Twitter is censoring the discussion of #Wikileaks

I suppose it boils down to how one defines hacker. It refuse to see them as heroes.When Facebook accounts are taken over by outside entities (which happened to me) , or Ebay or Paypal accounts are infiltrated and funds drained (which hapepned to a friend) , that seems to be hacking. There is no justification for that behavior. Identity theft and monetary theft is a crime.

But that's not what's happening!
No one is stealing log in details, no one is taking money, there's no fraud.

I think it would be worth understanding what is actually happening before you make a decision or comment on the news at hand.

At the moment you're comparing a protest which causes inconvenience to bank robbery. It's the equivalent of saying -

"I'm not going to cross that picket line because those people aren't heroes, people like that once burgled me and mugged my friend and are therefore criminals"

You should be arguing about the validity of the reason to strike/protest in cases like this.

xposted with DrSuperL99

An interesting article I saw about 4chan's tool, LOIC.
http://gizmodo.com/5709630/what-is-loic
And who are 4chan? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10520487

If internet services are akin to utilities, then are attacks on those the equivalent of trying to take out a powergrid? Is that alright in protest? Are they just looking for an excuse to reak havoc regardless of the cause?

I think what people were meaning by 'hacker' is the person who obtained the information thorugh acts of treason that Wikileaks has dispersed. By publishing the information Wikileaks has basically been party to a crime. Bradley Manning (the person who obtained the information) is now being tried for treason.

Personally I think that the person who chose to publish the information should also be prosecuted for espionage by divulging classified information to the world & needlessly endangering lives.

An interesting article I saw about 4chan's tool, LOIC.
http://gizmodo.com/5709630/what-is-loic
And who are 4chan? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10520487

If internet services are akin to utilities, then are attacks on those the equivalent of trying to take out a powergrid? Is that alright in protest? Are they just looking for an excuse to reak havoc regardless of the cause?

I spend too much time on /b/ and yes there is a group of people who sort of decide on this sort of thing but I don't believe it's as organised as people think, it's more like a snowball effect because they're bored kids. Like why do they get so hung up on scientology or decide to torment certain people because of their deviant arts or whatever.

Are internet services akin to a utility? Does that only apply to services in general, rather than particular websites? i.e does it depend on how targeted the attack is? What if I were to take the power out to say a particular building assuming no danger to life as a protest?

To be fair I don't really know, I'm just annoyed at some of the reporting inaccuracies being bandied around.

I think what people were meaning by 'hacker' is the person who obtained the information thorugh acts of treason that Wikileaks has dispersed. By publishing the information Wikileaks has basically been party to a crime. Bradley Manning (the person who obtained the information) is now being tried for treason.

As far as I'm concerned the hacker term in this thread was being levelled at those DDosing in revenge for the wikileaks stuff, not the actual leaks themselves. That's a whole other kettle of fish.

I personally think that exposing information about torture is one thing, but giving information about strategic sites, like an Insulin manufacturing plant, is just someone looking for attention.

I don't see why the Embassy leaks are a shock either.  

Newsflash!  Not everyone likes who they come in contact with through work and people report to others their opinions on people.  Especially when the office has a high turnover rate and it is important to know how people interact with the office.

Is Manning really being tried for treason? I thought I'd heard that he couldn't be as what he did did not technically meet that definition (I heard this on NPR but can't recall the legal talking head who said it).

It seems like there should be some kind of consequences for divulging classified government secrets.  Even by the biggest stretch of imagination I can't see that falling under freedom of speach/press and such.

Are we suggesting that the Guardian and the NY Times be prosecuted for espionage or publishing State secrets? Why the internet guy?

I can't speak for anyone else but personally, I am suggesting that anyone who is obtaining (usually illegally) or publishing classified documents which could affect national security should suffer consequences.

If Wikileaks existed pre-9/11 and published a classified government research document that showed all the faults with airport security...and then 9/11 happened...people wouldn't be supportive of the 'freedom of speach/press' angle.  Something like that could come to be because of a seemingly 'harmless' publication.

Are we suggesting that the Guardian and the NY Times be prosecuted for espionage or publishing State secrets? Why the internet guy?

Wellll, the press have slightly different protections because of things like the Pentagon Papers case and the First Amendment. The guy who burned all of the documents onto a disc to let them out into the wild is operating in a slightly different area. As an aside, that is certainly not hacking, it was (as far as I can tell from news reports) just dragging and copying, not unlike burning a cd of music.

 In addition, I've read that many of the documents were not necessarily the top-secret-classified-for-national-defence but open to a number of people--embarassing yes, but not devastating.  Most of what has been released so far seems like the sort of backroom gossip that makes things unpleasant but little else, but I did wonder about the release of the "key strategic locations" as that seemed more like grandstanding and bullying (see! we can make life difficult!) and less like revealing things that may be useful.  It is one thing to get an understanding of what has been going on with regards to torture claims and something else entirely to release information that shows no harm to anyone (and so can't be used to help anyone) and could possibly cause harm to people in the future.

One of the highlights of this entire business for me has been hearing the lovely BBC accents on Radio 4 discussing "the notorious bulletin board 4chan" and that interview with a member of anonymous today.

Wellll, the press have slightly different protections because of things like the Pentagon Papers case and the First Amendment. The guy who burned all of the documents onto a disc to let them out into the wild is operating in a slightly different area.

No I think you misunderstood, Manning is a different story, but wikileaks stole nothing. They like the Guardian and the NY Times simply published (they are in fact working together as partners).

No I think you misunderstood, Manning is a different story, but wikileaks stole nothing. They like the Guardian and the NY Times simply published (they are in fact working together as partners).

The thing is that they knowingly accepted material that was stolen. Had this not been data they would have been prosecuted for handling stolen property. Even more so because they're profiting from stolen goods. They should have turned it over to the rightful owner, just like pawn shops have to when they find out goods have been stolen. The information that was given to them was property of the US Government and nearly all Government email/messinging sent carries a confidentiality notice:

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE:  This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information.  Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure, or distribution is prohibited.  If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message.

They knew the information was stolen, they published it, they should be prosecuted.

In addition, I've read that many of the documents were not necessarily the top-secret-classified-for-national-defence but open to a number of people--embarassing yes, but not devastating.  Most of what has been released so far seems like the sort of backroom gossip that makes things unpleasant but little else,

For now...but with no censoring, who's to say what the next document published will be?  For trained militia types, a seemingly 'embarrassing but not devastating' document could plan an entire terrorist attack. 

They're probably just waiting to have some Top Secret information successfully stolen.

There are things the public doesn't need to know about...that's why documents have classified ratings and people have security clearances...and the general public doesn't.  IMO 'regular' (non-military) people don't need to know about what happens to prisoners of war (or other seemingly 'innocent' leaks/new stories/whatever) and therefore that information is not helpful.  It's amazing how something so 'simple' can change everything.  "Hey, the American people think torturing prisoners is wrong so go out and do your worst and don't worry about getting captured because you'll be treated better than you are in your own home."   

Oh please. If it had been a traditional newspaper who had gotten this stuff, there would be none of this discussion going on. The Pentagon Papers, Watergate, these too were confidential information. Assange contacted US authorities and asked for help redacting the cables and they refused; Robert Gates has said the leaks are not particularly dangerous: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11952817. The problem here is that something like 2 million people have access to Secret level documents, and most of this stuff is not actually that secret. I think what is being done to him is disgusting, particularly by countries that not a few months ago were criticising countries like China for censoring exactly this sort of information on the internet. It is important and essential for the preservation of democracy that government corruption and hypocrisy is exposed and corrected, especially if we're trying to pretend to the rest of the world that we're squeaky clean and they should follow our example.

"Hey, the American people think torturing prisoners is wrong so go out and do your worst and don't worry about getting captured because you'll be treated better than you are in your own home."

Are you serious?! Torturing prisoners is against international law, not only should we be proud not to torture prisoners, we shouldn't actually do it while saying we're against it- especially when one of the reasons we give for invading other countries is that they're nasty people who torture prisoners! 

I don't think anyone believes that everything done by, or planned, or talked about by a government should be made public. I think one of the many points being made is that a lot of what is called confidential shouldn't be. In a democracy any elected official or anyone appointed by an elected official is in the end accountable to the public. They work for us. I think that once elected they forget about this to a great degree.

It becomes very easy to stamp 'confidential' on a report which should be made open to the public so that we as the electorate can make an informed decision next go-around. This is the intent of the mass leak, to show that yes some things classified confidential should be, and that many things are classed in that category simply because they would make the government uncomfortable. It is of interest to the electorate that the Secretary of State has ordered personnel to gather data on UN officials. It is my understanding that wikileaks contacted the US government and offered the opportunity to redact information, and that they were turned down.

The 9/11 analogy is actually a very good point. But let's look at it another way. Apparently there were weaknesses in our security systems. Students who came from countries historically associated with extremism were over-staying their visas and enrolling in flight training. There had been rumbles about this in the intelligence community. If someone had leaked this in July, then perhaps things would have turned out much differently.

But again, the Guardian knows where these leaks came from. The NY Times knows. Le Monde knows....why is it just wikileaks under fire?