WikiLeaked US cables link China to Google hack A Chinese contact told the American Embassy in Beijing that China's Politburo "directed" last December's hack on Google's internal systems, according to the confidential US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks and various news organizations on Sunday. As reported by The New York Times, an unnamed source told the American …
This is just grandstanding now, and something needs to be done about it... Wikileaks does not have the right to tear up the very fabric of diplomacy which has formed over thousands of years. It's profoundly irresponsible and borderline criminal. They're playing with fire and meddling in areas that they couldn't possibly understand.
Wikileaks used to be a force for good, now it is simply a tool of ego which could bring about disastrous consequences, disrupted alliances, strife and the potential even for wars - all as a result of people who need to be able to speak freely no longer feeling they're able to.
Assange needs to be removed from the picture, and if they need to take the servers offline by force, they should, IMO.
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I suppose you wont mind if someday someone posts your entire email history on the internet with all you private conversations then ?
I still trying to work out what curruption this is exposing? By supporting just the egenral release of all US information, thne you will have no problem if the US starts intercepting all your comunications and posting it all for the world to see.
Whats sauce for the goose and all that ;)
"you will have no problem if the US starts intercepting all your comunications"
I guess you have not heard about the warrentless wiretaps the USA has been using on its own citizens then?
Or indeed that it has done so on "foreign" citizens who, of course, do not get the protection (for what is left of it) that the US constitution is supposed to provide?
While I can see that diplomacy needs a large degree of privacy to be conducted effectively, I must say the actions of the US in recent years, both militarily (e.g. the invasion of Iraq on doubtful grounds) and legally, such as the odious and ill-named PATRIOT act, and their actions in pushing a US-centric bullying approach to copyright (e.g. the ACTA negotiations being held in secret, even from our elected representatives) result in little sympathy from me when this happens.
but it is fine to deny all knowledge, shoot down people who disagree and sabre rattle those who would say otherwise when this proved they not only knew about it all along but helped? At least keep quiet (ala the Israelis) and say nothing about events whether involved or not. But keeping quiet isnt the merkin way is it?
Although I did like the german leak that confirmed Merkal isnt a risk taker or has any personality, surely a shocker!
"Areas they couldn't possibly understand", my arse.
We're not dealing with the force or quantum mechanics here: It's just diplomacy - powerful but sweaty little men doing powerful but nasty little deals to protect their own powerful but vested little interests. The King of Saudi's a dictator in all but name, the elected governments of the US (and the UK too for that matter) have a nasty habit of saying one thing in public and doing another in private (something I'm not bloody well comfortable with thanks very much), and the Chinese leadership are so far up their own backsides it's a wonder they can see any daylight at all.
This isn't grandstanding - WikiLeaks is doing what it was set up to do. Has it really taken you (almost) 4 years to realise?
The "potential even for wars" you refer to, btw: Would that be the King of Saudi Arabia lobbying the US to invade Iran?
The Wikileaks release is a great service to the public: it illustrates that the U.S. is a government that cannot be trusted - it has already passed legislation that bypasses the provisions of the U.S. Constitution, so why should anyone have faith in any agreement or document it's seal is appended to?
This bastion of secrets is no better than a kitchen cullender - hell it's messages rated 'Secret' can be legally read by some 3-million people, ordinarily. Today the number is much greater!
Just post the rest, Wikileaks, forget about the redacting.
Lessee....
* Diplomats spy on each other!
* Gadaffi has a blonde nurse!
* Iran makes neighbouring countries nervous!
* Member of Royal Family is rude while abroad!
This really is pisspoor. I thought Wikileaks role is to publish secrets that speak truth to power, not "stuff we already know". Either give us something decent or give up the ego trip Julian.
We "know" diplomats do bad stuff, we "know" governments are made up of not nice people doing not nice stuff and we "know" they say one thing in public and then dozens of different things in private depending on who they are talking about and to whom.
But in this context "know" means we very strongly suspect it but have a tiny amount of doubt that allows us to carry on with our lives without having to worry aboutthe really terrible things our elected representatives are doing in our name. Kind of like the scenario of having one rifle loaded with a blank cartridge in a firing squad - each member can convince themselves they didn't kill anyone if they wish.
However, the publishing of the actual documents means we now know what goes on - no grey areas, no doubt, no happy convincing ourselves that the world is actually a nice place. I suppose it is the difference between being almost sure your wife is having an affair and actually catching her in bed shagging someone else.
as for: "I thought Wikileaks role is to publish secrets that speak truth to power, not "stuff we already know. Either give us something decent or give up the ego trip Julian"
I though teh point was for Wikileaks to publish the information and then let us deal with it - if the information is not to your taste then that is up to you - but the information is what it is. Personally I would be happiest if all we learned about our political masters is that they are petty and childish towards each other.
Politicians are people too, they are petty, vain and childish, just like the rest of us can be sometimes. The difference is that we hardly have any effect on the world, these people are paid shedloads to act like children.
All together now...."Games without frontiers, war without tears."
I think you miss the point that this is diplomatic communication, by definition it's something to hide. Diplomats are required to be candid with their bosses back home in order that their thoughts and opinions are fully understood with no room for error. This often results in sending messages that will upset or offend others. Upset and offence is not illegal, or immoral, but can seriously harm relations with other countries.
Yeah, right. Where "democracy" means "a government acceptable to the US", irrespective of the citizens' real wishes. And "open" means "we want to know everything you say and do, even though the obverse does not hold".
When will the Americans ever learn that what's good for America is NOT necessarily good for the rest of the world? In fact - it is usually to the detriment of the rest of the world.
America must stop acting like a bully who intimidates everybody else to do what America wants and learn how to be a responsible government that respects the rights of other governments/countries to rule themselves.
The fact that a country may be abhorrent to the US still does not give them the inalienable right to march in there with force and (try) to institute a government that is US-friendly. In any case, as everyone except the US know, all those efforts have ended in misery and colossal use of face for the good ole US (Vietnam, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iraq (the second time round under Junior), Afghanistan again, Sudan, etc, etc.).
That is what diplomacy is for.
After Wikileaks had that video of the US helicopter gunning down unarmed civillians the Amerikans have been after them...
This latest leak might not be as much "pulic interest" as the murder video, but this is payback for the aggro.
I don't suppose it will stop here.
I'm waiting to see what the story is on Prince Andrew... should be funny, haven't seen him stick his foot in it for a while :-)
Quote: ''The White House. "To be clear — such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals, and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government."''
So open that when someone exposes their lies - they complain.
The last time that this happened, they claimed that many lives were going to be put at risk, and what happened ? What about the many thousands of people killed by the illegal activities of this government ?
If you aren't going to be proud of something that you are about to do: don't do it.
"So open that when someone exposes their lies - they complain."
I'm not quite clear which lies you think were exposed. The U.S government gets brutally frank appraisals from its diplomatic staff. I don't find that surprising. There is stuff in the brutal appraisals that they would like to keep secret. That's not surprising either.
To be honest, I find most of the stuff in the leaks refreshingly forthright, but there's nothing very shocking in there that I've seen and the fact that the U.S wants to keep diplomatic communications under its hat isn't shocking either.
.. there is a difference between leaking the emails of a normal person, and leaking the communication of an elected official. There is a lot of private stuff in the first, there isn't anything private in the latter.
any way, we are talking about the self proclaimed democracy who treats everyone in a fare manner. So their really shouldn't be anything to worry about in those documents. Those document are suppose to be archived after all!
It won't happen because if he posts Chinese info, somebody will come along and make him dead. (small loss) The reason they leak this info is because they can, and the chance for personal harm is low.
I'll respect Assange when he leaks the same kind of info from Chinese, Iranian, Russian sources. Until then, I have the opinion that he's a garden variety pussy out there grandstanding for the publicity.
He's already proved he can dish it out but not take it with his rape allegations.
It was hilarious to see Adam Bolton interviewing Jimmy Wales yesterday, he obviously booked the wrong man. .Most of the questions were about Wikileaks and Assange, including why Wikipedia didn't sue Wikileaks for using the word wiki.
As for state cybercrime, I bet it's not the Chinese government who is blocking Wikileaks.org just now.
I'm less astonished at the vitriol than at the ignorance of so many comments posted here. What has come out so far is routine embassy traffic; ambassadors and spooks reporting back to Washington what they have been told, what they guess, and what might be useful. Every country does this: the diplomatic traffic for the British or Chinese or Australian embassies back to their Governments would look much the same. So far I have seen no information about nefarious US plots, and very little information that was not already clear to anyone who reads the newspapers. (Surely we all knew that Sunni Arab countries are far more frightened of Shia Iran than of Israel, what ever they say in public. You didn't know that? - do try to keep up.)
The shocking thing, and the IT aspect, is that this torrent of unevaluated and mostly confidential stuff was freely available to millions of people who had no need to see it and no way of making use of it. After 9/11 the US security agencies were told they had to share information more. I don't think this was quite what was intended - but, as usual, with a badly-thought-out requirements definition you get an unbelievably useless system. Nobody was willing to sit down and develop a proper data architecture with sensible security controls, because they would have been blamed if a later attack might have been prevented with more information sharing. So the safe bureaucratic position was to share almost everything. Nobody will be blamed for this, even though sharing with Julian Assange would not have been part of any sensible specification.
What Wikileaks do is important.
Our elected officials -- and the officials we voted against but got limbered with anyway -- work for us; and as the people who pay their wages, we have a right to know *everything* they do while on the clock.
If they need a reminder every now and again, so be it.
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I'm with those that think Wikileaks have crossed a line over recent months, and especially now. From all the 'downvoting' this clearly isn't a popular position, but I suspect there are a lot of Daily Mail readers in here today.
While we may not like everything our governments do, at least in this part of the World we have the opportunity to say so, publicly. That is democracy, and we should all be thankful for it.
What Wikileaks is doing nowadays is not helping this process at all, it's merely self-serving publicity for a site that used to do good work, but is now short of cash.
If I was Assange, I'd be avoiding dark alleyways, and rightly so. He is playing dangerous games with the very same democratic process that he will no doubt hope will protect him from harm.
IMHO.
However, how do we complain to the government about their behaviour if we do not know what the hell they are up to? If they had their way we would be forced fed a diet of lies. You only have to take a look at wonderful places like Turkmenistan to see what that would be like.
We have a right to find out that the people we are paying to their job, are actually doing it to the best of their ability. I work hard in my job but my paymasters still expect me to report to them to show them that I am worth the money I get paid.
So anyone who disagrees with you is a Daily Mail reader, eh? Yeah, sure.
I think you rather miss the point, though, you say "While we may not like everything our governments do, at least in this part of the World we have the opportunity to say so, publicly." but this is not enough, because they are doing it *IN OUR NAMES* and we should know what they are doing "for" us and be able to hold them to account instead of having it brushed under the carpet with a "Secret" tag on it.
And for you to suggest that Assange should "avoid dark alleyways" just reinforces this: You seem to think that it is OK for our "democratic" Governments to harm those who call them to account and show what they are up to. But I suppose that's ok, because it's for our own good, isn't it??
There are two possible outcomes of this (or more likely some combination of the two):
1) US diplomats abroad will not make truthful assessments, and have to use PC language (PC stands for "piece of crap" normally, not "politically correct"), so that the US government doesn't get correct appraisals, and makes bad decisions based on them. So well done.
2) Diplomats won't write anything down, and either have meetings or use the phone. Hence we will have no paper trail to follow in 25 years' time when this stuff is normally released, and we lose all accountability, both now and in the future. So well done.
The most interesting things are the ease at which low level people could get their hands on such information, which should make governments and security agencies think long and hard about their desires to silo all our data. As well as the falecy that if you provide ever more data to an ever wider group of people you increase the chances of preventing terrorist acts.
The other interesting thing is the way Western governments react to deal with data that might embarass/destaibalize their regimes in comparison to governments that they criticise for their handling of data.
The rest of us free thinkers know the world's governments are dirty, lying ratbags, this brings it into the public arena and hopefully will make a few more Joe Publics think about how much lying goes on behind closed doors.
You can't beat finding out about tittle-tattle like Gaddaffi's blonde strumpet on the same page as what the UAE wants blown-up in Iran!
Hmm, now all they need to release is proof that North Korea has been selling nuclear materials to Iran, China knew about it and ignored, and they now have a working nuclear device, and its WWIII time.
AC, because there won't be any after a NK first strike...
btw El Reg where is the mushroom cloud symbol?
About the only thing that is really interesting here is how vociferous various Arab governments are about opposing Iran. We already knew that several gulf states were exploring nuclear technology, with an eye on being able to counter any Iranian bomb, but its interesting to see what these governments are saying privately. But the rest of this "newsworthy" info is stuff that has already been out in the public.
Then you have all the tabloid-quality stuff, about how Merkel isn't charismatic, Khaddafi has a blonde babe he never travels without, a certain (and I guess unnamed) British MP is a bit of a skirt-chaser, and so forth. It's amusing, but its not
If anything, Wikileaks (supposedly interested in stopping wars/covert ops and human rights abuses) seems intent on giving the U.S. or Israel cover to start bombing Iran. Having publicized how many Arab governments (powerful government figures in Bahrain, UAE, Saudis, Jordan, Egypt all mentioned in the cables) want to see Iran stopped by violent means, its going to be hard not to say that there is not a broad-based coalition that at least secretly supports taking out the Iranian nuclear program by force. The only thing that would make it better is if future releases show the same dynamic in Europe, with major governements secretly assuring or even pressuring the Americans to bom
And then we have the crappy security system that allows one PFC in Baghdad to download hundreds of thousands of documents? I don't mind the widespread access bigt, Doesn't the system track what people download, and doesn't management look at why a low-level intel officer would be downloading all this stuff? He can't possibly be analyzing it all.
...that it's taken nearly 20 years for something like this to happen. It makes you wonder if why didn't this cross anyone's mind when the internet was a military message shunter. After years of plugging the public version, now that some stuff has leaked from a "secure" source, I wonder if they'll "learn lessons"?
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