WebProNews » Wikileaks http://www.webpronews.com Breaking News in Tech, Search, Social, & Business Wed, 19 Jun 2013 01:52:07 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Julian Assange, Eric Schmidt Discuss Censorship, Bitcoin And The Internet In Recently Published Conversation http://www.webpronews.com/julian-assange-eric-schmidt-discuss-censorship-bitcoin-and-the-internet-in-recently-published-conversation-2013-04 http://www.webpronews.com/julian-assange-eric-schmidt-discuss-censorship-bitcoin-and-the-internet-in-recently-published-conversation-2013-04#comments Fri, 19 Apr 2013 13:56:05 +0000 Zach Walton http://www.webpronews.com/?p=225753 It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything about Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder that’s still hiding out in the Ecuadorian embassy in London after the UK approved his extradition to Sweden. During that time, he has entertained a number of guests, including Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

WikiLeaks shared a verbatim transcript of a five-hour conversation between Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Julian Assange, Jared Cohen, former Secretary of State advisor to Hillary Clinton, and Lisa Shields, a member of the Council for Foreign Relations. The meeting was arranged so Schmidt and Cohen could speak with Assange about their new book – The New Digital Age.

A lot of the conversation comes from Assange as he discusses his motivations for starting WikiLeaks. Many people may already know his motivation – to make information free – but his conversation with Schmidt provided a few more details. Assange thinks that the current system of sharing information is broken because it has to go through three or four different channels before it reaches the average citizen. He said that WikiLeaks is “an attempt… at a total system” that collects, curates and disseminates primary sources without any of the self or government mandated censorship that crops up in traditional news publishing.

Much of the conversation after that is Assange continuing to discuss state and economic censorship, which the latter he claims is the more prevalent of the two. After a bit of that, however, Assange starts to discuss Bitcoin. He voices full support for the digital currency and advises people to jump in early because he assume that its value is going to skyrocket:

The Bitcoin actually has the balance and incentives right, and that is why it is starting to take off. The different combination of these things. No central nodes. It is all point to point. One does not need to trust any central mint. … The problems with traditional digital currencies on the internet is that you have to trust the mint not to print too much of it. And the incentives for the mint to keep printing are pretty high actually, because you can print free money. That means you need some kind of regulation. … Bitcoin instead has an algorithm where the anyone can create, anyone can be their own mint. They’re basically just searching for collisions with hashes.. A simple way is… they are searching for a sequence of zero bits on the beginning of the thing. And you have to randomly search for, in order to do this. So there is a lot of computational work in order to do this. And each Bitcoin software that is distributed.. That work algorithmically increases as time goes by. So the difficulty in producing Bitcoins becomes harder and harder and harder as time goes by and it is built into the system.

It should be noted that this conversation took place before recent Bitcoin boom and the subsequent crash.

Assange also touched upon how the Internet is inspiring revolution today, particularly in countries with oppressive governments:

The radicalization of internet educated youth. People who are receiving their values from the internet… and then as they find them to be compatible echoing them back. The echo back is now so strong that it drowns the original statements. Completely. The people I’ve dealt with from the 1960s radicals who helped liberate Greece and.. Salazar. They are saying that this moment in time is the most similar to what happened in this period of liberation movements in the 1960s, that they have seen.

He also says that the Internet is turning the youth of the Western world, who are typically a-political, into political activists thanks to the information they are able to receive on events that they would have otherwise not been exposed to in traditional media.

You can check out the rest of the transcript here. It’s incredibly fascinating and definitely worth your time.

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/julian-assange-eric-schmidt-discuss-censorship-bitcoin-and-the-internet-in-recently-published-conversation-2013-04/feed 2 Julian Assange Forms Wikileaks Party, Runs For Australian Senate Seat http://www.webpronews.com/julian-assange-forms-wikileaks-party-runs-for-australian-senate-seat-2013-02 http://www.webpronews.com/julian-assange-forms-wikileaks-party-runs-for-australian-senate-seat-2013-02#comments Wed, 13 Feb 2013 19:57:34 +0000 Zach Walton http://www.webpronews.com/?p=216626 Early last year, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange found that he could technically run for the Australian senate while under house arrest in London. A lot has happened since then, but Assange’s political aspirations have not diminished.

The Age reports that Julian Assange will be on the ballot for thet Australian Senate in Victoria come election time on September 14. He has been registered under the Wikileaks Party, a newly formed political party comprised of 10 close friends of Assange and pro-Wikileaks activists.

The newly formed party, according to Assange’s father John Shipton, will be focused on “the democratic requirement of truthfulness from government.” It’s obviously a very Wikileaks-centric platform, but the party has yet to mention how it will use this to appeal to voters who probably have more than just government secrets on the mind.

So, how does this all work? Assange is currently holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London as he evades a state mandated extradition to Sweden. The Age explains that Assange is eligible as an overseas elector:

Australian citizens living overseas can enrol to vote as an overseas elector, and consequently run as a Senate candidate if they left Australia within the past three years and intend to return within six years of their date of departure.

The rules make Assange eligible to run, but there’s a very real possibility that he would not be able to return to Australia even if he did win. If that turns out to be the case, he will appoint a Wikileaks party nominee to the seat.

This is a strage, but not unexpected, turn of events. Assange may just be popular enough to win the election in September. If it’s successful, we may just start seeing Wikileaks parties popping up in countries all over the world, especially Europe. The continent has already seen an increase of applications for the alternative Pirate Party, which has already won a number of seats in various levels of government across Europe.

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/julian-assange-forms-wikileaks-party-runs-for-australian-senate-seat-2013-02/feed 3 WikiLeaks: Aaron Swartz Was A WikiLeaks Source http://www.webpronews.com/wikileaks-aaron-swartz-was-a-wikileaks-source-2013-01 http://www.webpronews.com/wikileaks-aaron-swartz-was-a-wikileaks-source-2013-01#comments Mon, 21 Jan 2013 21:17:43 +0000 Chris Crum http://www.webpronews.com/?p=212395 About a week and a half ago, Internet activist Aaron Swartz took his own life, as he faced criminal charges in connection with the alleged systematic downloading of files from JSTOR, with intent to distribute. Charges were dropped by the Justice Department following his death.

Swartz’ family blamed his death on the justice system, and Anonymous hacked MIT in his honor (he had allegedly used MIT networks for the downloading his legal case dealt with).

Over the weekend, WIkiLeaks tweeted that it believes Swartz was one of its sources, but can’t prove it due to its anonymity policy.

WikiLeaks mentioned Swartz again in a tweet on Monday:

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/wikileaks-aaron-swartz-was-a-wikileaks-source-2013-01/feed 1 Place Your Bets Now On How Julian Assange Will Escape The Ecuadorian Embassy http://www.webpronews.com/place-your-bets-now-on-how-julian-assange-will-escape-the-ecuadorian-embassy-2012-11 http://www.webpronews.com/place-your-bets-now-on-how-julian-assange-will-escape-the-ecuadorian-embassy-2012-11#comments Wed, 14 Nov 2012 16:41:25 +0000 Zach Walton http://www.webpronews.com/?p=202617 Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, is still holed up inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He’s been there since June, and it doesn’t look like he’ll be leaving anytime soon despite being granted political asylum. What if he did leave the embassy though? How would he do it?

Irish bookie paddypower.com recently set up a betting page for Julian Assange. The site lists the various ways that Assange could escape the embassy and the odds going for each method. Some of the methods, such as a jetpack, are a little ridiculous, but that’s why the odds are set at 100/1.

Operator of the This Day In Wikileaks blog, M Cetera, has created a pretty awesome gif showing off the more interesting escape plans that Assange could employ to get out of the embassy. My bet is on an official Ecuadorian car, but I wouldn’t be opposed to a dramatic escape via hot air balloon or jetpack.

Julian Assange bets on escape

It’s highly unlikely that any of these will actually come to pass. Assange will stay holed up in the embassy until he is allowed to leave for Ecuador. The UK and Sweden aren’t going to let that happen. Ecuador is doing its best to rally other South American countries around Assange’s right to asylum, but much of Europe and the US remain opposed.

[h/t: Daily Dot]

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/place-your-bets-now-on-how-julian-assange-will-escape-the-ecuadorian-embassy-2012-11/feed 3 Anonymous To Launch Their Own Wikileaks Competitor http://www.webpronews.com/anonymous-to-launch-their-own-wikileaks-competitor-2012-10 http://www.webpronews.com/anonymous-to-launch-their-own-wikileaks-competitor-2012-10#comments Wed, 24 Oct 2012 19:06:23 +0000 Zach Walton http://www.webpronews.com/?p=199211 ]]> Anonymous and Wikileaks were the best of buds for the last few years. Members of the hacker collective even risked arrest to obtain emails from Stratfor that were leaked in the GIFiles. That’s why Anonymous wasn’t happy when Wikileaks began to implement aggressive fundraising tactics, including a paywall. In response, Anonymous is creating their own Wikileaks-style site.

Speaking to The Voice of Russia, a member of Anonymous talks about the future of Wiklleaks and their own approach to the leaking game -TYLER. The representative says that Anonymous has serious concerns in regards to Wikileaks and will publish a paper on what they see as “ethical violations and lack of transparency problems” within the organization.

Interestingly enough, they see the fate of Wikileaks intrinsically tied to that of Julian Assange. The representative even goes so far as to say that Assange is Wikileaks. Without him, the whole organization would falter. To that end, they are planning TYLER to be there when and if Wikileaks fails.

So what is TYLER exactly? Anonymous wouldn’t go into much detail, but the representative did say that it won’t be “deployed on a static server.” Instead, TYLER will be “P2P encrypted software, in which every function of a disclosure platform will be handled and shared by everyone who downloads and deploys the software.” It’s their hopes that this system prevents it from ever being shut down.

The hacker collective plans to launch TYLER on December 21, 2012. Anonymous says they chose the date for the publicity, not because they believe in any end of the world predictions. The launch of TYLER will also coincide with Project Mayhem, a movement that Anonymous hopes will inspire wide spread street protests and the publishing of embarrassing state secrets.

For now, Wikileaks continues to operate as Julian Assange battles for his right to political asylum. The site would most likely continue to operate even if he were to be extradited to Sweden as well. It will be interesting to see who publishes the better information as Wikileaks is notorious for taking a long time between receiving and publishing information. Anonymous would most likely throw caution to the wind and publish any information that’s seemingly legitimate.

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/anonymous-to-launch-their-own-wikileaks-competitor-2012-10/feed 2 Wikileaks Angers Anonymous By Implementing A Paywall http://www.webpronews.com/wikileaks-angers-anonymous-by-implementing-a-paywall-2012-10 http://www.webpronews.com/wikileaks-angers-anonymous-by-implementing-a-paywall-2012-10#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2012 13:45:00 +0000 Zach Walton http://www.webpronews.com/?p=196821 Wikileaks has always been about the free distribution of information. In every interview and speech, the site’s founder Julian Assange speaks on how important freedom of speech and information is to a democracy. That may be the site’s mission, but Wikileaks is incredibly underfunded. They may have found a way to fix that problem.

If you went to check out the GIFiles on Wikileaks last night, you would be greeted by this:

Wikileaks Paywall

The paywall coincides with a new GIFiles release containing over 200,000 emails from Stratfor regarding Obama, Romney and their respective parties. The emails could garner significant interest from US citizens as we head into the final stretch of the election.

All of this would be perfectly acceptable if it was just an ad asking for support. People are angry because Wikileak isn’t asking for support, they’re demanding it. The above image is a legitimate paywall that you can’t get behind unless you donate money. One of Wikileaks’ biggest allies wasn’t too happy with it.

Anonymous, or at least the guy who runs the @YourAnonNews Twitter feed, was livid last night in regards to the paywall.

The sentiments expressed here were widespread throughout Twitter with many users angry that Wikileaks would force donations. It appears that the anger got through to the Wikileaks staff as they reportedly suspended the paywall. Some people, such as yours truly are still seeing it, but others are getting to the site with no problems.

In their defense, Wikileaks had this to say about the paywall:

UPDATE: The paywall appears to have been taken down. Users can now access the GIFiles normally without having to donate.

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/wikileaks-angers-anonymous-by-implementing-a-paywall-2012-10/feed 0 Wikileaks Finds A Friend In Anonymous With #OpFreeAssange http://www.webpronews.com/wikileaks-finds-a-friend-in-anonymous-with-opfreeassange-2012-08 http://www.webpronews.com/wikileaks-finds-a-friend-in-anonymous-with-opfreeassange-2012-08#comments Tue, 21 Aug 2012 14:24:46 +0000 Zach Walton http://www.webpronews.com/?p=187976 Wikileaks and Anonymous have been close for quite some time now. Many of the recent leaks that have come out of Wikileaks were obtained by members within Anonymous. With Julian Assange under fire at the Ecuadorian embassy, Anonymous have taken it upon themselves to back him up with their usual tactics.

Computer World UK is reporting that Anonymous attacked various UK government Web sites with DDoS attacks. It’s called #OpFreeAssange and it’s a protest against the UK’s handling of the Assange situation. After being granted asylum by the government of Ecuador, the UK says that they will still arrest Assange if he steps out of the embassy.

Anonymous took down the Web sites for the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Home Office and the Prime Minister. Like most Anonymous protests, the main goal is to draw attention to the issue. The government isn’t going to give Assange a free ride just because Anonymous hacked a couple of Web sites.

While the fight is taking place in the UK, it was started in Sweden. Anonymous is hoping to rile up the citizenry of Sweden to demand that the authorities stop their campaign against Assange. They took down the site for Primavi (it’s still down) and defaced it with a message and the YouTube video of Assange’s speech from the embassy.

As of this writing, the UK sites are all back up and functioning properly. There appears to be a countdown clock pointing to when Anonymous will resume their DDoS attacks, however, so expect the sites to go back down in about 5 hours. Like I said, it won’t do them any good as far as influencing the outcome of all of this. We’ll just have to wait and see what comes out of a meeting of South and Central American countries later this week.

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/wikileaks-finds-a-friend-in-anonymous-with-opfreeassange-2012-08/feed 3 Wikileaks Says Assange Will Go To Sweden If Certain Conditions Are Met http://www.webpronews.com/wikileaks-says-assange-will-go-to-sweden-if-certain-conditions-are-met-2012-08 http://www.webpronews.com/wikileaks-says-assange-will-go-to-sweden-if-certain-conditions-are-met-2012-08#comments Mon, 20 Aug 2012 15:13:27 +0000 Zach Walton http://www.webpronews.com/?p=187799 Wikileaks, and its Australian founder Julian Assange, have been under fire for the past two months. He has been holed up inside the Ecuadorian embassy since his bid to stay his extradition to Sweden was denied. It all came to a head late last week when Ecuador granted asylum to Assange and the U.K. threatened to storm the embassy.

According to Wikileaks, all of this could be avoided if they could just get a simple guarantee from Sweden. A spokesperson for Wikileaks said that Assange would gladly go to Sweden for questioning if they were able to guarantee that Assange wouldn’t be extradited to the United States. He’s wanted in Sweden for questioning over alleged sexual misconduct.

This particular case is made all the more strange as Ecuadorian government sources revealed that Sweden refuses to question Assange at the embassy. Sweden claims they only want to question him and that can be done anywhere. He’s not been formally convicted of any crime yet so why extradition? Wikileaks will tell you that the U.S. wants to extradite Assange from Sweden to stand trial under the Espionage Act.

Ecuador’s Foreign Minister claims that they are providing asylum to Assange because the countries that “have a right to protect him have failed him.” It’s assumed that he means Australia and the U.K. as both countries are in support of Assange being extradited to Sweden. It’s made all the more problematic since Assange will not be receiving any aid from his home nation of Australia.

Regardless of who’s right and who’s wrong, it’s still crazy to think that all of this has been caused by a Web site. The Wikileaks debate just proves the power of the Web – for good or for bad. It just so happens that a hacker turned journalist from Australia turned out to be the catalyst. He also tends to further fan the flames whenever he speaks, like yesterday’s speech from the Ecuadorian embassy. We’ll continue to monitor the situation and see if anything comes out of the first international incident caused by a Web site.

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/wikileaks-says-assange-will-go-to-sweden-if-certain-conditions-are-met-2012-08/feed 0 Julian Assange Demands That The U.S. Stop Persecuting Wikileaks http://www.webpronews.com/julian-assange-demands-the-u-s-to-stop-persecuting-wikileaks-2012-08 http://www.webpronews.com/julian-assange-demands-the-u-s-to-stop-persecuting-wikileaks-2012-08#comments Mon, 20 Aug 2012 13:15:49 +0000 Zach Walton http://www.webpronews.com/?p=187726 It’s official – Julian Assange has been granted asylum by the South American country of Ecuador. Unfortunately for Assange, it’s looks like the U.K. government isn’t going to let him go. He’s been locked up inside the Ecuadorian embassy for almost two months now. The Wikileaks founder made a public appearance yesterday afternoon to address his being granted asylum and what he views as a “witch hunt” against whistleblowers.

Assange made his speech from the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy because he would be arrested on sight if he were step out of the building. He even referenced as much in the beginning of his prepared speech by saying, “I speak to you from up here, because I cannot be down there.”

From there, Assange praised his supporters who came out to protest the police presence in front of the embassy on Wednesday night. He claims that the police would have raided the embassy if it wasn’t for his supporters Tweeting and live streaming the events to the world.

He also praised Ecuador and its president, Rafael Correa, for taking “a stand for justice.” He also praised Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino for upholding “the Ecuadorian constitution and its notion of universal rights.”

After the numerous thanks were out of the way, Assange directly addressed his situation and the situation of others around the world who are being persecuted for being whistleblowers. He said that a threat against Wikileaks is a threat against “the freedom of expression and the health of all our societies.”

He also said that this moment is integral for the United States and its continued prosperity. He questioned if the U.S. would “return to and reaffirm the values, the revolutionary values it was founded on” or would the country “lurch off the precipice dragging us all into a dangerous and oppressive world.”

At that point, Assange directly addressed President Obama. He demanded that the administration “renounce its witch-hunts against Wikileaks” and “dissolve the FBI investigation.” He demands that the country must also “vow that it will not seek to prosecute our staff or our supporters.”

He also came out in support of Whistleblowers and said that “the U.S. administration’s war on whistleblowers must end.” He called upon the U.S. government to pardon all the whistleblowers that have been detained during the current administration and that they must be compensated for their troubles.

Finally, he made a special note to single out Private Bradley Manning who has been in detention for 815 days. He was arrested on charges of leaking confidential military documents to Wikileaks. He said that Manning is “a hero and an example to us all and one of the world’s foremost political prisoners.”

As of this writing, Assange is still inside the Ecuadorian embassy. It remains to be seen if he will get to leave the country or not. There will be meetings among Latin and South American countries this week on the topic of Assange. For its part, the U.K. is not backing down on its threat to extradite Assange to Sweden.

We’ll continue following this story and will update if anything happens. For now, here’s the video of Assange’s speech from yesterday:

[h/t: The Independent]

]]> http://www.webpronews.com/julian-assange-demands-the-u-s-to-stop-persecuting-wikileaks-2012-08/feed 3 Julian Assange Granted Asylum As UK Police Surround Ecuador Embassy http://www.webpronews.com/julian-assange-granted-asylum-as-uk-police-surround-ecuador-embassy-2012-08 http://www.webpronews.com/julian-assange-granted-asylum-as-uk-police-surround-ecuador-embassy-2012-08#comments Thu, 16 Aug 2012 13:04:49 +0000 Zach Walton http://www.webpronews.com/?p=187272 We brought you word a few days ago that Julian Assange was to be granted asylum to Ecuador. The country’s president, Rafael Correa, quickly tweeted that the news was fake and that a decision would be made Thursday morning. It’s now Thursday morning and that decision has been made.

Ecuador has announced that they are granting Julian Assange asylum. They claim that Assange can get in a car and drive to the airport under their protection.

The news comes after a tough night that had the UK police lined up outside of the Ecuadorian embassy. The UK government claimed that they could invoke a law that would allow them to revoke Ecuador’s embassy status. That would allow the police to raid the embassy and arrest Assange. Ecuador says that no national law can supersede international laws such as the Geneva Convention. The country also said that any such action would be viewed as a “hostile act.”

As many people on Twitter pointed out, this may be the first time that an International incident was caused over a Web site. Julian Assange was the founder of WikiLeaks, but is wanted in Sweden for questioning over rape charges. Many people saw the extradition to Sweden as just a stepping stone for extradition to the U.S. where Assange would face charges under the Espionage Act.

As expected, Twitter has exploded with the news. Here’s a few of the choice Tweets:

 

As the last Tweet points out, safe passage for Assange is going to be the big issue today. There are rumors going around on Twitter that Ecuador has granted Assange not only asylum but citizenship and diplomatic immunity as well. Under international law, the UK government would have to let him go. They’ve already proved that their willing to risk an International incident by threatening Ecuador so who knows what’s going to happen next. We’ll continue to follow the story as it develops.

[Image Credit]

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