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Can someone explain to me how Wikileaks changed the world? I'm not trying to be provocative, but seriously what is all that different now than it was two months

by linhir 16y ago

Can someone explain to me how Wikileaks changed the world? I'm not trying to be provocative, but seriously what is all that different now than it was two months ago?

lwhi 16y ago
When Google hit the world stage, arguably the concept of personal privacy became null and void. When Wikileaks hit the world stage, arguably the concept of a nation state's right to privacy became null and void. Because some people (Assange and others) have dared to release these documents into the public domain, a radical precedent has been set. I believe it will be very difficult to go back to a time where governmental secrecy is an unchallenged aspect of modern life.
zeemonkee 16y ago
The technology is nothing new, I'd grant you. However, in historical context, Wikileaks is (very likely) revolutionary. Wikileaks challenges the whole concept of closed government. Governments have assumed that they can keep secrets, whether out of national or selfish interest. Suddenly that's not true any more. Any secret will eventually become public. And there's little you can do - national newspapers and TV stations can be dealt with, but how can you shut down a server on the other side of the world ? And if you do, so what ? The secrets are on a million sites and torrents. For good or ill, this changes the way governments, especially democratic governments, do business. If you know that your innermost secrets will be revealed, not in 40 years time but in tomorrow's evening news, how do you conduct affairs of state ? Maybe this is something we've all realized for a long time, but only now, it appears, do governments realize the full implications of what "World Wide Web" really means.
- linhir 16y ago
  I guess I'm just unwilling to grant the point that the idea of closed government is dead. If anything, the reaction to this leak may be worse than the disease. But, nonetheless, these were a ton of `secret' cables. They were embarrassing, they make it more difficult to conduct foreign affairs, but they were not actually that destructive or informative. For two key reasons: 1) The cables are the opinions of low-level functionaries, no matter how good they are at their job. These were not TS cables, they did not include a shocking set of information. In fact, it is all sort of "meh, we pretty much knew that. 2) "The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it’s in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets. Many governments -- some governments deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us. We are still essentially, as has been said before, the indispensable nation." The first point is that we pretty much didn't learn anything, and the second is that it won't really matter.
  - zeemonkee 16y ago
    It doesn't really matter about the content of the cables themselves, other than the immediate diplomatic embarrassment (and if an Army private in Baghdad was able to access this information, you can bet the Chinese/Russians/French/Iranians/anyone else has been reading US diplomatic cables for a long time). Nor does it really matter about whether the United States is "indispensable" or not (worthy of a more detailed reply on US foreign policy, but this isn't Reddit). The point is the long-term implication of governments being able to keep secrets. Of course, leaks are nothing new (for example, the Pentagon Papers). But if you have technology which allows instantaneous transmission and replication of data around the world, then governments will have a hard job of keeping secrets from their citizens except for very short periods of time. In the same way that that the internet is destroying the record business - despite their attempts to hold back the tide through legislation - the same technology is destroying the secrets business, both public and private.
alexdias 16y ago
As an example, the President of the Portuguese Republic said this to the USA Ambassador: "I met Chavez, and he's a crazy man, but we have 100,000 portuguese on Venezuela". That's something that he definitely (spelling?) won't say again. (Although this example is more of a problem with information leakage and not Wikileaks itself, Wikileaks greatly increased the easiness of acessing leaked documents, by allowing anyone with an internet connection to see them and analyse them for themselves, instead of waiting for the media)

by linhir 16y ago

Can someone explain to me how Wikileaks changed the world? I'm not trying to be provocative, but seriously what is all that different now than it was two months ago?

lwhi 16y ago

When Google hit the world stage, arguably the concept of personal privacy became null and void. When Wikileaks hit the world stage, arguably the concept of a nation state's right to privacy became null and void. Because some people (Assange and others) have dared to release these documents into the public domain, a radical precedent has been set. I believe it will be very difficult to go back to a time where governmental secrecy is an unchallenged aspect of modern life.

zeemonkee 16y ago

The technology is nothing new, I'd grant you. However, in historical context, Wikileaks is (very likely) revolutionary. Wikileaks challenges the whole concept of closed government. Governments have assumed that they can keep secrets, whether out of national or selfish interest. Suddenly that's not true any more. Any secret will eventually become public. And there's little you can do - national newspapers and TV stations can be dealt with, but how can you shut down a server on the other side of the world ? And if you do, so what ? The secrets are on a million sites and torrents. For good or ill, this changes the way governments, especially democratic governments, do business. If you know that your innermost secrets will be revealed, not in 40 years time but in tomorrow's evening news, how do you conduct affairs of state ? Maybe this is something we've all realized for a long time, but only now, it appears, do governments realize the full implications of what "World Wide Web" really means.

linhir 16y ago
I guess I'm just unwilling to grant the point that the idea of closed government is dead. If anything, the reaction to this leak may be worse than the disease. But, nonetheless, these were a ton of `secret' cables. They were embarrassing, they make it more difficult to conduct foreign affairs, but they were not actually that destructive or informative. For two key reasons: 1) The cables are the opinions of low-level functionaries, no matter how good they are at their job. These were not TS cables, they did not include a shocking set of information. In fact, it is all sort of "meh, we pretty much knew that. 2) "The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it’s in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets. Many governments -- some governments deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us. We are still essentially, as has been said before, the indispensable nation." The first point is that we pretty much didn't learn anything, and the second is that it won't really matter.
- zeemonkee 16y ago
  It doesn't really matter about the content of the cables themselves, other than the immediate diplomatic embarrassment (and if an Army private in Baghdad was able to access this information, you can bet the Chinese/Russians/French/Iranians/anyone else has been reading US diplomatic cables for a long time). Nor does it really matter about whether the United States is "indispensable" or not (worthy of a more detailed reply on US foreign policy, but this isn't Reddit). The point is the long-term implication of governments being able to keep secrets. Of course, leaks are nothing new (for example, the Pentagon Papers). But if you have technology which allows instantaneous transmission and replication of data around the world, then governments will have a hard job of keeping secrets from their citizens except for very short periods of time. In the same way that that the internet is destroying the record business - despite their attempts to hold back the tide through legislation - the same technology is destroying the secrets business, both public and private.

alexdias 16y ago

As an example, the President of the Portuguese Republic said this to the USA Ambassador: "I met Chavez, and he's a crazy man, but we have 100,000 portuguese on Venezuela". That's something that he definitely (spelling?) won't say again. (Although this example is more of a problem with information leakage and not Wikileaks itself, Wikileaks greatly increased the easiness of acessing leaked documents, by allowing anyone with an internet connection to see them and analyse them for themselves, instead of waiting for the media)