Anonymous Declares "Infowar" on Wikileaks Opponents

[The Wykydtron]

Aha Anon you keep firin' your lazers, FOR THE LOLS!

seriously Anon + anything = lols YOU CANNOT ARGUE WITH SCIENCE!

 

[Danny Ocean]

My obvious lack of properly used semantics aside, you really think it's going to solve said problem? You don't like or trust your parents, so in retaliation you have someone handout flyers with the exact dimensions of their keys and the codes for their home security system?

Except it's not that bad, as I say above. This is the equivalent of pointing out to burglars that the doors and windows are good ways in, and telling the people who know they don't like them that they don't like them. It's not drastically undermining security or really damaging US's diplomatic position.

All Wikileaks did was publish the information; they were not responsible for the leak themselves. According to US law, while leaking classified information is illegal, publishing it is not. Therefore, Wikileaks did not break American laws.

Source?

 

[Raesvelg]

If you were a terrorist you'd already know these things. The heads of these groups aren't stupid. If there's a pipeline, it's probably important; blow it up. If it's big, it's important and so is a target. Hell, I wasn't at all surprised by the targets on the list, and most of them are quite obvious-- ports, factories, supply lines-- all the first port of call for someone wanting to economically damage someone else.

For the record, you realize we're talking about people who try to bring down airliners by blowing up their underwear, right?

In short, the average terrorist is undereducated, deluded, and not terribly bright. Some of the people working with them are reasonably competent, but the majority are rather dim.

The irony is that Wikileaks has been tearing itself apart for a while now. Internal strife basically revolving around Assange himself, and the growing cult of personality he's been trying to build.

I appreciate the core concept of Wikileaks, that of a place where would-be whistleblowers can blow their whistles with a fair amount of anonymity, but their vetting process could be improved, for one, and more importantly I lost a lot of respect for them when they started editorializing their content.

 

[Danny Ocean]

If you were a terrorist you'd already know these things. The heads of these groups aren't stupid. If there's a pipeline, it's probably important; blow it up. If it's big, it's important and so is a target. Hell, I wasn't at all surprised by the targets on the list, and most of them are quite obvious-- ports, factories, supply lines-- all the first port of call for someone wanting to economically damage someone else.

For the record, you realize we're talking about people who try to bring down airliners by blowing up their underwear, right?

In short, the average terrorist is undereducated, deluded, and not terribly bright. Some of the people working with them are reasonably competent, but the majority are rather dim.

I know they are. The point is that they are lead by clever people, who are lead by cleverer people,who are led by clevererer people, who are led by idiots. Just like the government. If I can quite easily speculate a list of targets to disrupt supply lines, I'm sure their leaders can too, seeing as I'm only 17.

 

[SaKenyi]

This whole thing might just be the best trolling ever.

Aside from that, I don´t have a adequate opinion on this, mainly because I haven't had the time to catch up upon this. Though I thoroughly believe that the rape charges are completely and utterly bollocks (I mean, you must have a big plate of ignorance dangling in front of your face when you believe a claim that suddenly arises once the man gets popular) I also slightly agree that he should've leaked just a bit less.

A bit less, though. I'm for transparancy in governments and it's nice to know what the hell the people that are supposed to 'help us' are doing behind our backs. But, again, we don't need to know everything.

What amuses me is Anon, though. I already expected those guys to join in sooner or later. In my opinion, they're just doing this for the lulz, some target practice.

 

[Dark Prophet]

One question rises to my mind: Why the fuck to the people in charge do things that so desperately need to stay hidden.
I remember watching x-files and thinking this will never happen, no this shit could not possibly float in real life and here we are, it's like a consipracy theorist wet dream.

 

[Danny Ocean]

One question rises to my mind: Why the fuck to the people in charge do things that so desperately need to stay hidden.

That has quite obvious answers, doesn't it? If they are doing things which could be disrupted by one or more groups knowing about them, it's easier to stop anyone knowing about it than just a few people, hence, they classify/censor/ban it, to stop the word getting out.

 

[sagacious]

I dare anyone to watch this video, provided by wikileaks, and NOT be absolutely convinced that wikileaks is a force for good in a corrupt world.

<youtube=kelmEZe8whI>

that's all.

 

[Jama7301]

I find it humorous that a group named "Anonymous" is all about transparency. Bit hypocritical to me.

This is stupid in my opinion. They probably won't accomplish anything apart from annoying people who have nothing to do with the case.

 

[Jama7301]

I find it humorous that a group named "Anonymous" is all about transparency. Bit hypocritical to me.

This is stupid in my opinion. They probably won't accomplish anything apart from annoying people who have nothing to do with the case.

 

[Delusibeta]

it's like a conspiracy theorist wet dream.

Ladies and gentlemen, Distilled Truth in a Box, right there. Honestly, I can't say much more about the whole Wikileaks response than that.

 

[Atmos Duality]

WikiLeaks was heralded when it was going after warlords and dodgy Russians, but it hangs out the West's dirty laundry and all of a sudden it's 'death to Assange. Bloody hypocracy, if you ask me.

Heh. Some ask for honesty in journalism, and this is what we get.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well I understand they want to help out but Anonymous isn't really a knight in shining armor and can very well hurt the reputation of WikiLeaks with it.

But then again I want to see what goes down.

 

[Citrus]

I have a feeling things won't end well for Assange, but I do support what he's done. For the most part.

Things like the Collateral Murder video and Afghan War Diary are important and deserve to be made public. People deserve to know what's really happening in the Middle East; they can't make informed decisions otherwise.

The diplomatic cables, on the other hand, are a little less commendable. While they're interesting for sure, they don't really seem to be doing much more than putting a strain on the relationships between different countries' diplomats.

 

[Dark Prophet]

One question rises to my mind: Why the fuck to the people in charge do things that so desperately need to stay hidden.

That has quite obvious answers, doesn't it? If they are doing things which could be disrupted by one or more groups knowing about them, it's easier to stop anyone knowing about it than just a few people, hence, they classify/censor/ban it, to stop the word getting out.

I'm quite sure that the groups you are referring to knew the things that were leaked and lots more long before the public.

 

[qbanknight]

I'm sorry but to hell with this rapist. His alleged sexual-assault crime aside, the man has exposed HIGHLY classified material on the damn internet. No, I don't mean historical documents concerning the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Those documents are history are fully protected by the First Amendment's Freedom of the Press, look up the Pentagon Papers for a similar case involving the Vietnam War and government leaks. I know the man is Australian, but I'm going to judge him by the American legal system.

However, what is NOT PROTECTED is divulging secrets that pose a national security threat. Like say the locations of HIGHLY IMPORTANT sites according to Homeland Security. If I was a terrorist (be it for Al-Qaeda, Neo-Nazi, IRA, etc.) then a list like that is essentially a travel log of where to commit the most horrific result. That's not freedom of the press, that's putting people's lives in danger. So please do not act all surprised when you see politicians in my country calling for his head, he's not some righteous savior...he's a fucking asshole

First of all.. his 'actions' are such that anyone of us could be accused of.. this is just a massive smear campaign being organised and funded by the people he is outing....In this day and age you REALLY should be more aware of the lies and methods used against people to keep them quiet or to distract PEOPLE LIKE YOU away from what is REALLY going on. You should start thinkig for yourself instead of swallowing what the establishment throws at you.

Secondly.. of all the shit you have seen and read about the details of what is being revealed by this peson.. ARE YOU REALLY SURE that we shouldn't know about this.. and if we do all just BURY OUR HEADS IN THE SAND who will stop things from getting worse, a TRUE FASCIST SOCIETY..because they are certainly not going to get any better.

As for the arguement 'but people are going to be harmed.. waaaa'.. really?.. then they shouldn't be involved.. THAT is what is causing 'harm' to come to them, not the revelations them self.

Assange is a BLOODY HERO, because he knew fine well he would be roasted,(regardless of his current legal status) and Anonymous are the only ones left who have the balls and resources to stick up for our rights (granted them may have more chaotic motives.. but the result is the same.)

Their goddamn hackers who fancy themselves as heroes of the digital age. When really their fat, lonely men who just want "to stick it to the man". Assange is no hero, he's just being a fucking asshole releasing top secret information

Let me ask you something, if you were running a highly covert operations, would you like people knowing about it? Kind of undermines the whole notion of "covert operations". And yes, I'm very fucking sure I don't want to know about certain things if other people have access to the information who could use it for destructive purposes.

And you don't think people can get hurt? Here's something from Wikipedia:

"In 2010, Amnesty International joined several other human rights groups criticizing WikiLeaks for not adequately redacting the names of Afghan civilians working as U.S. military informants from files they had released. Julian Assange responded by offering Amnesty International staff the opportunity to assist in the document vetting process. When Amnesty International appeared to express reservations in accepting the offer, Assange dismissed the group as "people who prefer to do nothing but cover their asses." "

That was on Wall Street Journal.

So stay all curled up by your computer praising some jackass with a couple of servers and some classified all you want, you're just praising a man who's going to get people killed

 

[knhirt]

This is the second time I've posted this in a Wikileaks thread here, so I won't do it again, but it seems that a lot of people don't realize the amount of good that has come from that particular website.

http://sowhyiswikileaksagoodthingagain.com/

This will help.

 

[CalCD]

If he publishes secrets from other countries as well, not just the US, he will probably gain a bit more credibility in being a whistle blower rather than someone with what seems like a grudge against the US, leaving him open to criticism and such. Not much of the information has been stuff we dont already suspect anyway, and its not as though terrorists cant figure out vulnerable targets for themselves. As for the rape claims, they dont seem that substantial, but they may get pushed through anyway.

Its not as though the leaking will stop, whatever they do, although other supporters of Assange might get threatened if this continues. I doubt Anonymous will have much of an effect unless they get a huge following, but there are other Anons that will probably end up DDos'ing wikileaks and such as well.

 

[IckleMissMayhem]

snip

Now why would stuff like that being exposed a bad thing? People need to learn dealing with stuff, you can't live in your bloody walled-off little world and pretend like everything's alright. And then tell other people they should do it too. We're not living in a perfect world and our governments are faaaar from being fucking sacred, people have to know and understand that.

Y'know, I think most people already know that Governments sometimes do things that aren't... pleasant, or completely above board, for want of better words. Do we need a whacking great big spotlight shining on it? Doubtful if that helps any situation, past, present or future.

It's easy to understand why Anonymous have decided to support Assange and his minions - given that both groups are essentially self-aggrandising children throwing their toys out of the proverbial pram. Good riddance to the lot of 'em.