Tag Archives: Julian Assange

Canada hacked

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From here:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper assured Canadians on Thursday that the government does have a strategy in place to protect computer networks, following the revelation that at least three key departments had their systems compromised by hackers.

Harper would not comment specifically on unprecedented attacks that targeted the Finance Department, the Treasury Board, and Defence Research and Development Canada.

But he said at a press conference in Toronto that he recognized cybersecurity was “a growing issue of importance, not just in this country, but across the world.”

He added that in anticipating potential cyberattacks, “we have a strategy in place to try and evolve our systems as those who would attack them become more sophisticated.”

There is good news: Canadian apologists for Julian Assange will be dancing in the streets to express their support for free access to all government documents as their tax records appear on the Internet for everyone to peruse.

Julian Assange is indifferent to lives being put in jeopardy by Wikileaks

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From here:

Julian Assange said U.S. informants named in secret cables ‘deserved’ to be killed and initially refused to redact their names, a new book has revealed.

WikiLeaks published thousands of names of Afghans in 77,000 classified war files put on the whistle-blowing website, attracting criticism from international charities and governments.

In later releases of secret U.S. embassy cables in November around 15 per cent of files were withheld to protect lives and every file was checked before release.

Amnesty International said in a letter to WikiLeaks last year that all names in Afghan war logs should be redacted.

‘We have seen the negative, sometimes deadly ramifications for those Afghans identified as working for or sympathizing with international forces,’ it said.

Assange’s apparent gung-ho attitude in an early meeting to naming to naming U.S. informants stunned his media collaborators, the new book claimed.

The title said he told international reporters: ‘Well, they’re informants so, if they get killed, they’ve got it coming to them. They deserve it.’ The book continues: ‘There was, for a moment, silence around the table.’

If this is true – and there is little reason to doubt that it is – Assange has painted a rather large target on his back. Of course, if he is assassinated – well, he had it coming to him.

Julian Assange: hyper-hypocrisy

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Assange is set to plaster details of the banking habits of rich and famous individuals in large letters across the digital sky:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has vowed to reveal confidential account details of rich and famous individuals he says have evaded taxes after taking delivery of a new dossier from a former Swiss banker.

Whistleblower Rudolf Elmer handed over two CDs filled with data to Mr Assange in London today.

And yet is upset when one of his own leakers tries to out-leak him because, irony of ironies, he has a financial interest in the leaks:

For someone who deals in illicit information, Julian Assange sure gets touchy when people share information against his will…

Now Assange is upset that the Guardian would publish some of the leaked cables without the permission of Wikileaks (ironically, the info had apparently been leaked by a Wikileaker!). According to Vanity Fair, “he owned the information and had a financial interest in how and when it was released.”

Julian Assange wants his bail address kept private

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From here:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange tried to hide his bail address from the public in an astonishing move for the man responsible for leaking thousands of diplomatic secrets.

Assange’s lawyers argued that the location – a 10-bedroom stately home – should not be disclosed on grounds of privacy during yesterday’s hearing at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

And who can blame him? After all, it’s so inconvenient to have one’s private life plastered on the Internet for everyone to see.

Poor Julian; now everyone knows he is languishing in a 10 bedroom mansion. We can only hope his telephone is bugged.

Anyone who uses “partner” as a verb should be treated with suspicion

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Not that I needed that particular hint to be suspicious of Avaaz.org which has piously proclaimed its support for Wikileaks  (or as a CBC radio announcer intoned on the 5:00 p.m. News the Licky Weaks – he did, really):

The massive campaign of intimidation against WikiLeaks is sending a chill through free press advocates everywhere.

Legal experts say WikiLeaks has likely broken no laws. Yet top US politicians have called it a terrorist group and commentators have urged assassination of its staff. The organization has come under massive government and corporate attack, but WikiLeaks is only publishing information provided by a whistleblower. And it has partnered with the world’s leading newspapers (NYT, Guardian, Spiegel etc) to carefully vet the information it publishes.

This is all nonsense: it has next to nothing to do with freedom of the press and everything to do with Assange’s contempt for the West and his desire to undermine it.

The information he has published may or may not be damaging in itself; what, without doubt, is damaging is the fact that he has published it, destroying any lingering doubts over whether the US is prepared to do what it takes to keep its secrets – secret.

It is too late to stop the information spreading, but it is not too late to send the message that anyone else tempted to indulge in similar informational espionage will suffer the same fate as Assange  – and be “partnered” with the Guardian.

Wiki indifference

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Wikileaks has revealed that:

  • Clinton ordered diplomats to spy on UN – even asking for DNA
  • Claims of inappropriate behaviour by a member of the British royal family
  • Chinese operatives waging cyber war on U.S.
  • The bargains to empty Guantanamo Bay
  • Arab leaders privately urging an air strike on Iran
  • Ahmadinejad compared to Hitler
  • Stand-off with Pakistan over nuclear fuel
  • Plans for collapse of North Korea
  • Details of corruption in Afghan government

Who cares? Didn’t we suspect all that already? What I really want leaked is the number of women Julian Assange has raped:

A Swedish court ordered WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange detained on suspicion of rape and sexual molestation Thursday, and an international warrant will be issued for his arrest, according to the judge and prosecutor on the case…..

Assange’s lawyer in Sweden, Bjoern Hurtig, also said the prosecutor’s petition was “exaggerated” and “out of proportion.”

He stressed to AFP that his client

“is absolutely prepared to come to Sweden (and) wants to cooperate,” and had even proposed some dates that would work for him, “but we have not been able to agree.”

It’s a measure of Assange’s ego that he believes that, having been accused of rape, appearing before a court  should be at a time “that would work for him”.

Wimpy Wikileaks founder

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Question: What is the one thing you cannot afford to be if you plan to make a name for yourself by exposing someone else’s secrets?

Answer: thin skinned.

Julian Assange, feels “contaminated” by personal probing, poor dear. I have considerable difficultly in believing that Assange’s revelatory exertions are a product of his disinterested, big-hearted largesse: the whole Wikileaks enterprise is an exercise in a pompous ass’s self promotion. Nothing remarkable about that, I suppose, but when something that really is all about him turns into something less than flattering that is all about him, he takes his ball and runs home crying to mummy.

Poetic justice at its most satisfying.