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That's all true, but how does it make what Manning did a bad thing? What I think it comes down too is whether or not you think the U.S is a force for good in th

That's all true, but how does it make what Manning did a bad thing? What I think it comes down too is whether or not you think the U.S is a force for good in the world or not.

mpyne 14y ago
Just pretend that one of those diplomatic cables contained information about the location within Kyrgyzstan of various nuclear weapons physics packages that were coming up for inspection and disassembly by an American team of experts working on reducing the threat of nuclear weapons from the former USSR ending up in Islamist hands, including approximate location and schedule. If the possibility of that kind of laser-guided information about where to find enriched nuclear material (for a fission bomb or dirty bomb) doesn't scare you, you're not paying attention. And that's even assuming that America is the worst thing to happen to the world ever.
- lawnchair_larry 14y ago
  "Just pretend that..." Why? It didn't, so this is a non-issue. Just pretend that they contained evidence of <insert some hypothetical systemic atrocity>, and now that we know, your mother and children are safe. Do you see why these are not useful thought experiments?
  - mpyne 14y ago
    > Why? It didn't, so this is a non-issue. The reason we can pretend is that we're acting just like Pfc. Manning did; he didn't know what all he was leaking either. If I was designing a casualty procedure for a nuclear reactor with unknown conditions I would have to assume worst-case scenario. If I was designing a Ruby gem to convert arbitrary input into executable code I would have to assume worst-case scenario. And likewise here, if I'm going to move classified information of unknown contents then I should at least consider worst-case assumptions of what that data might contain. At least I bother to call it pretending. Manning just assumed it would be either "WAR CRIME" or relatively innocuous and got lucky.
    - lawnchair_larry 14y ago
      The difference is that if your nuclear reactor failed to account for a particular type of disaster that never actually materialized, we would not talk about how you are responsible for radiation poisoning the entire population and charge you accordingly. If the vulnerability in your ruby gem was found and fixed before any reports of actual attacks, and no reports of attacks ever came out, we would not claim that you are responsible for some arbitrary number of businesses getting owned.
      - mpyne 14y ago
        Would we still blame a company for leaking 6.5 million hashed passwords if the hackers decided for whatever strange reason not to take advantage of it? Would we blame someone for putting arsenic in their spouse's meal if the spouse coincidentally passed up dinner that night? Would we blame someone who killed a family of 5 by driving drunk on the road even though he or she is way too impaired to think straight? Whatever else I believe, I believe people are responsible for their own actions. If I mess up and things still don't go screwy it's luck, not a positive reflection on me.
        lawnchair_larry 14y ago
        Blame them for what? That is key to this point. > Would we still blame a company for leaking 6.5 million hashed passwords if the hackers decided for whatever strange reason not to take advantage of it? I'd blame them for negligence. I would not blame them for the hacks that "strangely" never took place. > Would we blame someone for putting arsenic in their spouse's meal if the spouse coincidentally passed up dinner that night? I'd blame them for attempted murder, and this analogy has nothing to do with anything. > Would we blame someone who killed a family of 5 by driving drunk on the road even though he or she is way too impaired to think straight? Blame them for killing someone they actually killed? Sure, no brainer. The analogies are getting ridiculous, as analogies always do, so let's both avoid those. What I wouldn't do is blame someone for the death of many people when no one actually died. Analogies be damned, this just makes no sense to do.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    They are useful in context. When the leak actually happened, in January 2010, it is very likely that Manning (a) knew very little about who was behind Wikileaks and (b) knew very little about the contents of the documents he was providing them other than that they were classified.
    - lawnchair_larry 14y ago
      That is already known to be incorrect. It's quite evident from his chats that he was reading them regularly. Also, it doesn't matter. No harm, no foul.
      - tptacek 14y ago
        I do not believe that you believe that Manning read all or even most of the documents in the dump. I think you believe like I do that there were a large number of documents in that dump he hadn't read, and could not have judged the safety of leaking.
        lawnchair_larry 14y ago
        Even if I grant you that for the sake of argument, what you are saying amounts to "he guessed correctly, but only accidentally, so we should still charge him as though he guessed incorrectly."
        tptacek 14y ago
        Yes, on that point I see we genuinely disagree.

That's all true, but how does it make what Manning did a bad thing? What I think it comes down too is whether or not you think the U.S is a force for good in the world or not.

mpyne 14y ago

Just pretend that one of those diplomatic cables contained information about the location within Kyrgyzstan of various nuclear weapons physics packages that were coming up for inspection and disassembly by an American team of experts working on reducing the threat of nuclear weapons from the former USSR ending up in Islamist hands, including approximate location and schedule. If the possibility of that kind of laser-guided information about where to find enriched nuclear material (for a fission bomb or dirty bomb) doesn't scare you, you're not paying attention. And that's even assuming that America is the worst thing to happen to the world ever.

lawnchair_larry 14y ago
"Just pretend that..." Why? It didn't, so this is a non-issue. Just pretend that they contained evidence of <insert some hypothetical systemic atrocity>, and now that we know, your mother and children are safe. Do you see why these are not useful thought experiments?
- mpyne 14y ago
  > Why? It didn't, so this is a non-issue. The reason we can pretend is that we're acting just like Pfc. Manning did; he didn't know what all he was leaking either. If I was designing a casualty procedure for a nuclear reactor with unknown conditions I would have to assume worst-case scenario. If I was designing a Ruby gem to convert arbitrary input into executable code I would have to assume worst-case scenario. And likewise here, if I'm going to move classified information of unknown contents then I should at least consider worst-case assumptions of what that data might contain. At least I bother to call it pretending. Manning just assumed it would be either "WAR CRIME" or relatively innocuous and got lucky.
  - lawnchair_larry 14y ago
    The difference is that if your nuclear reactor failed to account for a particular type of disaster that never actually materialized, we would not talk about how you are responsible for radiation poisoning the entire population and charge you accordingly. If the vulnerability in your ruby gem was found and fixed before any reports of actual attacks, and no reports of attacks ever came out, we would not claim that you are responsible for some arbitrary number of businesses getting owned.
    - mpyne 14y ago
      Would we still blame a company for leaking 6.5 million hashed passwords if the hackers decided for whatever strange reason not to take advantage of it? Would we blame someone for putting arsenic in their spouse's meal if the spouse coincidentally passed up dinner that night? Would we blame someone who killed a family of 5 by driving drunk on the road even though he or she is way too impaired to think straight? Whatever else I believe, I believe people are responsible for their own actions. If I mess up and things still don't go screwy it's luck, not a positive reflection on me.
      - lawnchair_larry 14y ago
        Blame them for what? That is key to this point. > Would we still blame a company for leaking 6.5 million hashed passwords if the hackers decided for whatever strange reason not to take advantage of it? I'd blame them for negligence. I would not blame them for the hacks that "strangely" never took place. > Would we blame someone for putting arsenic in their spouse's meal if the spouse coincidentally passed up dinner that night? I'd blame them for attempted murder, and this analogy has nothing to do with anything. > Would we blame someone who killed a family of 5 by driving drunk on the road even though he or she is way too impaired to think straight? Blame them for killing someone they actually killed? Sure, no brainer. The analogies are getting ridiculous, as analogies always do, so let's both avoid those. What I wouldn't do is blame someone for the death of many people when no one actually died. Analogies be damned, this just makes no sense to do.
- tptacek 14y ago
  They are useful in context. When the leak actually happened, in January 2010, it is very likely that Manning (a) knew very little about who was behind Wikileaks and (b) knew very little about the contents of the documents he was providing them other than that they were classified.
  - lawnchair_larry 14y ago
    That is already known to be incorrect. It's quite evident from his chats that he was reading them regularly. Also, it doesn't matter. No harm, no foul.
    - tptacek 14y ago
      I do not believe that you believe that Manning read all or even most of the documents in the dump. I think you believe like I do that there were a large number of documents in that dump he hadn't read, and could not have judged the safety of leaking.
      - lawnchair_larry 14y ago
        Even if I grant you that for the sake of argument, what you are saying amounts to "he guessed correctly, but only accidentally, so we should still charge him as though he guessed incorrectly."
        tptacek 14y ago
        Yes, on that point I see we genuinely disagree.