An Embattled Group of Hackers Picks Up the WikiLeaks Mantle (arstechnica.com) 74
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: For the past year, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has sat in a London jail awaiting extradition to the US. This week, the US Justice Department piled on yet more hacking conspiracy allegations against him, all related to his decade-plus at the helm of an organization that exposed reams of government and corporate secrets to the public. But in Assange's absence, another group has picked up where WikiLeaks left off -- and is also picking new fights.
For roughly the past year and a half, a small group of activists known as Distributed Denial of Secrets, or DDoSecrets, has quietly but steadily released a stream of hacked and leaked documents, from Russian oligarchs' emails to the stolen communications of Chilean military leaders to shell company databases. Late last week, the group unleashed its most high-profile leak yet: BlueLeaks, a 269-gigabyte collection of more than a million police files provided to DDoSecrets by a source aligned with the hacktivist group Anonymous, spanning emails, audio files, and interagency memos largely pulled from law enforcement "fusion centers," which serve as intelligence-sharing hubs. According to DDoSecrets, it represents the largest-ever release of hacked US police data. It may put DDoSecrets on the map as the heir to WikiLeaks' mission -- or at least the one it adhered to in its earlier, more idealistic years -- and the inheritor of its never-ending battles against critics and censors. "Our role is to archive and publish leaked and hacked data of potential public interest," writes the group's cofounder, Emma Best, a longtime transparency activist, in a text message interview with WIRED. "We want to inspire people to come forward, and release accurate information regardless of its source."
For roughly the past year and a half, a small group of activists known as Distributed Denial of Secrets, or DDoSecrets, has quietly but steadily released a stream of hacked and leaked documents, from Russian oligarchs' emails to the stolen communications of Chilean military leaders to shell company databases. Late last week, the group unleashed its most high-profile leak yet: BlueLeaks, a 269-gigabyte collection of more than a million police files provided to DDoSecrets by a source aligned with the hacktivist group Anonymous, spanning emails, audio files, and interagency memos largely pulled from law enforcement "fusion centers," which serve as intelligence-sharing hubs. According to DDoSecrets, it represents the largest-ever release of hacked US police data. It may put DDoSecrets on the map as the heir to WikiLeaks' mission -- or at least the one it adhered to in its earlier, more idealistic years -- and the inheritor of its never-ending battles against critics and censors. "Our role is to archive and publish leaked and hacked data of potential public interest," writes the group's cofounder, Emma Best, a longtime transparency activist, in a text message interview with WIRED. "We want to inspire people to come forward, and release accurate information regardless of its source."
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i thought there already was one
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Which side has all the guns? Good luck.
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Trump will not go to war, he prefers prosperity and peace.
And he had bone spurs [businessinsider.com]. They got better [usatoday.com].
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Trump will not go to war, he prefers prosperity and peace.
And he had bone spurs [businessinsider.com]. They got better [usatoday.com].
You are both correct. To Trump, wars are for Other People to fight.
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Like the peaceful way he had peaceful protesters teargassed and cleared out so he could have a photo-op in front of a church?
I will grant you that he loves prosperity... just not for anyone else. He made a lot of money off the Trump University scam and stole a lot of money from the veteran's charity that he ran. Everyone else was screwed, but he made money which is the only definition of prosperity he embraces.
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Which side has all the guns? Good luck.
Unfortunately, the other side is not restrained by anything like common sense, decency, or rule of law, as evidenced by the recent terrorist acts being performed under the guise of "peaceful protest." So we can guess the bloodbath that will ensue.
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Not sure, a local sports store the other day had a 3 hour waiting line for the gun counter, including Joe Biden t-shirts, people with flag t-shirts (obviously Republican), a gay black couple, single black women, Iranian immigrants...
According to the FBI, gun sales have gone up 400% since COVID started and 40% are new gun owners. Since May protests, gun stores are reporting 10-15 times increases in gun sales.
The American public is arming itself very fast and businesses are leaving the inner cities in hordes.
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businesses are leaving the inner cities in hordes. The rioting and looting isn't going to be tolerated for much longer.
Wow, hyperbole much? Good grief, do you really think that all the major cities are going up in flames? You might want to look out the window, I don't see any smoke at all. (Does your bunker have a window? Maybe look at the security cam, then.)
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The US Army, the Marines, and the US Air Force.
You lose, America-hating traitors.
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Interesting Fact (Score:4, Informative)
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It had the desired effect though, the book is widely available on P2P networks.
Re: Interesting Fact (Score:1)
No middle ground (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, that was always the thing, wasn't it? Wikileaks was fine as long as Collateral Murder was being posted, but then people started going after it for not having the leaks they wanted on their ideological opponents because, you know, it's not a hacking group. Of course that last part will be tested... they've dumped Manning into solitary for months now to try to get something on Assange, who was charged.
As for this set of leaks, they managed to doxx a lot of police and crime victims, but they hit the wr
Re: No middle ground (Score:1)
they've dumped Manning into solitary for months now to try to get something on Assange, who was charged.
Wtf are you smoking. Manning isn't even in jail, let alone in solitary.
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s/he/she/
Just because HE is mentally ill doesn't change the fact that HE is a HE. Don't worry, we the American people won't be putting up with this shit much longer. We will soon march down the streets armed with guns and we will eliminate the LGBTQ filth.
Re: No middle ground (Score:2)
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Are you really this ignorant?
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/0... [cnn.com]
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Re: No middle ground (Score:2)
I wouldn't be surprised if he was isolated while there; sweet little things like "her" don't do well in genpop. Plus he was suicidal, so another reason to keep him separated and under observation. That's different than solitary though.
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My bad, I didn't hear about the release. But yeah, Manning spent a year in prison for contempt for refusing to testify against Assange and I understood that much of it was while in solitary confinement.
Hmm. Good luck with that. (Score:2)
Fuck with a first world country's secrets and you get legal troubles for the rest of your life.
Fuck with a third world country's secrets and you get a prick of polonium for the rest of your life.
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Russia, the state that likes to use polonium for assassinations, is a second world country. Being aligned with the Russia née USSR is literally the defining characteristic of a second world country.
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Likes to use? How many polonium assassinations have there been in the last two decades? One, and since Putin and the Russian secret services aren't stupid it seems exceedingly unlikely they would use something so obvious. No, he's not a nice guy, but no one has ever legitimately accused him of stupidity and that's what the Litvinenko poisoning would have been. Seems much more like political/security theater than anything else to me.
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...How many polonium assassinations have there been in the last two decades? One...
One was all that was needed. Putin got his point across.
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Russia, the state that likes to use polonium for assassinations, is a second world country. Being aligned with the Russia née USSR is literally the defining characteristic of a second world country.
Actually, CCCP née Russia, but I digress. You're right. I was just taking a jab at them.
Mantle? (Score:2, Informative)
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Pretty sure the Snowden and Manning leaks completely fucked the security services of every country that had any influence or control over them.
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"Security services" are now known as "covert mass population surveillance?"
Hard to keep up with the new lingo you kids use.
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That's what the NSA, GCHQ et. al call themselves. Security Services. It's not even a joke.
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No one on the Right is ever idealistic? That's an odd position to take.
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Sure, but it's called "gritty determination" when it's on the right.
It's a shame (Score:1, Interesting)
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Did you know the police unions *always* back the Democrat? Same with teachers union. Can't fire bad cops or bad teachers. Why?....
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If that was ever true I doubt it is any more. NYC Council is 90% Democrat controlled and is proposing to take $1 billion off the police budget. They aren't the only ones either.
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Did you know the police unions *always* back the Democrat?
No, I didn't know that, because it's not true, and you are spreading propaganda. Taken from: https://tcf.org/content/commen... [tcf.org]
While teachers-union support and endorsements are overwhelmingly directed to Democrats, police unions typically support Republican candidates. The Fraternal Order of Police endorsed George W. Bush in 2000 and in 2004, John McCain in 2008, and Donald Trump in 2016.
2016: Fraternal Order of Police union endorses Trump https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
2012: no endorsement from FOP
2008: Big headline. "FOP ENDORSES MCCAIN FOR PRES" https://fop.net/CmsDocument/Do... [fop.net]
2004: FOP ENDORSES BUSH!!! (with 3 exclamation points) http://p2004.org/interestg/fop... [p2004.org]
2000: BUSH WINS FOP ENDORSEMENT http://lobby.la.psu.edu/086_Ri... [psu.edu]
You should apologize to y
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Re:It's a shame (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the problem with Wikileaks --- it was always fighting against the Western establishment, and never against China, Russia and other non-Western bad actors. Which makes it all too likely that Assange is a Russian stooge, perhaps consciously, perhaps not.
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And yes, I know about their 2017 Russia release. That was weak sauce, clearly a controlled release. https://www.wired.com/story/wi... [wired.com]
Re:It's a shame (Score:5, Insightful)
...and never against China...
Why would they fight against China? The world already knows that China is a dictatorial state. The whole purpose of Wikileaks was to inform the Free world that it is moving at warp speed to catch up.
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A quick look at the Wikileaks website proves you wrong. For example here is a series of leaks from Russia: https://wikileaks.org//spyfile... [wikileaks.org]
They have stuff from China too. The main issue is getting it, there aren't so many people leaking stuff to a western org in those countries I guess.
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All through the Cold War there were always far more US and British spying for the Soviets than there were Eastern Europeans spying for the West. Seems to be a cultural thing.
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Wikileaks leaked Clinton's emails in 2016. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/wor... [bbc.co.uk]
Seems unlikely that they are working for the Democrats.
Why do they get to decide who gets privacy? (Score:1)
Put your figurative money where your mouth is.
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but who gave these guys the right to decide who does or doesn't get to enjoy some privacy?
They did. It's their website. They sourced the information. They get to decide what to do with it. Same reason Twitter gets to decide who can play in their sandbox: It's their sandbox.
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"You have no privacy. Get over it." - Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy, 1998
I've seen nothing in the subsequent 22 years to prove him wrong.
Forgive and Forget - Move along (Score:2)
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Over 200,000 shell companies were exposed by the Panama Papers, and how many prosecutions resulted? A couple dozen, a little under a billion dollars in fines worldwide were assessed (South Africa alone estimated it was losing tens of billions a year to tax evasion through Monsak Fonseca), and then it all quietly evaporated. The more things change the more they stay the same.
Oh (Score:4, Funny)
Nice touch of editorialization there (Score:3)
late last week ? (Score:1)