Julian Assange, Cloud Computing, and the Decline of Skill

[struggle4progress]

Just Because You Can Do Something, Should You? Should He? Should We?
By: Roger Strukhoff
Dec. 6, 2010 10:12 AM

... There is no filter between what he has been given and what he has released. That he exercises absolutely no editorial judgment in the matter may be seen as the point of the whole exercise ... If Mr. Assange were to have combed through the materials he received, found a great story that simply must be brought to light, then reported on it, he would be on much steadier ground today ... To argue that all war-related information should be available to everyone is very naive. To be deadset against war is honorable, and to uncover its abuses honorable. But it seems that Mr. Assange's actions are neither ... We should never underestimate the inherent potential of fascism within any society. There had already been a lot of hot-and-heavy talk of an "Internet kill switch" in the US (by the egregious Sen. Lieberman, among others). Skillful, useful reporting will not hand any victories to those in favor of such mad ideas; unskilled, random leakage of any and all things will ... http://www.sys-con.com/node/1637477

[no limit]

1. I agree they should have used better judgement when releasing these. But lets make something clear

this in no way excuses the smear campaign and the phony charges that have been brought against him. Nor does it excuse the fact that our media ignored the important information in these leaks.

[snagglepuss]

2. But cables are being edited by the 5 newspapers who were handed the cables.

[no limit]

5. I didn't know that. Good to know

[EmilyKent]

3. Everything was edited first by Wikileaks

and again by the newspapers before release.

[Iterate]

4. Thoughtful patriotic appeal? No, trolling for biz from from a tech industry booster.

[molly77]

6. Another great Guardian comment

9.51pm: Professor Emily Bell, formerly of the Guardian, has this analysis of the dramatic impact of the WikiLeaks deluge on the media:

If you follow the latest cache of diplomatic cables leaked by Wikileaks and reported by the Guardian, The New York Times and others it is impossible not to conclude that this is a pivotal moment for journalism, its teaching and its practice.

In her piece Bell asks some of the most difficult questions raised for the media, in both old and new iterations:

How many news organisations now feel differently about how to host and serve content across the web in the wake of Amazon using its commercial prerogative to kick Wikileaks off its servers? How many correspondents and editors would balk at ruining long term relationships with the State Department to publish classified material of the leaked cables-type?

[Iterate]

9. Thanks, I did look that up and will watch the Activate Conference

No doubt this will have some unintended and unpredicted consequences, but one thing that seems to be changing quickly are the relationships of trust.

If we can't trust PayPal, then what's to stop someone from cloning a trustworthy version? And corporations, amoral and least trustworthy at their core, probably have more to fear from competitors and maltreated employees than any customer backlash or boycott. They've always held themselves to be private, but now operating in the public sphere with lobbyists and campaign contributions, that argument just doesn't hold water.

Even looking down the road, after WikiLeaks gets back to a less chaotic routine, there's good reason now to clone the organization for redundancy sake, with a whole network of trusted support. At some point the global becomes local.

[Demeter]

7. Assange found SEVERAL Big Stories

and the banking one hit a nerve. Notice how it STILL hasn't gone public? Notice when the cyber attacks and shutdowns of paypal, visa and mastercard happened?

It wasn't over the State Dept, for sure!

[guruoo]

8. Yahoo News: WikiLeaks bank dump could make Assange a 'hero'

'It will be difficult for the U.S. to prosecute Assange for leaking state secrets. The Espionage Act has never been applied to a third party, and U.S. prosecution would be hindered by 1st Amendment rights. Assange has provided much of the leaked information to news outlets around the world, providing himself with the firewall of a free speech defense.

Ironically, Julian Assange's image could improve with a dump of confidential bank information. To many Americans, the Paulsen-Geithner-Bernanke financial triumvirate engaged in a credit collapse shell game in which common people were helpless as government pilfered the coffers to save government-friendly titans of the financial world.'

...

The real terror of a WikiLeaks bank dump is not fear of public opinion. As always, it is money. During the fiasco of the Great Credit Crunch of 2008, taxpayers were forced to absorb trillions of dollars of bad mortgage debt.

Some part of the bad debt the taxpayers were forced to shoulder was fraudulent, that is, packaged into derivatives and sold by bank execs like Mozilo who expected the entire edifice would topple. In the wake of the 2008-2009 financial company bailouts, who's going to weep if the WikiLeaks bank documents "... take down a bank or two," as Assange has hinted? Should the speculation prove accurate, Bank of America could conceivably be forced to put millions in bad debt back on its balance sheets. While a WikiLeaks bank dump is still only speculation, the speculation alone was enough to put downward pressure on Bank of America's stock price. No longer a $50 stock, BAC today trades at $11.64.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20101207/bs_ac/7353988_wikileaks_bank_dump_could_make_assange_a_hero_of_sorts

[Demeter]

10. Thanks for this link! It certainly tells the story