[Gllug] WikiLeaks: Stop the crackdown - incredible response!

[Walter Stanish]

> Meh. Wikileaks is an obvious establishment 'good cop' puppet.

Whilst this is perhaps a healthy theory to maintain, 'obvious' is a
more than a tad extreme.  The question begs: what have you
been smoking?

> Real secrets
> don't end up in the mainstream press (as wikileaks has been constantly for
> the last month). One part of the US govt is driving wikileaks while others
> tries to take it down..

Walter's law: Any paragraph containing both "US government" and "obvious"
is extremely likely to be a half-baked conspiracy theory. (Note: Web 'bot
sponsored internet linguistic survey to follow.)

More pragmatically, Assange's strategy of co-opting the personnel,
distribution and reputation of a string of international media outlets is a
rather effective counter to the notion that "real secrets don't end up in
the mainstream press".  He has masterfully utilised their commercial
competitiveness, their linguistic variety, and their presence under
disparate national governments and legal systems to ensure that
censorship and self-censorship were both undesirable and practically
impossible, such that actually reporting on the leaks was in the
interest of said conventional media.

This is pretty damn smart.

ie: "NICE HACK!"

> along the way they get to accomplish several goals..
> introducing more propaganda but from a 'trusted good guy anti-establishment
> rebel source' which is useful to manipulate the growing demographic that
> nolonger believes the mainstream press and in cracking down on wikileaks
> they get to accomplish several more goals such as implementing internet
> censorship programs.

Really an interesting take, but actually the effect seems to have been quite
the opposite.  The internet is very anti-censorship.  At this point, to my
mind, if a failure in the justice system were to convict Mr. Assange, or he
were to be assassinated, a situation closer to a global string of civil unrest
would more likely occur.

When I have met him, Mr. Assange has appeared to be a person of
the highest ethical standing and intelligence.  I would be very surprised
if he turned out to be working for a conventional government and against
the interests of his fellow beings, since all of his code and speech
suggests strongly of an intelligent mind standing for the contrary.

His experience has been very international, and hence he is a far more
"well rounded" individual than most.  Whilst some persons achieve
healthy respect for their environment through the devastation of war,
the personal experience of nature, or through religious-philosophical
conviction, perhaps the modern nation-jumper - essentially homeless
as more and more of us are now becoming - achieves the same
through overexposure to differing cultures and their people,
simultaneously learning to utilise the same systems of government
and law that proffer the yoke of control, taxation, etc. to meet our own
ends.

I do find him to be believable, because his actions in person, his
reported background, and his mind are a realistic mix and one that
I can personally relate to.  It is perhaps worth remembering that we
have seen similarly revealing events in the recent past
(eg: European Parliament report on Echelon, scary-complex military
worms, etc.).  Why should his actions be untrue?  I have met the
man, and he is real.

> Anonymous is probably another government run/influenced
> group. Their DDOS antics will no doubt provide good justification for
> clamping down even harder.

Psychologically, DDoS is an extension of the "my view is 100% obvious,
everyone else is nuts and should be censored or controlled" style of
conservative/fascist thought.  Unfortunately there really are a few idiots
with botnets who are nationalists (or just power-high teenagers) and fit
this bill, so the conclusion that governments are obviously involved is
a jump too high for my comfort.

(Since the Russians seem to think a Nobel Peace Prize is in order,
one could assume that the cold-war-esque (almost reads like "warez
queue", doesn't it?), constantly promoted notion of a secret clutch of
hyper-intelligent Russian hackers in the employ of global organised
crime networks would appear to be either one that is uninvolved, or
conspiratorially linked to the government.  The cables themselves
seemed to suggest that organised crime is now running the country.
But I digress!)

As for the notion of 'clamping down', Wikileaks is a powerful tool
against over-regulation and corruption.

> I highly recommend Maurice Joly's The Dialogue In Hell between Machiavelli
> and Montesquieu. It was written 146 years ago but the mechanisms of power
> and control seemingly still operate under exactly the same formula.

It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.

Wikipedia's summary states that "Joly would communicate the secret ways
in which liberalism might spawn a despot".  That seems fairly relevant, both
to the pre and post-Wikileaks world.

Rather than looking at 'isms' (kind of a pre-postmodern notion), why don't we
look at systems.  Some systems have grown too large.  The size of such
systems breeds inefficiency, vulnerability, and thence begets destruction.
Perhaps we are but seeing the natural decomposition of outmoded and
overgrown organisations of government and media, victims of that same,
mightiest weapon that they themselves are the spawn of: the written word.

But even the written word is not timeless, and falls prey to the evolution
and dissolution of language, species and (one would assume) physical
worlds or 'dimensions'.  Change is the only constant, and all that.

As miniscule beings within time-space, we are empowered only to
observe and effect before death.  Luckily for us, we live in interesting
times. The interplay of linguistics, history, geostrategy, technology is
at its most potent today.  We of the technology community are some
of its most significant observers, and may choose to have a real
influence on what will occur going forward.  Apparently Mr. Assange
chose to be an effector, though beautifully it is through innovation
in global systems of observation that he effects.

La vie est belle!

Oh - and for a further point of amusement in closing: copycats of wikileaks?
"Let 100 flowers bloom". The problem with paranoia is that you have to be
paranoid about taking it too far.

- Walter
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