Hard News: Book review: 'Wikileaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy'
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BenWilson, in reply to
so you can't beat it out of them
No, but it could be cheaper to break into that room than break the encryption. There might be a few beatings along the way.
Of course the terrorists don't care - they can use 1-way pads distributed by the world's music industry (the LSBs of CDs) ....
LOL yup, they can use completely unbeatable encryption. Or they can do what most people do who want to pass secrets on - meet the other person, talk to them, and hand them something. The main security there is obscurity, and I'm willing to bet it was most of what was used during the assaults of 9/11. Obscurity is still a pretty good form of security - if the interrogators don't even know the questions to ask, the data crackers don't know where to find the data, the agency has no idea who the people they're dealing with are.
A finance wizard friend of mine in Australia reckoned that the reason so few people (well at that time in Australia it was actually none at all) get busted for insider trading is because few people involved in it are stupid enough to keep any records. They meet some manager they know in a company for lunch, and find out something that will impact the stock price. They then tell a friend of theirs about it, who creams a profit. Later on, their friend does the same for them with some stock that they know an insider in. Pretty hard for ASIC to track that, and there's so much plausible deniability. They don't use the phone, because the calls are all recorded. They don't use email because there's so many traces left by that. They don't use encryption, could you think of anything more suspicious to worry about? They use the oldest form of communication - person to person voice in a trusted network of friends.
This is probably how most crime is organized, really.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
they can use 1-way pads distributed by the world’s music industry (the LSBs of CDs)
You can just imagine that scream of confession at Gitmo: "OK, OK, enough. It's My Heart Must Go On, from her latest Greatest Hits album. Now please stop playing her songs!"
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more likely it's "I tried to do the decryption, but I downloaded mp3s to avoid paying for the CDs and for some strange reason it didn't work ...." .... "um, OK, let's render him over to the goons at the RIAA .... they're not bound by that stupid constitution thing ...."
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HuffPo? A site which doesn't pay most of its writers and has done precisely zero original reporting on this story? Seriously?
Read the book if you want to find out how much value working journalists added to this project.
For god's sake, Don, the biggest risk faced by HuffoPo bloggers is probably RSI. The NYT has field reporters who get kidnapped, assaulted and occasionally killed in the line of work. There are sound and reasoned criticisms of that can be made of the Times' approach, but this sort of glib MSM-hatred doesn't really wash.
When I found out exactly how HuffPo treated its "reporters"- and how much original reportage it actually does- I stopped reading it. I soon discovered that its only real use was a hub for outsourced material, because they sure as heck don't produce any of their own- aside from the occasional bits of commentary, but the work there is no better.
I mean, this is a "news" hub where interns have to actually pay to work for it. Whatever the treatment of interns in the MSM, I bet you none of them would treat willing and eager young journalists and reporters as shabbily as that.
As RB said, there are very legitimate criticisms to take up with the NYT. But that doesn't negate the incredible amount of great investigative work and commentary they have done and continue to do, even as the paper seems to be in dire financial straits.
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And speaking of HuffPo, AOL is buying it. Given AOL's somewhat conservative world view, I wonder how long HuffPo will survive its assimilation before being ordered to "correct" the editorial tone.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
As RB said, there are very legitimate criticisms to take up with the NYT. But that doesn’t negate the incredible amount of great investigative work and commentary they have done and continue to do, even as the paper seems to be in dire financial straits.
I need to drop this, I think, but let me point out one thing.
Since the Committee to Protect Journalists started counting in 1922, 850 journalists have been killed in the course of their work. Many more have been beaten, intimidated, threatened and forced to flee.
What the US government is trying to pull on Assange is dreadful. But Don, next time you're tempted to sling off at journalists, perhaps consider all those people. And they didn't have wealthy friends and a global fanbase.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
For god's sake, Don, the biggest risk faced by HuffoPo bloggers is probably RSI.
Hah!
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The HuffPo reference was tongue in cheek (although if direct payment to writers is an issue most blogging sites would be seen as invalid) - the point being that the Internet has been more effective than the NYT.
Apologies to the whole death defying journalistic movement for my comments. Of course there are brave journalists in the world, just like there are brave programmers, artists, poets, students and even "ordinary people" on the street. They too have suffered and died.
But the example of the a large section of journalism is unedifying, maybe it is their bosses fault.
We will have to agree to disagree on the NYT.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
The HuffPo reference was tongue in cheek (although if direct payment to writers is an issue most blogging sites would be seen as invalid) – the point being that the Internet has been more effective than the NYT.
I’m not sure even that’s true in a retail news sense. My guess is that most people have consumed these stories via conventional news outlets.
I was thinking about this today, watching Wikileaks fire out Egypt-related cable links on Twitter. It’s actually quite a hard and unsatisfying form of news to consume – you don’t know anything about who’s writing, what the context is, what the public position was, what happened next, etc.
I’m honestly not trying to pick a Wikileaks/Internet-vs-MSM argument here. But I was surprised in reading the book at the way nearly all the value in Cablegate and the war diaries was added by the partner media organisations. They developed and wrote the stories (sometimes, not necessarily the right stories) and especially in the case of The Guardian, created new ways of telling them.
By contrast, Wikileaks has a brilliantly sophisticated system for soliciting leaks, and a pretty good one for presenting source material – but it’s obvious to me now why the earlier solo efforts didn’t make as much impact as they might have. The example cited in the book was ‘Collateral Murder’ vs Sy Hersh’s superb reporting on Abu Ghraib.
Anyway thanks for the argument. I’m finding it quite helpful!
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Kim Hill's interview from Saturday with Luke Harding, co-author of the book on Wikileaks and Assange, is available on this page.
At the end of it he talks about going back to his job as the Guardian's Moscow correspondent. But that's not going to happen now.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
I was thinking about this today, watching Wikileaks fire out Egypt-related cable links on Twitter. It’s actually quite a hard and unsatisfying form of news to consume – you don’t know anything about who’s writing, what the context is, what the public position was, what happened next, etc.
Even if the value added by the reporting organisation is merely to explain who the people related to the cable (author, recipient, key identified figures) are and what their role is, that's of significant value. It can be the most clinical, objective, analysis-free addition, but it still lends enormous context. Some of the cables do a magnificent job of setting the scene, explaining who the players within the cable are, but they're still bereft of context around the sender: Are they an attaché of some description? Which agency? Are they a long-service FSO? etc, etc.
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At the end of it he talks about going back to his job as the Guardian’s Moscow correspondent. But that’s not going to happen now.
Wowzers. Although hardly surprising from the criminal enterprise that is the Russian government.
I'm hoping he hasn't got a whole lot of stuff in Moscow that he can't collect now.
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Speaking of the NYT, I see Judith Miller has got a new gig at Newsmax.
I feel a bit mean in being joyed about that, but then I remember how she went to jail to protect a source, where the source wasn't so much 'leaking' classified information as they were 'planting' it.
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It seems to me, after observing Assange for a while and confirmed by so many of the indicators in that interview Mark links to above, that here is a case of Aspergers. A brilliant hacker, unusual relationships with people, inability to read social cues, doing the logical but not always advisable thing, infuriating his supporters. Supremely confident that he is right but a bit paranoid. Puzzled by the fall out.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
It seems to me, after observing Assange for a while and confirmed by so many of the indicators in that interview Mark links to above, that here is a case of Aspergers.
Yes, me too, but it seemed to be overdoing it to put it in the review. I do think it has shaped my view of him somewhat. Not least in that I see personal tics I've learned not to encourage in my own kids.
He also reminds me of the young hacker types I'd occasionally interact with as a computer journalist: absolutely convinced of their own rectitude even when they did really stupid things.
A brilliant hacker, unusual relationships with people, inability to read social cues, doing the logical but not always advisable thing, infuriating his supporters. Supremely confident that he is right but a bit paranoid. Puzzled by the fall out.
I think inability to anticipate or empathise with the actions of others is in there too. His "they have to be punished" response when the NYT didn't do the "right" thing was completely OTT. But, hey, those people did the wrong thing.
There's some discussion upthread about modelling everything as a cryptographic problem. Assange seems to approach problems this way quite often -- including via quantum physics. The problem is, like quantum physics, this doesn't always work in meatspace, which is populated by people who don't do what they're supposed to.
There is actually ASD all over this. Bradley Manning doesn't seem neurotypical, and Adrian Lamo is Asperger. The hacker kids behind Anonymous, who knows?
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“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man”
From ‘Maxims For Revolutionists’ by George Bernard Shaw
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Russell - There also seems to be the pattern for the fortunate Aspie of a parent who realised her child was different but talented, and nurtured that.
I quite like the way Aspergers seems to be quietly shaping the modern world.
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It's very interesting, in mulling over the influence of social networking on what's happening in Egypt - Theory of Mind - mirror neurons - Assange came to mind and it struck me that he was someone who might have a theory of mind problem.
But I was a bit reluctant to go there.
Brief thoughts - I support the information distribution via social networking in Egypt but have major problems with what Assange is doing. That may be because at some level I get that Assange does not quite get how social interaction works
So freedom on the one hand and restriction on the other - contradictory but maybe it makes sense in terms of how as social creatures we have to work.
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I've bought the book. Looking forward to reading it. My own take on WikiLeaks is better with it than without......and I don't judge the organisation by the (flawed personality) of one man - even if he leads it. The ethic of public information being made public is generally a good one. I'm not sure I buy into the "if you name this person SOMEONE ELSE will kill them" argument. That can be used and abused in a million ways and at the end of the day the only person responsible for killing someone is the person who gives the order for the execution and / or the people who do the killing. US politicians have been holding their own soldiers hostage for years to cover up and suppress the nasty things they have been up to that they don't want people to talk about.....lest they be held accountable. Not by the courts....but but by the survivors of those they killed illegally.....As you can see....this moral and ethic morass gets messy very fast.
I've also been fascinated that the clear evidence of war crimes by US personnel has not lead to a single charge being laid.
I've donated a fair bit of money (for me) to WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. There is no one else out there doing so much good for so many.......and yes, there are risks. But so far......well worth having been taken.
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There is actually ASD all over this.
I just a little ambivalent about this. On one hand, as I quip to people, I don’t suffer from Asperger’s, I enjoy it – it’s the rest of you that I find insufferable.
A bit more seriously, alluding to the nature versus nurture debate (that leads very, very quickly to a face/palm, followed by a head/desk)…
One, everything that is automatic for neurotypical people has to be manual for me – but consequently I think about it more than you, so there. A lack of empathy is not inevitable, on the contrary, we aspies often appear to withdraw because other’s emotions are all too apparent and we just can’t read them in real time. I feel most for people when they present their experiences to me as narratives, rather than trying to read their faces and tone of voice.
Two, genes load the gun and environment pulls the trigger – or not. A corollary of that is that the condition manifests itself differently in each individual according to both the influences that they have been subjected to and the strategies that they have evolved in order to function. It is not easy to separate the condition itself from the strategies used to cope with the condition in a particular environment.
Three, Assange’s own personal history could well force him to assume modes and strategies of behaviour that are congruent with ASD without necessarily being “organic” ASD.
Four, and which is what disturbs me, the delightful folk at T’ Standard are all too happy to plaster the label “psychopath” on anyone they don’t like. Now, I have no objection to finding cognitive subspecies of humanity everywhere – it’s fun at least – but my ears metaphorically prick up when labels are used as alternatives or euphemisms for essentialist moral distinctions. Now that’s not happening here, but it certainly happens in the aforementioned sewer. “Schizophrenic” is already often used for hypocrisy or what an existentialist would call bad faith, so even if psychopaths seem unambiguously “bad”, I do have to say that I’ve known people who display psychopathic behaviours who have been both bad, conscienceless swine and others who have been a hell of a lot of fun to be around (provided you don’t loan them money or expect their schemes to come to anything).
I’ve no problem being identified as a member of a cognitive subspecies. As Peter Watts likes to observe, maybe we’re undergoing a neurological equivalent of the Cambrian Explosion to cope with the pressures of accelerating technology.
I quite like the way Aspergers seems to be quietly shaping the modern world.
That might be so... but I venture that the monks who illuminated the Book of Kells shaped the pre-modern world long before the later generation of geeks who went into computing were doing it... Watts places his bets with the psychopaths, as they seem to be more fertile (in the short term at least). My issue is with the possibility that this awareness that there are fundamental differences in some people’s cognition and behaviour may lead to an essentialist fallback or default that makes neurological categories into moral categories. To repeat my point above, what’s automatic for neurotypical people is manual for me and therefore I’ve had to devise strategies, that work in a synergy between my nature and my circumstances – and in the end they make the synthesis that is me. Neurology is not destiny.
Anyway, I’m not saying that such simpleminded thinking as I have seen elsewhere is happening here, but please keep it in mind when following through with the implications…
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Sacha, in reply to
A lack of empathy is not inevitable, on the contrary, we aspies often appear to withdraw because other’s emotions are all too apparent and we just can’t read them in real time.
Saw a couple of articles saying that Aspies are too sensitive and not able to filter out emotional input around us, much like people with schizophrenia with sensory overload. The aloofness that others notice is a coping mechanism, inhibiting a timely response as you say. Made sense to me - but who knows if that's universal? :)
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Detachment:
“Hmmm, I seem to be holding a knife, there’s a dead body at my feet and I’m covered in blood. Hmmm. I must be a serial killer, which is rather interesting… I feel that it is absolutely necessary that I take a sample, date it and file it away in an exquisitely crafted box hidden in my apartment’s air conditioning system. Again. Thankfully I have evolved a suitable strategy for dealing with this that requires me to kill only those who deserve death. I suppose that on one level this might be quite horrifying and I’ll have to think about that at some time and see if it is in fact horrifying.”
A wee bit more pertinently, yes, dealing with people is like sticking one's head inside a pinball machine most of the time.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
But I was a bit reluctant to go there.
I’m very reluctant to go there because of stuff like this. I'm not qualified to diagnose neurotypical cognition in anyone, but the reports of his extradition hearing suggest something much more banal.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Anyway, I’m not saying that such simpleminded thinking as I have seen elsewhere is happening here, but please keep it in mind when following through with the implications…
Of course. Good call.
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Would love to watch the Media7 show this week, but sadly the wise folk at TVNZ tell me that "This Video is only available within New Zealand due to International Rights Agreements"
How much do you get for the international rights Russell?
And when is this silliness going to end?
Can someone put the show up on YouTube?
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