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Avoid spreading FUD please. No-one has claimed that Assange provided Manning with any assistance compromising any computer systems. The only revelation from the

Avoid spreading FUD please. No-one has claimed that Assange provided Manning with any assistance compromising any computer systems. The only revelation from the leaked indictment is that Manning apparently sent him a password hash once and Assange said, "can't break it." The Manning-Lamo chat logs leaked to Wired also clearly show that Manning sought out Assange. If you have any evidence to the contrary on these two points, please post as your claims are running against what is publicly known.

Aqueous 8y ago
Merely attempting to assist the break-in is a crime. He attempted. Same metaphor applies. I try to help someone pick the lock as they try to break-in to a house. This is illegal. It's also illegal for a computer intrusion. Julian Assange took concrete steps in furtherance of a conspiracy. Whether or not he succeeded is besides the point. Sorry, it's the law.
- ryanlol 8y ago
  >Sorry, it's the law. I’d imagine this same argument sees regular use in China.
  - dymk 8y ago
    Should attempting to break into somebody else’s property not be a crime?
    - ryanlol 8y ago
      Agreeing to attempt, and no. It wouldn’t be in large parts of the world, so clearly many reasonable people disagree on this.
      - Aqueous 8y ago
        It wasn't just agreement. By his own statements he indicated that he tried to crack it.
  - sctb 8y ago
    We've asked you several times over the past few days to stop sparking and stoking political and ideological flamewar, so we're banning the account. We'd like to unban you if you'll email hn@ycombinator.com and commit to following the guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - occupodd 8y ago
      Do we have a Nazi mod?
- trevelyan 8y ago
  Did he? How do you know? As above, evidence rather than speculation please.
  - Aqueous 8y ago
    Because i read the indictment. https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481/download https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481... Line 25 under "Acts in Furtherance of the Conspiracy" - by both his requesting more information about the password and his statement that he had "no luck so far" he indicated that he had been attempting to crack the password.
    - trevelyan 8y ago
      Read it again, Aqueous. And read it literally this time. The indictment cites Assange saying, "no luck so far" after asking some questions about the stuff Manning is sending him. You want to read complicity into a vague statement made to excuse non-contribution, whereas there could have been any number of reasons Assange replied that way, such as not alienating a source, or laziness, or knowledge that actually doing anything would put him in legal jeopardy. There is no actual claim here that Assange did anything to crack the system or assisted Manning in doing so. He is not accused of delivering a password. He is not accused of downloading password cracking software. He is not accused of contacting others to ask for their assistance. He is just accused of saying, "nope, can't help". If there is evidence that Assange delivered cracked passwords to Manning, I'm sure that people will change their minds and agree with you. But that is not what the indictment claims. And the lack of anything more specific in such a high-profile case suggests there is nothing more that they have on him than an ambiguous statement of sympathy with a source.
      - surrogatekey 8y ago
        Sure, it's an indictment, not a conviction. Whatever you might think of the government's case, it's false to say that "no one has claimed" Assange assisted Manning. The government is clearly making that claim in the indictment.
      - 8y ago
- gameswithgo 8y ago
  what law clearly states that attempting this is a crime?
  - whateveracct 8y ago
    https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030
- pierrebai 8y ago
  Cracking a hash is not illegal. That the hash is a password hash does not make it illegal. Using the cracked hash to access a system you have no authorization to access is illegal. Don't play the government's (and hollywood's, in case of DVD and Blueray) game. Cracking a hash is not a crime.
  - SargeZT 8y ago
    Being a locksmith isn't a crime, but knowingly trying to assist someone with breaking into a house that isn't their's very much is.
  - belltaco 8y ago
    Attempting to crack a hash with the intent to access a system you have no authorization to access is illegal. The intent is proven by the chat logs.
  - jamiek88 8y ago
    The law doesn’t work like an RPG you can use loopholes in. Intent matters.
leftyted 8y ago
> No-one has claimed that Assange provided Manning with any assistance compromising any computer systems. The US government has claimed exactly this in its indictment of Assange: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481/download https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481... It's fascinating to me how you can accuse someone of "spreading FUD" without having read the (short) indictment. In my opinion this is complicated stuff. I think people have not only a right but a moral obligation to leak in order to expose crimes. But it isn't clear that this was Assange's goal. Instead, Assange does a lot of moral posturing and seems mostly driven by ego: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew-ohagan/ghosting https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew-ohagan/ghosting. I would be much more sympathetic had Assange or wikileaks provided leaks in a different manner. But they didn't. They released everything, unredacted, without commentary or contextualization which is why the previous poster's restatement of Assange's infantile position is basically accurate: > So do you really want to live in a world where the governing maxim is that information wants to be free, and that justifies any and all means of getting to it, including breaking into secure information systems?
- jamiek88 8y ago
  They also seem to be partisan or at least became that way. A tool of nation states in the end.
  - bsamuels 8y ago
    This entire Assage debacle has been nothing but partisan shit flinging by people who read headlines then refine their opinion using the comments section instead of actually reading the articles/indictment and forming an opinion for themselves. Nowadays when someone "reads" an article, they just skip to the comment section and unwittingly chose the highest voted memetic comment and adapt its opinion as their own, regardless of the facts laid by the article itself. Sometimes those people go so far as to write their own articles that spread the questionable memetic idea, which is exactly what the OP's article is. The truth is that Julian Assange is being indited for attempting to break into US gov computer systems. If there was no evidence he had done so, there would not be charges pressed. Nothing about this is a free speech matter.
noelsusman 8y ago
The indictment is pretty clear on this point. We'll have to see what they have to back it up in court, but it's not FUD.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

Aqueous 8y ago

Merely attempting to assist the break-in is a crime. He attempted. Same metaphor applies. I try to help someone pick the lock as they try to break-in to a house. This is illegal. It's also illegal for a computer intrusion. Julian Assange took concrete steps in furtherance of a conspiracy. Whether or not he succeeded is besides the point. Sorry, it's the law.

ryanlol 8y ago
>Sorry, it's the law. I’d imagine this same argument sees regular use in China.
- dymk 8y ago
  Should attempting to break into somebody else’s property not be a crime?
  - ryanlol 8y ago
    Agreeing to attempt, and no. It wouldn’t be in large parts of the world, so clearly many reasonable people disagree on this.
    - Aqueous 8y ago
      It wasn't just agreement. By his own statements he indicated that he tried to crack it.
- sctb 8y ago
  We've asked you several times over the past few days to stop sparking and stoking political and ideological flamewar, so we're banning the account. We'd like to unban you if you'll email hn@ycombinator.com and commit to following the guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - occupodd 8y ago
    Do we have a Nazi mod?
trevelyan 8y ago
Did he? How do you know? As above, evidence rather than speculation please.
- Aqueous 8y ago
  Because i read the indictment. https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481/download https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481... Line 25 under "Acts in Furtherance of the Conspiracy" - by both his requesting more information about the password and his statement that he had "no luck so far" he indicated that he had been attempting to crack the password.
  - trevelyan 8y ago
    Read it again, Aqueous. And read it literally this time. The indictment cites Assange saying, "no luck so far" after asking some questions about the stuff Manning is sending him. You want to read complicity into a vague statement made to excuse non-contribution, whereas there could have been any number of reasons Assange replied that way, such as not alienating a source, or laziness, or knowledge that actually doing anything would put him in legal jeopardy. There is no actual claim here that Assange did anything to crack the system or assisted Manning in doing so. He is not accused of delivering a password. He is not accused of downloading password cracking software. He is not accused of contacting others to ask for their assistance. He is just accused of saying, "nope, can't help". If there is evidence that Assange delivered cracked passwords to Manning, I'm sure that people will change their minds and agree with you. But that is not what the indictment claims. And the lack of anything more specific in such a high-profile case suggests there is nothing more that they have on him than an ambiguous statement of sympathy with a source.
    - surrogatekey 8y ago
      Sure, it's an indictment, not a conviction. Whatever you might think of the government's case, it's false to say that "no one has claimed" Assange assisted Manning. The government is clearly making that claim in the indictment.
    - 8y ago
gameswithgo 8y ago
what law clearly states that attempting this is a crime?
- whateveracct 8y ago
  https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030
pierrebai 8y ago
Cracking a hash is not illegal. That the hash is a password hash does not make it illegal. Using the cracked hash to access a system you have no authorization to access is illegal. Don't play the government's (and hollywood's, in case of DVD and Blueray) game. Cracking a hash is not a crime.
- SargeZT 8y ago
  Being a locksmith isn't a crime, but knowingly trying to assist someone with breaking into a house that isn't their's very much is.
- belltaco 8y ago
  Attempting to crack a hash with the intent to access a system you have no authorization to access is illegal. The intent is proven by the chat logs.
- jamiek88 8y ago
  The law doesn’t work like an RPG you can use loopholes in. Intent matters.

leftyted 8y ago

> No-one has claimed that Assange provided Manning with any assistance compromising any computer systems. The US government has claimed exactly this in its indictment of Assange: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481/download https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/press-release/file/1153481... It's fascinating to me how you can accuse someone of "spreading FUD" without having read the (short) indictment. In my opinion this is complicated stuff. I think people have not only a right but a moral obligation to leak in order to expose crimes. But it isn't clear that this was Assange's goal. Instead, Assange does a lot of moral posturing and seems mostly driven by ego: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew-ohagan/ghosting https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew-ohagan/ghosting. I would be much more sympathetic had Assange or wikileaks provided leaks in a different manner. But they didn't. They released everything, unredacted, without commentary or contextualization which is why the previous poster's restatement of Assange's infantile position is basically accurate: > So do you really want to live in a world where the governing maxim is that information wants to be free, and that justifies any and all means of getting to it, including breaking into secure information systems?

jamiek88 8y ago
They also seem to be partisan or at least became that way. A tool of nation states in the end.
- bsamuels 8y ago
  This entire Assage debacle has been nothing but partisan shit flinging by people who read headlines then refine their opinion using the comments section instead of actually reading the articles/indictment and forming an opinion for themselves. Nowadays when someone "reads" an article, they just skip to the comment section and unwittingly chose the highest voted memetic comment and adapt its opinion as their own, regardless of the facts laid by the article itself. Sometimes those people go so far as to write their own articles that spread the questionable memetic idea, which is exactly what the OP's article is. The truth is that Julian Assange is being indited for attempting to break into US gov computer systems. If there was no evidence he had done so, there would not be charges pressed. Nothing about this is a free speech matter.

noelsusman 8y ago

The indictment is pretty clear on this point. We'll have to see what they have to back it up in court, but it's not FUD.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]