sanctioned permits for bloggers or people running web servers.
- shin_lao 16y agoSure anybody can post on the Internet sensible information, but for this information to make its way up to you, that's another story. There's more and more information. Relevant and reliable information is harder and harder to discriminate. News are faster and faster but less and less reliable.
- lwhi 16y agoI agree. Systems are going to have to change. The advent of Google damaged the concept of personal privacy; and the subsequent popularity of services like Facebook and Twitter accelerated the effect. The fluidity and freedom that information now possesses is obviously changing our lives on a personal level, but the effects of this change in privacy operate on a spectrum; with personal privacy at one end, organisational and governmental privacy at the other. It's only logical that organisations and nation states will feel the effect of this change, just as we're all affected on a personal level. Even if Wikileaks was prevented from releasing this information - a similar breach would have been inevitable sooner or later. The US (and nation states in general) have been operating according to a paradigm that's no longer compatible with the way the world currently functions. They've obviously continued to operate in the same way that they were operating in the 50s and 60s - even though the technological constraints of communication have almost entirely changed. We've arrived at social and technological cusp - and it's pretty much impossible to turn back now. Any transition is difficult - but the perhaps (optimistically), the effect of this change might be a new era of openness. Perhaps the something good might come out of this?