Texas based Music Business Attorney, Chris Castle is busy again misrepresenting the communications revolution. I post another retort to his seemingly uninformed anti Open Source rantings...
..And now this week's exceptionally annoying snippet from Castle's "MUSIC • TECHNOLOGY • POLICY" blog:
MUSIC • TECHNOLOGY • POLICY
Light the Cat Signal: Did Google Ask the Feds to Arrest Android Hackers?
April 2, 2014 - by Chris Castle
Are These More Alike Than Not?
According to the Department of Justice, the operators of the Android version of Megavideo have–with one exception–pleaded guilty. Recall that the DOJ seized two domain names earlier this year under its pre-trial seizure process (kind of like they did with Rojadirecta, the tiny Spanish single member LLC pirate site–more about them later–during the SOPA days).
Remember this is not just any pirate app site–this is an Android pirate site. And this exists because Google and Google alone allows unknown third parties to maintain storefronts for Android apps. Unlike Apple that actually thinks its more important to maintain brand integrity than to allow their footprint to be used for illegal activity. You can get iOS apps from one place only–the App Store. Windows Phone Apps from the Windows Phone Store. If Google had the same values as Apple or Microsoft, this problem would not exist, and app developers would face much lower risk of being pirated. All the more reason not to develop apps for Android.
...
To which I respond:
Chris Castle, your unenlightened knee jerks against Google's business model are extraordinarily annoying. But because you represent popular reaction when complex reasoning is required instead ... I must respond.
First off - 'Did Google Ask the Feds to Arrest Android Hackers?'
No.
Google allows crowd sourced development because developers in offices at Apple and Microsoft (especially MS) don't know what the world needs apps for. Free enterprise in software development speeds the adoption of new innovation - enables innovation that would not have occurred otherwise.
Also there are only two major web phones Apple and Google - one uses the propitiatory model, and the other doesn't - not as you say, 'Google is the only one that allows independent development'. As well, because Google does allows independent development based on their open source software architecture (as does Firefox), there are lots of Android style brands out there - and they're all hackable too. So to put it correctly - there are thousands of web phone brands - only one (major one) uses the propitiatory model.
A mobile browser is a very simple thing - it's like a radio - anyone can build a radio from parts found at an electronics store. Fooling the consumer public with branding and a beautiful containers is a symptom of the early years of this particular communications revolution. You don't need an App to access the weather for example - what you need is a way to manage links on a mobile browser - like bookmarks.
As a natural function of development problems with software will be found and exploited; and developers will create fixes; criminals will innovate new exploits; the web development community will plug the holes --- and so on.
This is a revolution, and it's not going to end any time soon. Get used to it - learn how to secure your web platform - just like you secure your wallet.
Much like a story I posted here earlier this year, where a warrant claiming Criminal Libel was used to shut down a Canadian whistleblower blog, to raid a bloggers home, and to seize the property of a citizen blogger and arrest said blogger. (see: FilterBlogs | March 8, 2012 | Blogging comes of age in Charles LeBlanc
Criminal Libel case |
http://filter--blog.blogspot.ca/2012/03/blogging-comes-of-age-in-charles.html) ...
..now, on August 16, 2012 a Blog called "Re-sergence Alliance" was taken down; and two days later a blogger / web developers home was raided, and computers and cell phones were confiscated under a criminal, "Defamatory Libel" warrant. A warrant, the contents of which, are oddly sealed from public scrutiny.
The BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) has called the use of Defamatory Libel in this case disturbing - as it is being used in a case where the RCMP are investigating wrong-doing by the RCMP; and in that this rarely used criminal charge - basically criminal speech - is being applied by police against a citizen who has been critical in a public forum of the same police force now investigating them, and executing the search.
From the CBC article:
"Micheal Vonn, a lawyer with B.C. Civil Liberties Association, calls the RCMP actions an inappropriate use of police resources, because defamation belongs in civil court.
"Vonn also said she believes the defamatory libel section of the Criminal Code is unconstitutional."
Canadian Bloggers need to form a Union - to pool resources; to pay for legal expenses of members, to challenge in court this use of Libel law to shut down the Blogging Free Press.
Here's a CBC's video:
CBC News | Aug 27, 2012 | Police search home (2:57) | A man who complained about an RCMP about is now the subject of an investigation
So the story goes, a RCMP Officer who was part of the investigation into serial killer Robert Pickton - the man convicted of killing dozens of Downtown East Side Vancouver prostitutes - has pictures of himself up online, in one case holding a pastry knife (not sharp either side) to a woman's throat in a bondage sado/masochistic role-play.
Image via HaifischGeweint(the shark wept) blog
A CBC story that featured this photo was taken down, and the parts of the story that referenced the photo was redacted - at their site the following 'correction' was added to the bottom of the story:
Corrections and Clarifications
In previous versions of this story, reference was made to one specific photo of a man holding a knife to a woman's throat. Questions about the identity of that man led CBC News to remove the photo and descriptions of it from our coverage. New information has since determined the identity of that man is not Cpl. Jim Brown.
July 17, 2012 | 10:55 a.m. PT
Many photos like these were unearthed by the blogger who's home was raided (who has asked media to with-hold his identity), and they were posted at another blog site where disgruntled RCMP members were publishing inside information about their fellow police in a public forum - the "Re-sergeance Alliance" blog (which claimed membership of 500 RCMP) - that since this Defamatory Libel warrant was issued - has been taken down.
In Google I searched "Blogger.com + Re-sergeance Alliance". Posted number four in Google with that search parameter was "Haifischgeweint" blog - because she has a much used tag on her blog, "re-sergeance alliance". I found the image above posted at Haifischgeweint - it is an Image from a CTV video post - that has since also been taken down.
The "Haifischgeweint" blogger says this RCMP officer, the one playing the 'dominant' with the pastry knife at the 'submissive' woman's throat (pictured above) - lured her (the author) away from her sexually abusive family - still trying to reconcile after many years since the physical abuse had ended (as opposed to the ever-present physiological consequences of that abuse) - and into his family, to live in his home, with his wife and his young son with promises a father makes to a daughter --- where after she arrived was constantly, expertly manipulated towards the easiest path - to become his live-in, submissive sex slave.
She claims he pursued sexual touching towards this end when ever his wife was not present - even with his very young son, in one case - sitting next to him on the couch in the living room watching TV ... where he was trying to get the author to give him a hand job, encouraging her to reach down his pants.
These sexually inappropriate actions have to be taken with-in context: the author, sexual abuse victim - being manipulated - and the young son as an essential part of that manipulation (being directly exposed to adult sexual situations at an inappropriately young age) - upon a person who has unresolved issues around this same type of abuse; who is also in a dependant situation (a young person, living in his home, in a new city far from home, after having just left their home, which had a history of sexual abuse).
The blogger appears to be blogging towards resolving these abuse issues through the process of writing and publishing in a public forum - something with which I have - although not with sexual abuse as it's root - a personal appreciation of.
For this reason - and having read much of the content there - I point readers to this person's blog with some confidence in it's veracity as an important back-grounder to this piece.
Right after Re-sergeance Alliance was taken down the RCMP sent a memo to officers telling them they were not allowed to post in social media. This over-the-top pronouncement needs to be tested in court; as well as the use by Police of Defamatory Libel towards a criminal prosecution of the writer / publisher / web developer.
It is beyond my believe that there was not already some part of the RCMP's code of conduct that forbids members from posting about their jobs in public forum. Think about it - would a police officer be allowed to talk at a public town hall about the inner workings of a department they work for?
That the RCMP officer under investigation by the RCMP for code of conduct violations would post images in which he has used parts of his uniform performing S&M play is obviously across the officer code of conduct line - and should have had hiim fired a long time ago.
This has now lead to a mutiny with-in the ranks - and for good reason in his writers opinion - what's the rub? Fire the stupid man already.
The letter goes on to state that the force faces “corruption at the most disturbing levels” and “through our managerial conduct of literally covering up their crimes and demoting them upwards.” The Re-Sergeance calls on members to remember their oath to protect and serve fellow Canadians with “honour and humility.”
Anonymous Mounties Threaten Force’s ‘Bad Apples’ With Exposure
- by Amy Boughner
Now these actions by one officer - with some very questionable attitudes about acceptable social behavour, on several fronts - has lead the RCMP to ban all posting on social networks by all officers. And to top it off they have invoked a questionable use of criminal speech law - in an investigation of themselves - to shut down a blog that could have been stopped with the internal memo.
These must not stand - these two precedents in law must have their day in court - because if not this type of extremist application of the law will spread to other government institutions, and reinforce those already in place in the private sector (which also should be tested in court).
This second use this year by a Canadian Police Force, of the Criminal Libel charge against a blogger critical of Police rings a bell of alarm - it must not stand.
The impartial application of the law by police, and as well the freedom of the Blogging Free Press to honestly, accurately and responsibly report on what the police are doing is essential to democracies delicate balance.
References:
Sun Media | Friday, August 31, 2012 06:28 PM EDT | New questions about RCMP credibility | http://www.torontosun.com/2012/08/31/new-questions-about-rcmp-credibility
I'm reading "Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt" by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco on my desktop!
I went to Toronto Public Library (TPL) online, searched the title; found the ebook entry and clicked on the preview button (a blurb beside the ebook entry says all 4 copies are out already.
(??? '4 Copies' 'Out' ? - that doesn't make any sense - one copy is an infinite number of copies - it's an ebook!!!)
So, like I said, I clicked on the preview instead - and nothing happens - my OS says it will search the internet for the right program to open the file, so I say OK. It came back with nothing. So I copy and searched "Adobe EPUB eBook" (which sits rather innocuously under everything in the Library listing) and that gets me to Adobe's site - where I searched the term internally, and that gets me to the download for the Adobe ebook reader, "Adobe Digital Editions" - http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/
(Adobe is a victim of their marketing department - which turns English into brand names - which inside the sub-culture of the company become actual English - and then they try to use those words to communicate with us out here - and it doesn't work. I don't understand the words "Adobe Digital Editions", it sounds like a place where I would find ebooks - but I wasn't looking for an ebook, I was looking for an ebook reader - so search didn't work, trial and error got me to the page - it took me some time to get there; turns out "Digital Editions" is the brand name of Adobe's DRM enabled, ebook reader.)
The preview TPL is offering outside of the 'copies' it's being allowed to dole out 4 at a time, is Chapter 1 of the book, the story of Pine Ridge, South Dakota.
I've changed my mind about Digital Rights Management. Hither-to I've been a devote of Cory Doctorow's take on the digital revolution with regards to book publishing. He makes all of his book available online in full from the moment they are published in paper. His take is that he'll make his wages through 'reputation', he makes enough money to keep writing full time by doing speaking engagements, readings of his books etc. - more than he'll earn from the actual sale of the books themselves.
I'm of the opinion now that DRM is great - because it allows Public Libraries to get inexpensive, digital copies of books immediately upon publication - to loan out.
The entire book downloads onto your hard drive - but it's in a kind of Temporary File that erases after a certain amount of time. Users can request a renewal of the ebook - and that is allowed depending on the settings the publisher sets in the loan agreement.
Now - if I was a hacker - intent on defeating DRM there IS a way - as soon as the text of the book makes it's way to my computer screen it IS copy-able - Somehow; I don't know how, but I am as sure as I am that the sun will rise - there is an interface that can be constructed to copy what appears on one's computer screen.
Print Screen of "Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt" by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco - page 13 (Chaper 1) in ebook reader "Adobe Digital Editions"
So then I am victorious-cyberpunk-hacker-champion !!! But what''s the point? The book's available at the Library for free. :)
This is the best argument for DRM I have ever heard.
And I came up with it !
But then the gobbledygook coming out of the special interest media towers isn't much competition - blinded as they are by greed, and the popular media of greed - money.
* * *
Originally published on my Wall, at Facebook (edited for clarity) (https://www.facebook.com/michael.holloway.90281/posts/441346309243176) (I
want a widget that can take posts I create in FB and posts them here if
I click that button on my browser - I say browser because I know FB
would never allow the app - at Faceboook it's Everything in - Nothing
out.)
Making it easy to share your content is vital to effective web publishing.
The Environmental Working Group's (copyrighted & trade marked), "Clean 15", and "Dirty Dozen"
I ain't scared...
(open image link to see full size)
Source: Environmental Working Group - "EWG 2012 Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce"
Executive Summary - http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary/
One way to share The Environmental Working Group's "Clean 15", and "Dirty Dozen" from the EWG's web site, is to take two Print Screen shots of it, edit them together - and publish the image to the web with an accurate title - like, "Environment_Working_Group_2012-Clean-15_Dirty-Dozen" ["Environment*al*_Working_Group..." would have been better. This mistake is fatal because it's in the Name of the organization.]
On a second try I use Print Screen again to publish this EWG free download in PDF format. This one is properly titled: "Environmental_Working_Group_2012_Clean-15_-_Dirty-Dozen_pdf_image"
(open image link to see full size)
Below is a copy and paste of the content. This is the html version of the top image, above. For it to render here images on the EWG's server must stay up, for example the image of the apple is coming from: http://static.ewg.org/reports/2012/foodnews/img/apple.jpg.
In this Blogger copythe CSS style elements are incorporated into each line of the code, while - in the original - the style parameters are served from a style file - so changing the size of this creation took over an hour. I changed several parameters in proportion (29 times) width, font and padding - using Sourceforge's "Notepad++" code editing software.
In making these changes I have fundimentally changed the style of that which the EWG created. This must be described as a "hack" of this 'copyrighted and trade marked' brand. This is exactly what you do not want to happen --- people slightly altering your brand.
As the code came, the default settings in my browser, and in Blogger, stacked the columns one on top of the other - as they were collectively too wide to sit side by side.
Dirty Dozen Plus™
Buy these organic
1
Apples
2
Celery
3
Sweet bell peppers
4
Peaches
5
Strawberries
6
Nectarines
– imported
7
Grapes
8
Spinach
9
Lettuce
10
Cucumbers
11
Blueberries
– domestic
12
Potatoes
Plus
+
Green beans
+
Kale/Greens
+ May contain pesticide residues of special concern
Clean 15™
Lowest in Pesticide
1
Onions
2
Sweet Corn
3
Pineapples
4
Avocado
5
Cabbage
6
Sweet peas
7
Asparagus
8
Mangoes
9
Eggplant
10
Kiwi
11
Cantaloupe
- domestic
12
Sweet potatoes
13
Grapefruit
14
Watermelon
15
Mushrooms
Bloggers are publishing this content any way they can.
You can see lots of images of the EWG's graphical representations in Google Image Search under the EWG keywords for this study report. Here's a link to one I found in a quick search as I was editing this:
How an error in titling effect content's web presence
My error in the first image title is like my fingerprint in Image Search. I can use the error to get to my image quickly. If one does a 'high-light and Search Google' on the mistakenly titled URL I mentioned at at the top - in Google Images my image come up #1. Make the correction though, and my image is nowhere.
If EWG wants a true picture of their copy righted and trade marked publications' penetration in the web they should make it easy to share - not hard.
They could do this simply by publishing images of their beautifully coded html productions when publishing to the web - and have images of each important graphic on a separate page sxpressly posted to allow for easy sharing.
Perhaps a button near the graphic design that opens a pop-up sizing widget - like Youtube's video sizing interface. A share widget attached to pieces of html graphic art you want to share - and then the user could size it to fit the places where they wanted to post it - and then copy the new code from a window and paste it in a blog.
Why did I do this?
Whenever I come across web sites that I think have content that is important to the social good - and that are publishing on the web using publishing techniques that make the content difficult to share - I go out of my way to share it with the commons.
At the same time I hope web developers will keep in mind that making content easy to share, gets the right demographic's eyes back their site very effectively.
I find that folks using Microsoft's office related software to create their content seem to get these 'secure' type outcomes when they publish to the web. I think this is a result of all the corporate clients Microsoft almost single-handedly tooled for the internet in the 1980's and 90's. The user interfaces must steer a coarse towards these outcomes.
This is not the case with the coding at EWG. What we find there is html/css graphic art. I think it looks great ... but all the same - it's hard to recreate elsewhere.
Taking the time to create images before publishing to the web will increase a publication's documentable penetration on the web - and thus make determining it's value on the web - possible.
In the case of a non-profit like the Environmental Working Group - easy to share spreads their message, documents how widely it has spread, and effectively brings people back to the organization's site to read the original content.
Making it easy to share your content is vital to effective web publishing.
Content like watching Star Trek Episodes being shared on Youtube-like video upload channels in countries not signed on to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
This is my experience.
I found a video sharing site that had Star Trek episodes on it. For about a month the content downloaded into the site's video player smoothly, and the entire episode played flawlessly. Two days ago the episode stopped loading after about a minute, and the indicator bar would then suddenly, instantly, run to the end of the loading indicator window. The numbers on the counter stayed the same (42:00) but the video just stopped, usually at around the 5 minute mark.
If I tried to move the video position marker past the point where it had stopped, the position indicator would place, but then when one clicked play the video reset and started loading from the beginning of the episode - and the same load and play experience would happen again, exactly as before.
I tried multiple different episodes - including episodes I had watched in their entirety just a few days ago; I tried clearing cookies; rebooting; reloading the same address several times; using a download app to load the entire episode outside of the player, in a folder other than the Temp Folder that these video applications store data in --- and nothing has worked.
I figure a version of what Cable Companies have been proved to have done to P2P users, sending false reset messages...
..is now happening to people just viewing copyright content on video upload sites --- no copying, no downloading and then uploading to friends --- just watching, and then watching something else - the data sent to be written over the instant the application is closed or restarted.
In this case my service provider, Rogers Cable Inc. is upholding their responsibility under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and stopping me from watching content up-loaded by a user of a Youtube-like site in Asia - in this case, content owned by Viacom.
The stream of packets in a TCP connection each contains a TCP header. Each of these headers contains a bit known as the "reset" (RST) flag. In most packets this bit is set to 0 and has no effect, however if this bit is set to 1 it indicates to the receiving computer that the computer should immediately stop using the TCP connection - It should not send any more packets using the connections identifying numbers (called ports), and discard any further packets it receives with headers indicating they belong to that connection. A TCP reset basically kills a TCP connection instantly.
When used as designed this can be a useful tool. One common application is the scenario where a computer (we'll call it computer A) crashes while a TCP connection is in progress. The computer on the other end (computer B) will continue to send TCP packets since it does not know computer A has crashed. When computer A reboots, it will then receive packets from the old pre-crash connection. Computer A has no context for these packets and no way of knowing what to do with them, so it might send a TCP reset to the sender of the packets - computer B. This reset lets computer B know that the connection is no longer working. The user on computer B can now try another connection or take other action.
DMCA is the oldest of the internet copyright laws, and is viewed by many as striking a balance (not me) - but the large media corporations - who have billions of dollars in potential profit in the form of content sitting in their vaults, full of 50 years and counting of production - are pushing the envelope on the interpretation and application of DMCA - and at the same time lobbying for more draconian SOPA and PIPA type laws; and at the same time building a trade pact of only the richest and most advanced economies - through ACTA - to spread this intransigence, and their own super profitability, globally.
It seems they will not have a world of 1's and 0's, a place where everything is copy-able in exact form with no fading - even though that's exactly where the world is going whether they like it or not.
A dark age approaches - and I fear - a revolution in response.
This video lays out the issue really well - as a citizen in a liberal democratic state you owe it to yourself and your children to get informed - and then act to stop this legislation.
(Un)Lawful Access: Experts Line Up Against Online Spying
Apparently* using the words below in search will get you on a watch list.
"Muslim Brotherhood, Islam, Obama, The White House, Illuminati, E. Holder, The New World Order, Muslim, Barack Obama, Satan, Lucifer, FEMA, Antichrist, CIA, Bilderberger, Homeland Security"
One way to defeat the list is to publish them and ask you contacts to distribute them, search and share them in posts like this. In the spirit of the rights of freedom of speech and free association I publish them here to defeat the algorithm's usefulness to domestic spying organizations.
As stupid and broad brushed as this list is, it's not the end to defeat this one algorithm by sharing it and publishing it in the first 25 words of a post or searching it randomly - what we need to do in the long run is apply the rule of law to the internet --- add safe guards, checks and balances that protect the civil society --- so innocents don't get caught in a growing and extremely invasive, dangerous, unregulated national spying colossus that is growing inside governments around the world as we speak.
*A discussion in Facebook - reprinted here with the video embed from the original post explains all:
Amy MacPherson shared a post about the reveiling of a Online Spying search algorithm someone is running on Facebook:
"COMPUTER GURUS: Can you please view this clip and either confirm or deny the noted security/privacy holes on Facebook? It claims our personal posts are being filtered & redirected to other's group pages, without our knowledge or consent."
I replied:
"Sounds like someone is trying to screw with a Homeland Security's search algorithm that's targeting insane right wing people that are likely they think to go 'postal' as the Republic fades to Empire.
"Solution: EVERYBODY search those words in Facebook. Apparently you'll be helping extreme groups - but at the same time you'd also be protecting yourself.
"Someone should write in html all those search words and post them - to make them easy to copy and paste.
"OK I'll do it.
"Muslim Brotherhood, Islam, Obama, The White House, Illuminati, E. Holder, The New World Order, Muslim, Barack Obama, Satan, Lucifer, FEMA, Antichrist, CIA, Bilderberger, Homeland Security, I'll omit the last one (Lady Gaga,) as it's a control marker that flags this list.
" 'They' will adjust the algorithm to account for this and re-apply a new one to the www. So as well as posting the list and sharing it as widely as possible - you should also ask your memeber of Parliament to Stop the Online Spying legislation now making it's way into law in many countries right now (under different names in each country). In the US it's called, ironically, Stop Online Piracy. In Canada your friends are OpenMedia.ca - http://stopspying.ca/ and Professor Michael Geist University of Ottawa Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Lawhttp://www.michaelgeist.ca/ "
Amy MacPherson's post from my Facebook 'Wall' (my feed stream) - http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=208059365950381&id=728231001
Got this in my Gmail inbox today, March 17, 2011. I think it is SPAM.
Note the error in the headline, "Pr ize"
I didn't open this but I'm pretty sure this is Spam - and maybe evil, screw up your computer spam. It has the gall to use the Google trademark name - so it will probably be effective - if short-lived.
In his CRYPTO-GRAM internet newsletter for December 15, 2010 Bruce Schneier includes a short take on WikiLeaks' place in history published December 9, 2010, in Schneier on Security.
Treat it for what it is, it's just a website, worry instead about your employees who are leaking stuff, says Schneier.
From my read, WikiLeaks is as important as the US government wants to make it. Could this attack on the website and Assange just be more security theatre? If it is, it's backfiring; the role of security theatre is to empower government like a father figure, not like Hitler beginning the round-ups. By making WikiLeaks public enemy number one, WikiLeaks actually becomes more effective at what it does - people thinking about leaking stuff now see the website as antagonist to their superiors; what better way is there now to, 'stick it to the man'?
Mightn't it be better policy to ignore the site and as Schneier says, focus on technological fixes like in-house encryption and log-in logs?
WikiLeaks
By Bruce Schneier
I don't have a lot to say about WikiLeaks, but I do want to make a few points.
1. Encryption isn't the issue here. Of course the cables were encrypted, for transmission. Then they were received and decrypted, and -- so it seems -- put into an archive on SIPRNet, where lots of people had access to them in their unencrypted form.
2. Secrets are only as secure as the least trusted person who knows them. The more people who know a secret, the more likely it is to be made public.
3. I'm not surprised these cables were available to so many people. We know access control is hard, and it's impossible to know beforehand what information people will need to do their jobs. What is surprising is that there weren't any audit logs kept about who accessed all these cables. That seems like a no-brainer.
4. This has little to do with WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks is just a website. The real story is that "least trusted person" who decided to violate his security clearance and make these cables public. In the 1970s, he would have mailed them to a newspaper. Today, he used WikiLeaks. Tomorrow, he will have his choice of a dozen similar websites. If WikiLeaks didn't exist, he could have made them available via BitTorrent.
5. I think the government is learning what the music and movie industries were forced to learn years ago: it's easy to copy and distribute digital files. That's what's different between the 1970s and today. Amassing and releasing that many documents was hard in the paper and photocopier era; it's trivial in the Internet era. And just as the music and movie industries are going to have to change their business models for the Internet era, governments are going to have to change their secrecy models. I don't know what those new models will be, but they will be different.
Hee,hee. A paradox no? In my experience True stuff usually has a paradox or two with-in.
In other news...
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (F.A.I.R.) WikiLeaks Petition Campaign
Join me & stand up for freedom of the press; support @WikiLeaks by Signing FAIR's petition today (http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/592/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5343).
As journalists, activists, artists, scholars and citizens, we condemn the array of threats and attacks on the journalist organization WikiLeaks. After the website's decision, in collaboration with several international media organizations, to publish hundreds of classified State Department diplomatic cables, many pundits, commentators and prominent U.S. politicians have called for harsh actions to be taken to shut down WikiLeaks' operations.
Major corporations like Amazon.com, PayPal, MasterCard and Visa have acted to disrupt the group's ability to publish. U.S. legal authorities and others have repeatedly suggested, without providing any evidence, that WikiLeaks' posting of government secrets is a form of criminal behavior--or that at the very least, such activity should be made illegal. "To the extent there are gaps in our laws," Attorney General Eric Holder proclaimed (11/29/10), "we will move to close those gaps."
Throughout this episode, journalists and prominent media outlets have largely refrained from defending WikiLeaks' rights to publish material of considerable news value and obvious public interest. It appears that these media organizations are hesitant to stand up for this particular media outlet's free speech rights because they find the supposed political motivations behind WikiLeaks' revelations objectionable.
But the test for one's commitment to freedom of the press is not whether one agrees with what a media outlet publishes or the manner in which it is published. WikiLeaks is certainly not beyond criticism. But the overarching consideration should be the freedom to publish in a democratic society--including the freedom to publish material that a particular government would prefer be kept secret. When government officials and media outlets declare that attacks on a particular media organization are justified, it sends an unmistakably chilling message about the rights of anyone to publish material that might rattle or offend established powers.
We hereby stand in support of the WikiLeaks media organization, and condemn the attacks on their freedom as an attack on journalistic freedoms for all.
******
Michael Holloway, Journalist-Blogger
Daniel Ellsberg
Noam Chomsky
Glenn Greenwald (Salon)
Barbara Ehrenreich
Arundhati Roy (author)
Medea Benjamin (Code Pink)
Tom Morello (musician)
John Nichols (The Nation)
Craig Brown (CommonDreams)
Glen Ford (Black Agenda Report)
DeeDee Halleck (Waves of Change, Deep Dish Network)
Norman Solomon (author, War Made Easy)
Tom Hayden
Fatima Bhutto (author)
Viggo Mortensen (actor)
Don Rojas (Free Speech TV)
Robert McChesney
Edward S. Herman (Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania)
Sam Husseini
Jeff Cohen (Park Center for Independent Media)
Joel Bleifuss (In These Times)
Maya Schenwar (Truthout)
Greg Ruggiero (City Lights)
Thom Hartmann
Ben Ehrenreich
Robin Andersen (Fordham University)
Anthony Arnove (author, Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal)
Robert Naiman (Just Foreign Policy)
Dan Gillmor (Salon)
Michael Albert (Z Magazine)
Kate Murphy (The Nation)
Michelangelo Signorile (Sirius XM)
Lisa Lynch (Concordia University)
Rory O'Connor (Media Is a Plural)
Aaron Swartz
Peter Rothberg (The Nation)
Doug Henwood (Left Business Observer)
Barry Crimmins
Bill Fletcher, Jr (Blackcommentator.com)
Bob Harris (writer)
Jonathan Schwarz (A Tiny Revolution)
Alex Kane
Susan Ohanian
Jamie McClelland (May First/People Link)
Alfredo Lopez (May First/People Link)
Antonia Zerbisias (Toronto Star)
Mark Crispin Miller (NYU)
Jonathan Tasini
Antony Loewenstein
(Organizations/institutions listed for identification purposes only)
(After some articles are put to bed at FilterBlogs they get a "Posthumous Long Tail Aperitif" (PLTA): links to related articles published after my original post - or before, but I wasn't aware.)
***
"..the 'WikiLeaked' documents are nothing unless writers sit down, dig through the massive amounts of information, and write entertaining and informative stories about what they've found!"
This morning I began the daunting task of writing an original story using the leaked US Diplomatic Cables as a source. It is my better tactic to help WikiLeaks withstand attacks by the US Government that over the last fortnight have ranged from the arrest of Julian Assange on trumped up charges, to Cyber-attacks by the Pentagon on WikiLeaks funding streams. The US government is using every agency at it's disposal to prevent the continuing release of classified cables (as of this writing, 1,295 of 251,287 US Diplomatic cables have been released).
This week a network of coders known as "Anonymous" (see BoingBoing article) attacked businesses who, under pressure from the US Government, used legal language in their terms of service agreements to suspend services they had earlier agreed to provide Wikileaks. Anonymous volunteers used DDOS attacks (a flood of information requests) to shut down PayPal, MasterCard, Amazon and Visa sites for a short periods. The attack was a mirror of what the Cyber-Warfare division of the Pentagon did to WikiLeaks the week before (a much larger and sustained attack - that worked - WikiLeaks had to change their address and server arrangements).
To me the tactic seemed hedonistic and in the end, a waste of time. More importantly it is a tactic that would quickly evaporate the public good will WikiLeaks has accrued over the years. The tactic shut down portals for short periods but did not affect using your credit card in the market place. The MasterCard, PayPal and Visa sites were marketing and customer serve portals - which I expect royally pissed off people who were having trouble with their cards - people who when they got they're cards working finally would be a lot less inclined to give some of that money to WikiLeaks. People's lives are hectic enough, hitting people with crossfire in a cyber war is not a way to win friends.
My better tactic was thought of by some people in the "Anonymous" network as well, BoingBoing Article). Someone posted the leaflet below on Thursday or Friday (it must be someone in the hacker network because of the exclusionary language, eh boyz?):
The Guardian UK has assigned a lot of resources to the WikiLeaks story, and it made me realize that the 'WikiLeaked' documents are nothing unless writers sit down, dig through the massive amounts of information, and write entertaining and informative stories about what they've found!
So this morning I clicked on my WikiLeaks bookmark (http://213.251.145.96/) and started reading. It's really quite easy to get at the documents, in the last batch of documents the Afghan War Diary the interfaces were new and not so friendly, this time WikiLeaks has the data nicely organized. From the main page I clicked on:
This took me to the WikiLeaks "Cable Viewer" page. In the side bar (pictured on the left) there are several widgets that with a click of your mouse, you can browse by several different metrics:
Browse latest releases Browse by creation date Browse by origin Browse by tag Browse by classification
There's a handy graphic which shows if there are any cables in the data base between the US Embassy in your country and The US Department of State.
(click for larger image)
I checked the graphic for Canada which, today is listed on the far right, 6th from the end under "Embassy Ottawa". I took that information and checked the "Browse by origin" widget in the sidebar which has an alphabet list, and clicked on 'O' for Ottawa.
Today at this page, links to five documents come up.
I clicked on the top link which is a cable from the US Ambassador to Canada in 2004, Paul Cellucci to the US Department of State under Condoleezza Rice, a "scene setter" note in advance of a Bush visit to Ottawa just after his second term election. I read down and found in the summary section, in the third paragraph, something about which I knew nothing.
(my emphasis)
[...]
"¶3. (C/NF) Several themes about the future would also be
helpful for your private meetings. You should note the
substantial Canadian support to date for Iraq
reconstruction and encourage Canada to play a larger role
in the development of political and security institutions
there. You should promise continued close cooperation in
places such as Sudan, Afghanistan, and Haiti, and solicit
PM Martin,s views on how to best synergize our efforts.
And finally, you should commit to focus on settling our
trade and environmental disputes. End Summary"
I Googled the phrase from the cable - "Canadian support to date for Iraq reconstruction" - to see if anyone else had written anything on this, or if it was in evidence anywhere else on the web. Turns out it is public knowledge.
(Canada's Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien did us the Great deed of not cowering to the war hysteria, lies and engineered disinformation that the Bush Administration was producing in 2002-2003 - and luckily we stayed out of the Iraq War --- but in keeping with the stated aims of the over all NATO strategy in the new world order of preventing "failed states", we continue to donate money to Iraq reconstruction - because after the bombing, and the invasion, and the counter insurgency - well, Iraq is now a failed state - so good for us for helping now to prevent it! ;)
The Google search also brought up an article in the Toronto Star which is interesting; it's the cable, published by the Toronto Star, standing alone, with no link back to an article:
I applaud The Toronto Star for testing the limits of freedom of the press and especially for allocating resources to study the cables - and for writing these stories:
CableGate articles published so far at The Toronto Star
The 'Canada chagrined...' article has this at the end of it:
"WikiLeaks says there will be as many as 2,648 documents mentioning Canada among the quarter-million it plans to release in coming days."
Unlike the Toronto Star, The New York Times has recently wimped out on publishing the full text of the leaked cables, although they have written a number of stories using the cables as sources (some of which they hadn't received from WikiLeaks but had to ask The Guardian UK to show them). They must be getting advice from their Laywers that is taking them in this direction ( imho, economic and branding considerations will soon trump those legal fetters.
WikiLeaks has given The Guardian much more data from the Cable Leak than The New York Times - possibly because the Guardian agreed to a set of stipulations designed by WikiLeaks to get news stories published - while The NYT would not agree to such stipulations. To me though, I think The Guardian had already decided to put a lot of resources into the story, before they agreed to WikiLeaks conditions. They didn't need to promise anything they weren't already going to do anyway. They would use the information as few papers had (with regard to the previous big leak, The War Diaries).
After the last weeks events The Guardian UK has now positioned themselves as the Global go-to resource for WikiLeaks related news - in the English language at any rate. In doing so they show the way, the strategy is sound business, and the Gaurdian model thus empowers editors at other papers to take the case to ownership that the legal departments objections are mute - the newspapers survival as a leading news organization must use the leaked data going forward - they must fight the government in court if necessary or shut down their presses and go home.
CableGate is the biggest single source of news stories since the Pentagon Papers (which was front page news for 3 months) Stories based on this on-going release from WikiLeaks could be creating stories for a year; and then the next leak.
WikiLeaks is a game changer and The New York Times must be realizing that by now.
So that's the mechanics of a better than DDOS attacks tactic. Now I'll head back into WikiLeaks for some serious reading and see if I can find a story which will encourage other bloggers to do the hard work of parsing this monstrously large data set - and in doing so canonize WikiLeaks in the 4th Estate.
WikiLeaks articles here are linked via a "WikiLeaks" label.
