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Title should really be 'US takes hand out of Swedish puppet now that its free to extradite Assange' The take away here is stay anonymous when whistle blowing o

Title should really be 'US takes hand out of Swedish puppet now that its free to extradite Assange' The take away here is stay anonymous when whistle blowing or handling leaks. Don't talk to anyone, don't say anything just take a USB stick to an Internet cafe while disguised and host a torrent. Then email the press the magnet link using a throw away email service.

geofft 7y ago
Er, Assange himself was the press, here. Chelsea Manning was the anonymous whistleblower who tried to keep her identity safe until Adrian Lamo (may God have mercy on his soul, because I sure won't) reported her to US authorities.
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  I don't want to defend Lamo, but he surely got pressure from the government and some kind of deal.
  - ohithereyou 7y ago
    That makes it worse, not better. Take the punishment for the shit you did and say nothing about what someone else did if what they did saved lives and served the public good.
    - raxxorrax 7y ago
      True. As I said, it is no excuse. Just that I believe that the government can be quite convincing and has methods to let people do something they wouldn't be proud of.
- ohithereyou 7y ago
  >Adrian Lamo The same Adrian Lamo who told Chelsea Manning that he'd treat what she told him as a confession (he was an ordained minister and the implication was that he'd never tell anybody) to gain her trust[1]. Let's not forget Kevin Poulsen's complicity in this. The hacker community is not your friend, and you need to assume that members will sell you out for glory or to save their own asses. I've never celebrated the death of anybody, but I did feel the world was a better place after Adrian Lamo died. [1] https://boingboing.net/2010/06/19/wikileaks-a-somewhat.html https://boingboing.net/2010/06/19/wikileaks-a-somewhat.html
- birdyrooster 7y ago
  Adrian was a cyber criminal who thought Chelsea was doing the wrong thing by leaking documents to the press. He had no idea of what is a moral action. What a scum bag. Then it appears he killed himself with a kratom + prescription drug interaction in 2018, so he will now have no chance to attone.
- BookmarkSaver 7y ago
  >Chelsea Manning was the anonymous whistleblower Manning was a spiteful security leak, not a whistleblower.
  - corporate_shi11 7y ago
    Don't forget that we hate the US government here, anyone that does anything to damage it is a hero and anyone that respects it is a menace.
    - InterimNew 7y ago
      I think most users would agree that HN hosts a variety of perspectives and is not a monoculture on most issues, including this one.
    - nickik 7y ago
      Because exposing killings of innocent civilians is something people would not approve of unless it was the US government doing the killing? I'm sure if she had leaked a google drone killing people in Zimbabwe everybody hate her. Google marketing guys would be like 'spiteful security leak, not a whistleblower.'. Sometimes I just can't with shit like this. I have to go offline for a while.
  - nickik 7y ago
    What huge damage was done to the US government by showing its citizens how its military murders civilians with their tax payer money in war that was against international law and only benefit the political class and security contractors. It gets so much harder to pretend that they are bringing freedom to the Iraqis. I'm sure the poor government had to double its spending on pro-military propaganda because of this evil spiteful security leak.
  - paulddraper 7y ago
    What is the difference between those two? Whistleblowers are happy?
    - 7y ago
eigenvalue 7y ago
Even that approach seems very scary to me from an opsec perspective. You could be traced by CCTV cameras outside the internet cafe for example.
- jedberg 7y ago
  Do it during flu season when it’s totally normal to cover your face with a surgical mask.
plesner 7y ago
It's possible to be both unfairly targeted by a superpower and commit sexual assault, one doesn't cancel out the other. I'm not saying he did, I don't know how any of us could know. You seem quite confident he didn't though, I'm curious what you base that on.
- buboard 7y ago
  the charges were of 'rape' (not sexual assault), as it is defined in sweden. I m pretty sure these charges don't qualify as rape in most other countries: https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/4/12/18306901/julian-assange-arrest-wikileaks-rape-sweden-embassy https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/4/12/18306901/julian-ass...
  - Steer 7y ago
    I understand you feel Swedish law is too harsh on this, but surely that is besides the point since Assange was in Sweden at the time of the alleged crime? It doesn't really matter if his actions qualifies as rape in any other country or not if they do in Sweden (which was for the courts to decide).
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - zaarn 7y ago
      Generally a country will only extradite you if the crime alleged is also a crime in that country. Some countries also stipulate that the punishment must not be severely stronger than in the current country.
      - makomk 7y ago
        Generally that's the case. However, Sweden was trying to extradite him under a European Arrest Warrant which has no such requirement for the offence to be a crime in the country being extradited from and has much weaker safeguards in general. (This has caused some problems over the years.)
Iv 7y ago
Thing is, someone, at one point, needs to check the source. Also, most potential whistleblower are not privacy experts and need help. Assange wanted to be in that role, that is necessarily public. He did many bad things (especially uncovering the name of sources, not redacting the cables in the cablegate) but like he said, it is interesting to see how censorship works in a democracy. I also like how no one is talking about the (probably externally provoked) internal drama at wikileaks that led to the destruction of the Bank of America files that they had.

geofft 7y ago

Er, Assange himself was the press, here. Chelsea Manning was the anonymous whistleblower who tried to keep her identity safe until Adrian Lamo (may God have mercy on his soul, because I sure won't) reported her to US authorities.

raxxorrax 7y ago
I don't want to defend Lamo, but he surely got pressure from the government and some kind of deal.
- ohithereyou 7y ago
  That makes it worse, not better. Take the punishment for the shit you did and say nothing about what someone else did if what they did saved lives and served the public good.
  - raxxorrax 7y ago
    True. As I said, it is no excuse. Just that I believe that the government can be quite convincing and has methods to let people do something they wouldn't be proud of.
ohithereyou 7y ago
>Adrian Lamo The same Adrian Lamo who told Chelsea Manning that he'd treat what she told him as a confession (he was an ordained minister and the implication was that he'd never tell anybody) to gain her trust[1]. Let's not forget Kevin Poulsen's complicity in this. The hacker community is not your friend, and you need to assume that members will sell you out for glory or to save their own asses. I've never celebrated the death of anybody, but I did feel the world was a better place after Adrian Lamo died. [1] https://boingboing.net/2010/06/19/wikileaks-a-somewhat.html https://boingboing.net/2010/06/19/wikileaks-a-somewhat.html
birdyrooster 7y ago
Adrian was a cyber criminal who thought Chelsea was doing the wrong thing by leaking documents to the press. He had no idea of what is a moral action. What a scum bag. Then it appears he killed himself with a kratom + prescription drug interaction in 2018, so he will now have no chance to attone.
BookmarkSaver 7y ago
>Chelsea Manning was the anonymous whistleblower Manning was a spiteful security leak, not a whistleblower.
- corporate_shi11 7y ago
  Don't forget that we hate the US government here, anyone that does anything to damage it is a hero and anyone that respects it is a menace.
  - InterimNew 7y ago
    I think most users would agree that HN hosts a variety of perspectives and is not a monoculture on most issues, including this one.
  - nickik 7y ago
    Because exposing killings of innocent civilians is something people would not approve of unless it was the US government doing the killing? I'm sure if she had leaked a google drone killing people in Zimbabwe everybody hate her. Google marketing guys would be like 'spiteful security leak, not a whistleblower.'. Sometimes I just can't with shit like this. I have to go offline for a while.
- nickik 7y ago
  What huge damage was done to the US government by showing its citizens how its military murders civilians with their tax payer money in war that was against international law and only benefit the political class and security contractors. It gets so much harder to pretend that they are bringing freedom to the Iraqis. I'm sure the poor government had to double its spending on pro-military propaganda because of this evil spiteful security leak.
- paulddraper 7y ago
  What is the difference between those two? Whistleblowers are happy?
  - 7y ago

eigenvalue 7y ago

Even that approach seems very scary to me from an opsec perspective. You could be traced by CCTV cameras outside the internet cafe for example.

jedberg 7y ago
Do it during flu season when it’s totally normal to cover your face with a surgical mask.

plesner 7y ago

It's possible to be both unfairly targeted by a superpower and commit sexual assault, one doesn't cancel out the other. I'm not saying he did, I don't know how any of us could know. You seem quite confident he didn't though, I'm curious what you base that on.

buboard 7y ago
the charges were of 'rape' (not sexual assault), as it is defined in sweden. I m pretty sure these charges don't qualify as rape in most other countries: https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/4/12/18306901/julian-assange-arrest-wikileaks-rape-sweden-embassy https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/4/12/18306901/julian-ass...
- Steer 7y ago
  I understand you feel Swedish law is too harsh on this, but surely that is besides the point since Assange was in Sweden at the time of the alleged crime? It doesn't really matter if his actions qualifies as rape in any other country or not if they do in Sweden (which was for the courts to decide).
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - zaarn 7y ago
    Generally a country will only extradite you if the crime alleged is also a crime in that country. Some countries also stipulate that the punishment must not be severely stronger than in the current country.
    - makomk 7y ago
      Generally that's the case. However, Sweden was trying to extradite him under a European Arrest Warrant which has no such requirement for the offence to be a crime in the country being extradited from and has much weaker safeguards in general. (This has caused some problems over the years.)

Iv 7y ago

Thing is, someone, at one point, needs to check the source. Also, most potential whistleblower are not privacy experts and need help. Assange wanted to be in that role, that is necessarily public. He did many bad things (especially uncovering the name of sources, not redacting the cables in the cablegate) but like he said, it is interesting to see how censorship works in a democracy. I also like how no one is talking about the (probably externally provoked) internal drama at wikileaks that led to the destruction of the Bank of America files that they had.