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The US Department of Justice issued a press release in June that tries to summarize the charges in the superseding indictment.[0] For most of the document it's

The US Department of Justice issued a press release in June that tries to summarize the charges in the superseding indictment.[0] For most of the document it's hard to tell what is part of the idictment and what may be simply a recap of other things the US DOJ believes he may have done. In regards to Chelsea Manning, that bit is quite short: "In addition, the broadened hacking conspiracy continues to allege that Assange conspired with Army Intelligence Analyst Chelsea Manning to crack a password hash to a classified U.S. Department of Defense computer. " Forbes spent some time on this[1] and they believe that this really is the important part, this is the act that elevates Assange's actions to conspiracy. According to Forbes no password was ever derived from the hash and it never led to the collection of any documents. [0]: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wikileaks-founder-charged-superseding-indictment https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/wikileaks-founder-charged-sup... [1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2019/04/16/unpacking-the-alleged-assange-manning-password-hacking-conspiracy/#530cfd4c6ee8 https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2019/04/16/unpac...

rayiner 6y ago
Here is the superseding indictment itself: https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1289641/download https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1289641/downl... Assange is alleged to have actively recruited hackers and directed them to find particular information from particular sources. Among other things, agreed to assist Manning in deriving a password from a hash file. (It is irrelevant whether he succeeded or not—the crime of conspiracy is complete upon taking the first substantial step toward achieving the goal of the conspiracy, such as passing the hash to someone else for cracking.) According to the indictment, he was closer to running an operation to expropriate sensitive data from all over the world than being a journalist neutrally publishing documents that people sent him.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
  This logic would render all national security reporting illegal. The job of national security reporters is to convince people in government to divulge information they're legally barred from divulging.
  - reallydontask 6y ago
    I'm sure there is a joke there somewhere as to how it was meant for them not us
  - cmiles74 6y ago
    In this case we're not talking about documentation of wrong-doing on the part of the US government. In this narrow instance, we're talking about a government employee providing the hash of a password to a journalist who will then try to find another person capable of "decoding" that hash to yield the clear-text password. To me, that seems very different then what I normally think of as investigative journalism. In my opinion I'm not sure how much or how heavy a book should be thrown at someone trying to decode a hashed password, but that's not really what is at issue. Perhaps the issue is, "is this a crime in the UK".
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      Journalists will themselves sneak into physical venues if they can. The example I can recall is of a reporter crashing a meeting/party of a financial fraternity in NYC.
      - mrguyorama 6y ago
        And trespassing is a crime and those people could probably press charges if they want
      - ineedasername 6y ago
        What you describe isn't necessarily a crime. But if the physical venue happened to be a secured area on a military base or intelligence installation, there's a good chance they'd go to jail. And even if the didn't, it would still be a crime.
    - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
      This sounds like an extremely weak and contrived excuse to go after someone who reported something that embarrassed the government.
- roenxi 6y ago
  I suppose as a starter, can we redefine journalist to be more of that? Wikileaks is a rare source of information that is both international and relevant to me; more news like that would be very welcome. Secondly > It is irrelevant whether he succeeded or not... I mean, that is sort of the complaint. He annoyed powerful people doing something that isn't a crime (the leaking) and then they're combing through hitting him with random charges that nobody cares about. We haven't been watching an 8 year circus because of a failed password crack. None of the response is proportionate to that bullshit crime. They've made everything around leaking illegal so they have fig-leaf excuses to prosecute whistleblowers and journalists. Furthermore, the security apparatus could probably just make something up if there were no crimes. They've lied to everyone else, why not the UK justice system?
- Canada 6y ago
  The allegation is made in paragraph 26 of the first section of the document you linked to. The conversation I understand this allegation relies on is on page 6 & 10 here: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/886185-pe-123.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/886185-pe-123.html Manning is the one who passed the hash, not Assange. If it even is a hash, Manning is unsure. Assange never agreed to crack the password. There is no evidence Assange communicated the alleged hash to anyone else let alone attempted to crack it. A couple of days later Assange asks manning about it again, and there's no response. Assange never inquires about how Manning got this 16 byte value, nor does he offer any instructions on how to extract password hashes. If this had been a chat log from a legal pentest that was being conducted by Manning then nobody would claim that Assange helped or contributed to it in any way. If there was an actual conspiracy going on here the logs would look much different. The rest of the allegations basically claim that putting out a general call for people in possession of state secrets leak them is conspiracy ipso facto, as is taking any step to follow up with anyone who is interested in leaking, or taking any step to prevent a source from getting caught. It's ridiculous. Is there some additional evidence in support of the allegation that Assange conspired to crack a password that I've missed?
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    It's there on page 6: something they thought might be a hash was handed over. Assange represented they had resources to throw at it, and did so. It doesn't need to actually have been a hash, Assange doesn't need to actually have succeeded. He provided assistance, however ineffective, to help break into and exfiltrate classified systems and data. At that point he stopped being a passive recipient of leaked data and stepped over into helping steal it.
    - Canada 6y ago
      > something they thought might be a hash was handed over. What? Was handed over by who? Manning gave it to Assange, we have no evidence to suggest Assange did anything with it. By this logic you might as well argue that Assange was actively conspiring because he provided an SFTP server for Manning to upload stuff to. Think of it this way: You're sitting at a bar and I'm selling you drinks. You're drinking and talking about how you want to steal some cars. You ask me, "Do you know much about defeating car locks?" I say, truthfully, "Sure, I have a huge collection of dealer keys" Then you pull out a picture of a Telsa, show me, and say "I want to steal one of these!" And so I say, "Right, well I'll ask a friend about that. How about another drink?" Then a couple of days later you come to the bar and I ask you, "Have you stolen a Tesla yet? No luck with my friend". You don't reply and we never speak of it again. Did I actually help you try to steal the Tesla? Did I conspire with you to do it? Did I take any active steps to help you? I don't think so. If you disagree I'm curious why you think I'm wrong, either in this analogy or in what the chat logs actually say.
trevelyan 6y ago
It's self-evident bullcrap. The Adrian Lamo logs (published by Wired and available online) show very clearly that Manning contacted Assange with intent to leak.

rayiner 6y ago

Here is the superseding indictment itself: https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1289641/download https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1289641/downl... Assange is alleged to have actively recruited hackers and directed them to find particular information from particular sources. Among other things, agreed to assist Manning in deriving a password from a hash file. (It is irrelevant whether he succeeded or not—the crime of conspiracy is complete upon taking the first substantial step toward achieving the goal of the conspiracy, such as passing the hash to someone else for cracking.) According to the indictment, he was closer to running an operation to expropriate sensitive data from all over the world than being a journalist neutrally publishing documents that people sent him.

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
This logic would render all national security reporting illegal. The job of national security reporters is to convince people in government to divulge information they're legally barred from divulging.
- reallydontask 6y ago
  I'm sure there is a joke there somewhere as to how it was meant for them not us
- cmiles74 6y ago
  In this case we're not talking about documentation of wrong-doing on the part of the US government. In this narrow instance, we're talking about a government employee providing the hash of a password to a journalist who will then try to find another person capable of "decoding" that hash to yield the clear-text password. To me, that seems very different then what I normally think of as investigative journalism. In my opinion I'm not sure how much or how heavy a book should be thrown at someone trying to decode a hashed password, but that's not really what is at issue. Perhaps the issue is, "is this a crime in the UK".
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    Journalists will themselves sneak into physical venues if they can. The example I can recall is of a reporter crashing a meeting/party of a financial fraternity in NYC.
    - mrguyorama 6y ago
      And trespassing is a crime and those people could probably press charges if they want
    - ineedasername 6y ago
      What you describe isn't necessarily a crime. But if the physical venue happened to be a secured area on a military base or intelligence installation, there's a good chance they'd go to jail. And even if the didn't, it would still be a crime.
  - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
    This sounds like an extremely weak and contrived excuse to go after someone who reported something that embarrassed the government.
roenxi 6y ago
I suppose as a starter, can we redefine journalist to be more of that? Wikileaks is a rare source of information that is both international and relevant to me; more news like that would be very welcome. Secondly > It is irrelevant whether he succeeded or not... I mean, that is sort of the complaint. He annoyed powerful people doing something that isn't a crime (the leaking) and then they're combing through hitting him with random charges that nobody cares about. We haven't been watching an 8 year circus because of a failed password crack. None of the response is proportionate to that bullshit crime. They've made everything around leaking illegal so they have fig-leaf excuses to prosecute whistleblowers and journalists. Furthermore, the security apparatus could probably just make something up if there were no crimes. They've lied to everyone else, why not the UK justice system?
Canada 6y ago
The allegation is made in paragraph 26 of the first section of the document you linked to. The conversation I understand this allegation relies on is on page 6 & 10 here: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/886185-pe-123.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/886185-pe-123.html Manning is the one who passed the hash, not Assange. If it even is a hash, Manning is unsure. Assange never agreed to crack the password. There is no evidence Assange communicated the alleged hash to anyone else let alone attempted to crack it. A couple of days later Assange asks manning about it again, and there's no response. Assange never inquires about how Manning got this 16 byte value, nor does he offer any instructions on how to extract password hashes. If this had been a chat log from a legal pentest that was being conducted by Manning then nobody would claim that Assange helped or contributed to it in any way. If there was an actual conspiracy going on here the logs would look much different. The rest of the allegations basically claim that putting out a general call for people in possession of state secrets leak them is conspiracy ipso facto, as is taking any step to follow up with anyone who is interested in leaking, or taking any step to prevent a source from getting caught. It's ridiculous. Is there some additional evidence in support of the allegation that Assange conspired to crack a password that I've missed?
- ineedasername 6y ago
  It's there on page 6: something they thought might be a hash was handed over. Assange represented they had resources to throw at it, and did so. It doesn't need to actually have been a hash, Assange doesn't need to actually have succeeded. He provided assistance, however ineffective, to help break into and exfiltrate classified systems and data. At that point he stopped being a passive recipient of leaked data and stepped over into helping steal it.
  - Canada 6y ago
    > something they thought might be a hash was handed over. What? Was handed over by who? Manning gave it to Assange, we have no evidence to suggest Assange did anything with it. By this logic you might as well argue that Assange was actively conspiring because he provided an SFTP server for Manning to upload stuff to. Think of it this way: You're sitting at a bar and I'm selling you drinks. You're drinking and talking about how you want to steal some cars. You ask me, "Do you know much about defeating car locks?" I say, truthfully, "Sure, I have a huge collection of dealer keys" Then you pull out a picture of a Telsa, show me, and say "I want to steal one of these!" And so I say, "Right, well I'll ask a friend about that. How about another drink?" Then a couple of days later you come to the bar and I ask you, "Have you stolen a Tesla yet? No luck with my friend". You don't reply and we never speak of it again. Did I actually help you try to steal the Tesla? Did I conspire with you to do it? Did I take any active steps to help you? I don't think so. If you disagree I'm curious why you think I'm wrong, either in this analogy or in what the chat logs actually say.

trevelyan 6y ago

It's self-evident bullcrap. The Adrian Lamo logs (published by Wired and available online) show very clearly that Manning contacted Assange with intent to leak.