Security ... think about it!
As part of their attempt to blacken WikiLeaks and Assange, pundit commentary over the weekend has tried to portray Assange’s exposure of classified materials as very different from — and far less laudable than — what Daniel Ellsberg did in releasing the Pentagon Papers in 1971. Ellsberg strongly rejects the mantra “Pentagon Papers good; WikiLeaks material bad.”
U.S. agencies have warned some employees that reading the classified State Department documents released by WikiLeaks puts them at risk of losing their jobs. But what about students considering jobs with the federal government? Do they jeopardize their chances by reading WikiLeaks?
Will I break the law if I host or mirror the US diplomatic cables that have been published by Wikileaks? If I view or download them? If I write a news story based on them? These are just a few of the questions we've been getting here at EFF, particularly in light of many US companies' apparent fear to do any business with Wikileaks (with a few notable exceptions).
Anonymous’ DDoS tool has an unusual twist, according to Lyon, incorporating features that allow members to connect to the botnet voluntarily, rather than mobilizing hijacked zombie machines. It is called LOIC, which stands for “Low Orbit Ion Cannon,” and evolved from an open source website load-testing utility. A new feature called Hivemind was added, which connects LOIC to anonops for instructions, and allows members to add their machines to an attack at will.
Facebook's response, from Andrew Noyes, the company's D.C. based Manager of Public Policy Communications: "The Wikileaks Facebook Page does not violate our content standards nor have we encountered any material posted on the page that violates our policies."
Once your leader has been compared to a Bond villain, you might as well go all the way, right? A few months back, Wikileaks released a giant file that's been referred to as the "thermonuclear" option, should the organization's existence be threatened: A huge compendium of some of the most damaging secrets Wikileaks has collected, protected with an intense brand of secure encryption--for use as insurance. With Assange now in police custody on sex crimes charges, the "poison pill" is on everyone's mind.
