Political Economy

[Blu 1]

Anyone following the WikiLeaks situation? Rape charges, hackers, secret 'doomsday' file, government conspiracy... Lol, so many twists n turns, i feel like i'm watching a bad, C-movie...

 

(CNN) -- The Poison Pill. The Doomsday Files. Or simply, The Insurance.

 

Whatever you call the file Julian Assange has threatened to release if he's imprisoned or dies or WikiLeaks is destroyed, it's impossible to stop.

 

"It's all tech talk to say, 'I have in my hand a button and if I press it or I order my friends to press it, it will go off,'" said Hemu Nigam, who has worked in computer security for more than two decades, in the government and private sector.

 

"Julian is saying, 'I've calibrated this so that no matter how many ways you try, you're never going to be able to deactivate it,'" Nigam said. "He's sending a call to action to hackers to try it. To the government, he's also saying, 'Try me.'"

 

There's a reason Assange specifically announced -- on the Web -- that there is a 256-bit key encryption code that only a few trusted associates know that will unleash the contents of the 1.4 gigabyte-size file.

 

"He's saying don't even bother trying. It will take you so long to succeed that by that time, it will be too late," Nigam said. "Most of the time, you see a 56-[bit]key encryption. That's considered secure. When you are using 256, you are sending a message: 'I'm smart enough to know that you will try to get in.'"

 

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/12/08/wikileaks.poison.pill/index.html

[Osprey 199]

I'm more interested in how a PFC can have access to all of these files?

 

Does anyone else think these leaks could lead to more open and honest foreign relations? Or is everyone just going to get their feelings hurt and isolate?

[Blu 1]

^Probably the latter. Something seems odd about this whole situation to me tho... Dont kno what to think yet.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

He hasn't really brought anything to light that makes us look bad. The Pentagon Papers, Watergate, The Bay of Pigs, the Tuskegee experiments, internment camps for the Japanese during WW2, overthrowing several South American governments for the hell of it, and water-boarding are all examples of bad things our government has done. So the things Assange leaked isn't really a big deal.

 

The major issue is you can't condone these behaviors because eventually it could lead to people's lives to be put in jeopardy. Confidential information is confidential for a reason. Not every government secret is evil.

[AcuWill 45]

He hasn't really brought anything to light that makes us look bad. The Pentagon Papers, Watergate, The Bay of Pigs, the Tuskegee experiments, internment camps for the Japanese during WW2, overthrowing several South American governments for the hell of it, and water-boarding are all examples of bad things our government has done. So the things Assange leaked isn't really a big deal.

 

The major issue is you can't condone these behaviors because eventually it could lead to people's lives to be put in jeopardy. Confidential information is confidential for a reason. Not every government secret is evil.

The Rueters reporter getting murdered video is pretty bad, especially since Reuters has been trying to get it since it happened through the Freedom of Information Act.

[Ibn Battuta 127]

I think the wikileaks stuff is great because it is a testament to the free and open structure of the Internet. Nobody can contain or stop the Internet and all the people and services that make it up. The US will try and pressure Amazon and Paypal and other companies to stop hosting or providing services to wikileaks, but once the information is out there it cannot be contained or nuked for all to see. Anybody who is a lover of freedom and open society should applaud this release. And I hope this spirit continues on by freedom lovers as more and more steps will be taken to suppress these voices. Just look to China.

 

Now, notice I made no comment on the actual content of the cables. In the grand scheme of things I don't think it's that important: some officials look like buffoons and governments are now on notice. But again, it's the powerful gesture of these releases that makes it so awesome. Just to think even 30 years ago, nobody could ever dream of releasing documents for the whole world to see instantaneously and simultaneously not disappear or evidence trashed.