"the possible ramifications of WikiLeaks managed to scare the bejezus out of me."

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

"I guess I could make up all sorts of stories about how I disagreed with people or decisions, but the truth is that in the period that I helped out, the possible ramifications of WikiLeaks managed to scare the bejezus out of me. Courage is contagious, my ass." ~ Rop Gonggri

In a keynote speech to the Chaos Communication Congress, Rop Gonggri talks about wikileaks, the fight over privacy and civil rights around the world. The 27th Chaos Communication Congress was organized by the Chaos Computer Club and held on December 27 through Thursday December 30, 2010 in Berlin, Germany.

Here's some excerpts, but 4 paragraphs just isn't enough to get it.

My keynote at 27C3

Rop Gonggri
...
We actually ended up motivating a lot of people by pointing out the seriousness of the situation. Also, people see that technology there is this persistent myth out there that if the civil rights situation gets really bad, the hackers will show up and magically save us. I think it has been healthy for people out there to hear hackers tell them that the situation is this grim and that they saw no easy answers.
...
My city, Amsterdam, opted to buy electronic voting machines for the elections of 2006. I knew there was no possibility to verify election outcomes and that one had to essentially trust proprietary and secret software to have trust in the outcome. I spent the next two and a half years investigating, campaigning, lobbying and lawyering. Around the same time Ulrich Wiesner and his father Joachim were fighting voting machines in Germany. I won’t get into all the details because the story has been told at previous congresses already. The short version is that the ensuing fight involved large parts of this community and that today these machines are not legal for use in elections in either country.
...
I guess I could make up all sorts of stories about how I disagreed with people or decisions, but the truth is that in the period that I helped out, the possible ramifications of WikiLeaks managed to scare the bejezus out of me. Courage is contagious, my ass.

...
So what are we to make of WikiLeaks? It’s clear that recent events will impact the world, and our corner of it, for some time to come. But it’s really early to tell how, as things are still going on. WikiLeaks could well come out victorious in a new generational conflict, mentioned in the same line with the suffragettes and the Vietnam protesters. But as it stands today, my friend Julian is potentially facing prison time or even assassination for what essentially amounts to practicing journalism.

At the same time, many people friendly to the ideals behind WikiLeaks are beginning to wonder what has been unleashed. Some of my friends have said Julian has “angered the Gods”, Bruce Sterling recently accused him of “weeing all over the third rail” and a good friend of mine said Julian was committing “suicide by cop”.

"But as it stands today, my friend Julian is potentially facing prison time or even assassination for what essentially amounts to practicing journalism."

[RandomThoughts]

1. The fear part is overcome by knowing it is the choice of action not the ends that matter.

Most fear is a projection of possible future events. There is also a supernatural fear, that you can't think out of but have to feel out of.

Once you know that any effect is possible, even the impossible, then you don't do for effect anymore, but for what you think is best.

Even if it does not always work out, there are still great times also.

Just heard a great song from a movie. And the lady was in that remake of Oz also, so that's great also.

Baby it's cold outside
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp3UoqOkFJo


:D

[Amonester]

2. K&R

Paperless electronic voting MUST be made illegal.

[Alameda]

14. 100% agreed! It's insane.

[RoccoR5955]

17. Wrong... ALL proprietary electronic voting must be made illegal.

When one corporation owns the hardware/software, there is no way that we can verify that it can reliably count. If we are to have any electronic voting, it must be done with open source software AND hardware.

[defendandprotect]

18. +1000% .... back to paper/pen -- and hand-counting ....

[snot]

3. Fascinating. Note his comments re- electronic voting, apparently his own main focus:

E.g., "After that I had to get back to writing the study on the Indian voting machines. Which, hardly surprising, were just as easy to manipulate as any other black box voting system ever studied: we proved yet again that anyone with access to the machines could change the outcome of elections.

"Then later in the year I went to Brazil to look at e-Voting there. Their systems are even more dangerous than anyone else’s. . . .

"After Brazil I was home for a week again before traveling to India again two weeks ago. . . . we were detained for a night and half a day at the airport because we had apparently “violated the terms of our visa” the last time we had travelled to India.

"India’s main intelligence agency had somehow investigated us as part of an international conspiracy to destabilize the country. We were eventually released after we promised not to attend the conference. . . .

"Meanwhile India still has a serious problem that needs fixing. India is the type of country that could easily slip into serious violence if there is too much doubt in election outcomes. This is story to be continued.

"As a funny side note Brazil and India apparently signed an agreement last month to work together on unspecified matters involving election organization."

[Bill Bored]

5. But how MANY hacked Indian voting machines would it take to change the outcome of their electiions?

I haven't seen an analysis of this, so I'm just asking. If they switch to optical scanners and don't do enough hand counts of the paper ballots to check those machines, a lot fewer machines might have to be hacked to change the winners of elections than under the current system.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

7. the activists and parties forced use of hand counted paper ballots in some jurisdictions

They figured out that the EVMs could only hold a certain number of candidates per contest,
so they had a slew of candidates run, more than the machines could handle.

So, in those areas, they HAD to use paper ballots, and those were hand counted.

[Kurovski]

4. Kick. (nt)

[Bill Bored]

6. Also see this:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/hackers-watch-a-world-collapsing-into-chaos/

[EFerrari]

8. .

[demodonkey]

9. FYI, his name is Rop Gonggrijp, not Rop Gonggri

He took a .jp domain name so his full name would be spelled out.

[sabrina 1]

10. Real change always takes courage and causes a lot of anxiety

for people who, even though they know the status quo is not working, feel more comfortable NOT getting involved in what it will take to make things better.

Wikileaks, unless the idea gets corrupted as the rest of our media has, will bring huge changes to the world. Imagine a world where the people are actually informed about what their governments are doing.

Had Wikileaks existed in 2000 eg, Bush might not have stolen the election. Had it existed even shortly after that, as Colleen Rowley has said, 9/11 could have been presented as she and other Federal Agents would have had somewhere to publish what they knew about the impending terrorist attack on this country.

It can change history, force politicians to either be more honest or force them into attempting to be even more secretive, something that would be very difficult when they know there is always a possibility of their nefarious deeds being exposed.

The rise of evil leadership around the world today has been facilitated by the lack of a free press, they controlled the press.

Like everything else, the idea behind Wikileaks could be coopted, but for now it is serving an invaluable purpose.

[Kurovski]

11. Kick. (nt)

[JDPriestly]

12. How many journalists have already been killed?

How many by our military alone?

And can you really call those individuals who embed themselves with the troops on one side or the other of a conflict journalists? Aren't they rather propagandists or if you want to be really kind publicists?

What is the difference between a propagandist like Judy Miller and a journalist like Assange?

Judy Miller was really in the employ of certain of members of our government, a certain ideology. Assange just publishes materials that he gets editorializing and editing them only to save human lives.

I'd call Assange the journalist and Judy Miller the propagandist? Would you agree?

[WinkyDink]

13. Remember this? ------>

Mr Calipari had been in the car escorting the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, who had just been freed following an abduction by insurgents, out of the Iraqi capital.

Ms Sgrena and Andrea Carpani, the secret service agent who had been driving the car, were both injured in the shooting but Mr Calipari died instantly.

The shooting caused international headlines, as the journalist had been freed only hours before the incident amid much publicity.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article1665561.ece


http://www.kirkbytimes.co.uk/antiwaritems/journalists_killed_iraq.html

[JDPriestly]

15. Yes. A deliberate attack.

And the first of the Wikileaks attributed to Manning was regarding the murder of a journalist.

Those are just two of quite a number of similar incidents. It cannot be accidental.

[ooglymoogly]

16. kr for Julian; exposing the hidden face of fascism. nt

[Striker Davies]

19. Freedom and the media

Back in 1983 I attended a national Computer Conference in Melbourne. One speaker was a professor of Russian Studies at a UK University, Leeds I think. I was a systems analyst but also had a degree in Russian Studies, and one of my professors was a Danish IT genius who had designed much of the Soviet economic planning system that ran on a nation-wide network of English Electric KDF-9 mainframes (going way back, now!). The speaker's point was direct - because of the rather primitive email systems that existed on this national network throughout the USSR, true information could be and was being passed around the Soviet Empire about the state of the nation, information that had previously been completely controlled by the Soviet political bosses.

The speaker said that was the reason why the USSR would fall before the turn of the century. In fact, it happened nine years earlier.

This is why Assange is proving such a powerful force and why big government and big business is so terrified of him and what he is doing. When the people are aware of the truth, tyranny tends to fall apart. Despite the hysterical screamings of lunatics like Palin, Limbaugh and their ilk, Wikileaks has revealed nothing than could endanger national security (and Clinton and Gates have said the same), but he HAS revealed the lies, the venality, the illegalities and misconduct of the powerful. I can hardly wait till he reveals the secrets of the big banks.

The world is better off for him.