Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Pollette and
Speaker 1: I am an editor how stuff works dot Com. Sitting
Speaker 1: across from me, as always, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: You took an oath if you recall when you first
Speaker 1: came to work for me, And I don't mean to
Speaker 1: the National Security Advisor of the United States, I mean
Speaker 1: to his boss, and I don't mean the president. You
Speaker 1: gave your word to his boss. You gave your word
Speaker 1: to the people of the United States. Your word is
Speaker 1: who you are. Actually it seems like three words. Oh no,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I was just just the one. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: today we're gonna talk about a pretty sticky subject. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a pretty complicated subject as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's no surprise that's sticky, because things often are
Speaker 1: sticky after a leak. You like how I did that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I am suffering sleep deprivation, but I can still make
Speaker 1: a bad pun. So we're gonna talk about wiki leaks.
Speaker 1: Now you've probably heard about this site if you're not
Speaker 1: already familiar with it from visiting visiting it. Wiki leaks
Speaker 1: is a site that has been in the news quite
Speaker 1: a bit. In fact, the day that we're recording this podcast,
Speaker 1: news about wiki leaks is exploding across the internet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's still coming fast and furious. Um only in the
Speaker 1: day we're recording this. It's only been a few days since.
Speaker 1: Uh the site posted two twenty new cables uh from
Speaker 1: the United States government in a batch of a much
Speaker 1: much larger batch of different communications, right, like hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of communications. Um. So and by cables, we're specifically
Speaker 1: saying messages. Yes, and I kind of thought that was funny,
Speaker 1: but that uh, we're still using that term to describe
Speaker 1: these different messages. These these types of messages have been around,
Speaker 1: uh for literally hundreds of years. Uh. The United States
Speaker 1: step that United States correspondence around the world. Um, we're
Speaker 1: talking people like diplomats of different varieties, uh, intelligence officers
Speaker 1: pass these these different kinds of cables back and forth
Speaker 1: between one another. Some of them are are coded, Uh,
Speaker 1: some of them are not coded, but they're still coded. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Some of them are listed as secret, but they're not
Speaker 1: necessarily top secret. It's essentially meant for, you know, for
Speaker 1: the people to whom the cables concerned, Right, it's not
Speaker 1: not meant for general public consumption. Yeah. And and in
Speaker 1: a lot of cases it's uh, it's not meant for
Speaker 1: the consumption of the people they're talking about. Two. And
Speaker 1: in some cases they're just completely not flattering. You know,
Speaker 1: the ambassador from so and so, it's a real nimrod, Right,
Speaker 1: he's kind of or or he's flabby. Yeah, there there's
Speaker 1: some there's some personal attacks in them. Well, let's let's
Speaker 1: really talk about what wiki leaks is. First of all,
Speaker 1: it is a nonprofit organization. Um. It's its main outlet
Speaker 1: is its website, which, depending upon when you listen to
Speaker 1: this podcast, may or may not be available when you
Speaker 1: try to navigate to it. This morning, when I tried
Speaker 1: to navigate to it, Uh, it was the the official
Speaker 1: website u r L was was gone. Like if you
Speaker 1: try to go to it, and said that there was
Speaker 1: something wrong. Um and sometimes that just happens, was essentially
Speaker 1: the message. But there were there are lots of mirror
Speaker 1: sites up there that still we're working, so I could
Speaker 1: still navigate to Wiki leaks it's just I couldn't go
Speaker 1: to the official U r l r UM and I
Speaker 1: think it's it's important to note um, at least, I
Speaker 1: think it is important to say that this is not
Speaker 1: affiliated with you know, the wiki media, right, you know
Speaker 1: that that started Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons and so many
Speaker 1: of the other wiki sites. It uses a wiki, right,
Speaker 1: it's using the Wicki as the foundation for the website.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if there doesn't seem to be
Speaker 1: a lot of con I'm having trouble talking today, a
Speaker 1: lot of confusion about that. But I think it's important
Speaker 1: to notice that despite the fact that it's got Wicki
Speaker 1: in there, it's not like a trademarked words. It's two
Speaker 1: separate entities. This is nothing to do with the Wikipedia folks. Now,
Speaker 1: this is this actually comes from someone else, not inside
Speaker 1: the United States. Um. His name is Julian, Yes, Julian Assange.
Speaker 1: He's founder and editor in chief of Wiki Leaks, also
Speaker 1: sort of the public face of the site. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: he is. Indeed, he's not the only one working on this.
Speaker 1: It's not a one man operation by any stretch of
Speaker 1: the imagination. But he he's sort of the he's definitely
Speaker 1: the personality that is, for better or worse, connected incontrovertibly
Speaker 1: with wiki leaks. Nice, thank you. I had to slow
Speaker 1: that down because I wasn't sure I could pronounce it.
Speaker 1: I'm also having trouble with my words today at any rate.
Speaker 1: So Julian Assange, he finds he's one of the founders
Speaker 1: of the site or the founder of the site. The
Speaker 1: site launched publicly in two thousand seven. Um it's really
Speaker 1: just been in the news in UH or it really
Speaker 1: started to take off in the news, but in two
Speaker 1: thousand seven was when it was when it launched. Uh
Speaker 1: and it's a project of the Sunshine Press. Now. The
Speaker 1: purpose of wiki leaks is again it's a nonprofit organization.
Speaker 1: It's purpose is to be a place where you can
Speaker 1: uh leak information. You can drop information that's important that
Speaker 1: is being hidden in some way, that's not being um
Speaker 1: uh distributed to the general public, but is other but
Speaker 1: it's very important information or it's supposed to be right.
Speaker 1: I mean, the idea here is that the governments are
Speaker 1: performing actions and and uh and distributing, distributing information that's
Speaker 1: above the heads of the citizens. And the philosophy of
Speaker 1: wiki leaks is that's a bad thing. That government should
Speaker 1: be much more transparent, particularly a representative government, which presumably
Speaker 1: is representing the interests of the people. Right, you're talking
Speaker 1: about people who elect specific individuals to represent them in
Speaker 1: an official government capacity. Well, if this if they're if
Speaker 1: the government is not transparent, you don't know if your
Speaker 1: representatives are doing a good job or not, or or
Speaker 1: doing what you want them to do. It may turn
Speaker 1: out that the government is acting in a way that
Speaker 1: is against the wishes of the people it represents. And
Speaker 1: then you have to ask yourself is this a legitimate government? Now?
Speaker 1: These are big ideas, and I'm not saying the Wiki
Speaker 1: leaks answers them in any way, shape or form, but
Speaker 1: it's kind of their philosophy that information needs to get
Speaker 1: out there, and they are a kind of a dump
Speaker 1: been ground for information, right Right, That's that's really what
Speaker 1: I think most of the debate is at this point
Speaker 1: is is this uh, is this leaked information serving a
Speaker 1: higher purpose and serving the people? And um, you know
Speaker 1: this isn't It's not limited to the information from the
Speaker 1: United States. There there are other sources of information as well,
Speaker 1: and some of the information that has been leaked from
Speaker 1: the United States government also affects other nations. So this
Speaker 1: is something that's that's affecting people the world over. Now. UM,
Speaker 1: as a former newspaper reporter, I can tell you that, UM,
Speaker 1: this is a role that in the United States has
Speaker 1: been typically carried out by the press, by the by
Speaker 1: the news media, UM, and has has been uh also
Speaker 1: done in the past by and several pretty high profile cases. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, I can think of several off hand, and
Speaker 1: I'll bring one up later. UM when we get into
Speaker 1: the actual source of this particular information, because really Wiki leaks,
Speaker 1: though it has been around, it wasn't until they got
Speaker 1: some information from one particular person, well one allegedly from
Speaker 1: one particular person that would be a private first cup
Speaker 1: Private first class Bradley Manning, who uh who has been
Speaker 1: basically charged with supplying confidential information including two fifty one thousand,
Speaker 1: two D eighty seven cables, UM, which apparently were gleaned
Speaker 1: from a military database or databasees and smuggled out theoretically,
Speaker 1: why I say, I should say, allegedly on a CD
Speaker 1: labeled Lady Gaga. Yeah, this this raises some questions about
Speaker 1: security within the military, you said, or what was his rank? Again,
Speaker 1: Private private first class. He's a noncommissioned officer, right, Private
Speaker 1: first class, and so you think, okay, well, at least
Speaker 1: on some level, you would assume that the information person
Speaker 1: could access would not be critical information because he's not
Speaker 1: really of a rank that would allow him to see
Speaker 1: information that's classified above secret. Right. However, you would also
Speaker 1: think that there wouldn't be an easy way to get
Speaker 1: that information off of the system and then into someone
Speaker 1: else's hands. In fact, the a lot of government offices
Speaker 1: and clean the military are now looking at systems that
Speaker 1: would not allow you to to pull information and put
Speaker 1: it onto another form of media. So you wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to use it like a USB drive or UM
Speaker 1: burn it to a disk because the system and self
Speaker 1: would prevent you from doing so. Yeah, I would like
Speaker 1: to point out that I misspoke. What's private first class
Speaker 1: is not a non commissioned officer, but he's a private
Speaker 1: first class. Okay, Yeah, I'm glad so all of you
Speaker 1: to me. I knew I had misspoken as soon as
Speaker 1: I said it, And I am just gonna say I
Speaker 1: am mostly ignorant of the military. Um. Other than the
Speaker 1: fact it, I am very thankful for them. So yeah,
Speaker 1: That's why I didn't jump on there and correct you,
Speaker 1: because I didn't know any better. Anyway, one of those
Speaker 1: things that I knew as soon as it was itching
Speaker 1: in the back of my head said something that, so, alright,
Speaker 1: so we've got this the site where it's hit the
Speaker 1: news because all these different all these messages that really
Speaker 1: were not meant for public consumption are now out there
Speaker 1: and available. Now, that doesn't mean necessarily that we automatically
Speaker 1: go through and read them all. A lot of newspapers
Speaker 1: did because you know, this was right for picking through
Speaker 1: this and seeing what was actually interesting on there. So
Speaker 1: a lot of the a lot of the fallout from
Speaker 1: the whole wiki leaks situation really comes from secondary uh sources, right,
Speaker 1: like like other newspapers and things of that nature. Well,
Speaker 1: that's true, um see, some of the information was also
Speaker 1: leaked directly to some of the publications as well, right, Um,
Speaker 1: I believe, if I'm not mistaken, the New York Times
Speaker 1: was one of those, uh they got their own copy
Speaker 1: of these documents. And I feel compelled to point out
Speaker 1: too that a lot of these cables, especially diplomatic cables, um,
Speaker 1: they're released anyway, but they're usually released later uh, frequently
Speaker 1: when the people involved are dead, so that we can't
Speaker 1: hear about how flabby they are. We can't hear their
Speaker 1: reactions exactly exactly. Uh yeah, they Sorry, that was another
Speaker 1: misstatement on my part. I'm doing great today, man, because
Speaker 1: considering I'm the one who hasn't had any sleep for
Speaker 1: so long, it's no never mind anyway. Um that's what
Speaker 1: I get for changing the day that we podcast. Um
Speaker 1: so yeah it um. You know, these these documents are
Speaker 1: usually published years after the fact, and in this case,
Speaker 1: these these documents are much much more uh fresh than
Speaker 1: those I believe the number I read was the mid seventies.
Speaker 1: Is now where they're being published, where they're up to
Speaker 1: in the East, documents typically like the official publication, and
Speaker 1: these documents, and some of them are probably not are
Speaker 1: held back even longer, depending on how sensitive they are.
Speaker 1: And that's that's a good point because some people maybe
Speaker 1: under the impression that the documents that are on Wiki
Speaker 1: leaks are um are really recent, like within the last
Speaker 1: couple of years, and some of them are. I mean
Speaker 1: there there are there are documents specifically about the war
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan and and uh and the war in Iraq
Speaker 1: and things of that nature. Um, So there are some
Speaker 1: that are more recent. It's just this most uh, the
Speaker 1: fresh batch that hit Wiki leaks is not among them.
Speaker 1: They those are older documents. But before we get too
Speaker 1: embroiled in the whole government thing, Wiki leaks doesn't just
Speaker 1: publish uh messages about governments. They'll also doing about companies,
Speaker 1: about individuals. Really, it's anything that kind of I guess
Speaker 1: that that wiki leaks feels is being um just ingenuous,
Speaker 1: or is trying to hide something, something that that the
Speaker 1: site feels people should know. They'll they'll go ahead and
Speaker 1: publish it now, maybe not to the extent that everyone
Speaker 1: at wiki leaks wishes the site did. And and that
Speaker 1: tortured sentence was really a way of saying there are
Speaker 1: some people who had worked for wiki leaks in the
Speaker 1: past who felt that perhaps Assange was taking a very uh,
Speaker 1: a very specific approach that they didn't they didn't agree with.
Speaker 1: And the main thing, the main argument was that Assange's
Speaker 1: m O was to wait for these really big leaks
Speaker 1: like the two plus thousand UH cables to come out
Speaker 1: and then would release them in a in a big batch,
Speaker 1: and it gets a lot of a lot of publicity
Speaker 1: and a lot of attention towards Wiki leaks. Uh. The
Speaker 1: argument that the people who left WikiLeaks say is more
Speaker 1: important is you should be publishing the smaller stuff too.
Speaker 1: It doesn't attract the attention of the big leaks like
Speaker 1: the cables, but it's equally as important to people to
Speaker 1: know that information. Right, So they're they're essentially accusing Assange
Speaker 1: of ignoring the smaller stories in favor of the big
Speaker 1: stories and uh. And so some of them left, and
Speaker 1: a few of them are planning on launching essentially a
Speaker 1: competitive site to wiki leaks that would pick up where
Speaker 1: Wiki leaks leaves off. Chief among them would be Daniel
Speaker 1: dom scheit Berrick, one of the one of the fellows
Speaker 1: who was working on wiki leaks in Germany. He left
Speaker 1: UM and is publishing a novel, a book, not a novel,
Speaker 1: but a nonfiction book in January of about working for
Speaker 1: wiki leaks and sort of the kind of inside baseball
Speaker 1: on what it was like working for the website and
Speaker 1: what led to his decision to leave UM. It sounds
Speaker 1: to me like he still believes in the the official
Speaker 1: philosophy of wiki leaks. He just doesn't feel that the
Speaker 1: site is carrying that that philosophy to fruition. He thinks
Speaker 1: that they've they've sort of lost their way. At least
Speaker 1: that's that's what I glean from the interviews I've read.
Speaker 1: I have not spoken with him personally, so I can't
Speaker 1: really be certain. But at any rate, so you've got
Speaker 1: this website that's publishing a hundreds of thousands of documents
Speaker 1: that we're not necessarily meant to be read by you
Speaker 1: and I, and uh, that's drawn some attention, to say
Speaker 1: the least, um, and it's drawn a lot of criticism
Speaker 1: as well. And some of those criticisms range from, uh,
Speaker 1: this is irresponsible, and it puts the United States in
Speaker 1: danger and other nations at risk as well by revealing
Speaker 1: information that was not meant for everyone to to access.
Speaker 1: And because it's on the Internet, it's not like it's
Speaker 1: just going to one audience, it's going out to the world. Now,
Speaker 1: there are some countries that have said that they aren't
Speaker 1: going to pay any attention to the documents that are
Speaker 1: on wiki leaks, so they're not going to um give
Speaker 1: it the satisfaction I guess, like like China has specifically
Speaker 1: said that it's going to block wiki leaks, which not surprise.
Speaker 1: Really it's China, but it's gonna block Wiki leaks and
Speaker 1: they're not going to pay attention to the messages that
Speaker 1: are listed in there because they think it would be
Speaker 1: more harmful than good. Now, whether that that claim is
Speaker 1: true or not, I can't say, you know, whether they'll
Speaker 1: they'll truly not look at the messages. Who who's to
Speaker 1: say besides China, and you know they're claiming one way.
Speaker 1: So but anyway, there are other people, specifically politicians in
Speaker 1: the United States, who have said that the behavior of
Speaker 1: Assange and the Wiki leakus psych site in general has
Speaker 1: been very irresponsible, to the point of possibly being treasonous
Speaker 1: or out of espionage. Uh. These are serious charges and um,
Speaker 1: depending on your point of view, they could be punishable
Speaker 1: to pretty big extremes. In fact, I think a few
Speaker 1: politicians of more or less called for Assangea's head, you know,
Speaker 1: I think they would. I think in their mind they
Speaker 1: would put it on a pike and set it out
Speaker 1: in front of Hudson Bay and say this is a
Speaker 1: warning to all of you. Um, yeah he has Yeah,
Speaker 1: it could end up in a with a lengthy prison term. Um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: at least according to to uh, the information I read
Speaker 1: from a Flaherty from the ap right. But let but
Speaker 1: the charges that he's brought up on are not related
Speaker 1: directly to wiki leaks, and and some have argued that
Speaker 1: you can't. Really what would you charge him with for
Speaker 1: WikiLeaks because according to the site's philosophy, again, they do
Speaker 1: not solicit information. They offer a dumping ground for information,
Speaker 1: but they don't go out and ask for it. So
Speaker 1: in other words, he's just saying, hey, I'm just here,
Speaker 1: and I say it said that I will accept any
Speaker 1: information that comes through my door, but I'm not going
Speaker 1: to go out there door to door and say, hey,
Speaker 1: do you have any secrets for me to tell? So
Speaker 1: really that that would suggest that the responsibility lies on
Speaker 1: the people leaking the information, not on wiki leaks for
Speaker 1: accepting it, right, I mean, what do you charge someone
Speaker 1: for hearing a secret? It's not like it's their fault necessarily.
Speaker 1: I mean, they may say that I've got I've got
Speaker 1: ears and I'm willing to listen, but that's different from
Speaker 1: going out and seeking out secret information. So really that
Speaker 1: there are those who support wiki leaks who argue, well,
Speaker 1: the fault lies with people who are leaking this info,
Speaker 1: so you can't really charge Wiki leaks with anything. They're
Speaker 1: also those who say, well, even if Assange is guilty
Speaker 1: of the allegations against him, which again don't have anything
Speaker 1: to do with wiki leaks, those are they're actually it's
Speaker 1: a it's a charge of rape, a charge of sexual molestation,
Speaker 1: and a couple of other related charges. And these are
Speaker 1: very serious charges. They don't necessarily mean that Wiki leaks
Speaker 1: is going to go away if Assange is convicted of
Speaker 1: these charges. So, you know, even I think there's some
Speaker 1: people who support WikiLeaks who go to a true extreme
Speaker 1: and say that the charges against Assange are manufactured and
Speaker 1: that's some sort of conspiracy and it's all designed to
Speaker 1: try and make Wiki leaks go away, right, Yeah, well
Speaker 1: it kind of makes me think of al Capone in
Speaker 1: a way about you you go after whatever you can
Speaker 1: get on him. Yeah. Yeah, So there there are those
Speaker 1: people who who think that that's what it is, that's
Speaker 1: the United States government pressuring Sweden to pursue these claims
Speaker 1: against Assange in order to get him out of the way.
Speaker 1: I I'm a little skeptical of that. First of all,
Speaker 1: I think that that's placing way too much um way
Speaker 1: too much skepticism against the people laiming these these allegations, right,
Speaker 1: it's it's dismissing them entirely, and I think that's irresponsible.
Speaker 1: What needs to happen is there needs to be a
Speaker 1: true investigation that's objective to see if the allegations are
Speaker 1: if they hold any weight, because because otherwise you're you're
Speaker 1: saying that these the women who are claiming these allegations
Speaker 1: against Assange, that they don't matter. And I think that's
Speaker 1: just as horrible as some of the other allegations being
Speaker 1: thrown out by Wiki leaks supporters. Now, uh, that doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean that the allegations are true, of course, and
Speaker 1: also it doesn't mean that if Assange were convicted that
Speaker 1: Wiki leaks would disappear. There are other people to carry
Speaker 1: on Wiki Leaks. If Assange left, you would just have
Speaker 1: a different spokesperson. Yes, And as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: apparently there is some kind of and this is going
Speaker 1: to be sort of weird, because it is possible that
Speaker 1: before this podcast goes out, um, some this this actually
Speaker 1: will be triggered. Um. But they he and don't take
Speaker 1: me literally here. Apparently he has referred to a thermonuclear
Speaker 1: device which is not actually a thermonuclear device, but basically
Speaker 1: it's a mega something. There's a giant file somewhere in
Speaker 1: the Wiki Leaks system that if something happens to the website,
Speaker 1: it is supposed to be triggered. Now it's sort of
Speaker 1: unclear based on the research that I've done, whether it's
Speaker 1: a giant blast of leaks that will be published somewhere
Speaker 1: in the world that will basically dump all the information
Speaker 1: at one time, or if it's some kind of code
Speaker 1: um either I guess to prevent another attack or attack
Speaker 1: the attacker or something. Um. It's sort of unclear what
Speaker 1: exactly what it is. But Assanja said that you know,
Speaker 1: if you come after us and and completely take down
Speaker 1: the site, you know there is something waiting for you.
Speaker 1: There will be consequences. That's not doing a many favors either,
Speaker 1: not helping him in the eyes of his critics. Um. Now, So,
Speaker 1: so we've gotten to the point where we think that
Speaker 1: Wiki Leaks would stay around even if Assange goes away. Well,
Speaker 1: there are enough supporters to third party supporters who are
Speaker 1: willing to mirror the site where I don't think that's
Speaker 1: going to be an issue. Right now, some things that
Speaker 1: are issues. Are the site uh subsists on donations? Yes, well,
Speaker 1: a lot of the the avenues for donation are getting
Speaker 1: cut off. There have been reports that MasterCard, Visa, and PayPal,
Speaker 1: among other financial services, have ceased payments to Wiki leaks.
Speaker 1: That's correct, I've heard that. So now you're talking about,
Speaker 1: all right, well, this can't have anything to do with
Speaker 1: the the allegations against a Sane because why would you
Speaker 1: why would you connect the company with the man, Right,
Speaker 1: It's two different entities, right of course, in the United
Speaker 1: States here, if it's a company, it is treated like
Speaker 1: a person. Right. But and then that's the same thing
Speaker 1: though you say, all right, well, the company is one person,
Speaker 1: Assange is another person, and you can't you know, you
Speaker 1: can't charge both for the crimes of one. But when
Speaker 1: you when you stick yourself out there too and make
Speaker 1: yourself the face of the company, you start running that
Speaker 1: risk that you will be identified that closely. So if
Speaker 1: if you do assume that the charges against a Sane
Speaker 1: truly have nothing to do with his role in Wiki leaks,
Speaker 1: and let's go ahead, we'll just say that that's well,
Speaker 1: we'll assume that's true for the sake of this argument um,
Speaker 1: it's harder to say, all right, well, what's the justification
Speaker 1: for cutting off the avenues for financial support to wiki leaks.
Speaker 1: That probably has more to do with the political aspect,
Speaker 1: in the financial aspect of the site than anything else.
Speaker 1: So if Assange was gone, I would imagine that those
Speaker 1: block blockades would still be up and uh and at
Speaker 1: least PayPal, the president of PayPal, said in an interview
Speaker 1: the reason why PayPal shut off payments to wiki leaks
Speaker 1: was because the State Department said that wiki leaks was
Speaker 1: performing illegal activity and therefore it was against the terms
Speaker 1: of service for PayPal, so they followed suit and they
Speaker 1: shut down. So well, if the State Department tells us
Speaker 1: it's illegal, we have to follow with what they say.
Speaker 1: So in this case, it does look like it's government
Speaker 1: pressure to try and cut off the financial support for
Speaker 1: wiki leaks, which that gets pretty thorny. That's a that's
Speaker 1: a touchy, touchy subject, because again, if wiki leaks is
Speaker 1: not truly doing anything wrong, if they're just receiving information,
Speaker 1: if they're not seeking it out, then it becomes sort
Speaker 1: of a First Amendment thing as well. Are you suggesting
Speaker 1: that the First Amendment does not apply in this case,
Speaker 1: and and if so, why, and what is your what
Speaker 1: is your grounds for this assertion? Is that constitutional or
Speaker 1: not um. In the meantime, because of these actions, we've
Speaker 1: also seen some vigilante justice being carried out online by
Speaker 1: by people who either support or oppose Wiki Leaks. In
Speaker 1: one case, we have denial of service attacks hitting wiki
Speaker 1: leaks itself and bringing the site to either a crawl
Speaker 1: or crashing it at times, carried out by by presumably
Speaker 1: by a hacker who goes by the handle the Jester,
Speaker 1: and the Jester has claimed responsibility for these attacks uh
Speaker 1: that brought wiki Leaks to its virtual knees. Meanwhile, there's
Speaker 1: another group that is essentially identified as Anonymous. You may
Speaker 1: remember we've talked about Anonymous a few times in the past,
Speaker 1: and Anonymous is targeting the various financial services and companies
Speaker 1: that oppose Wiki Leaks. So they've presumably done distributed denial
Speaker 1: of service attacks against things like, you know, like MasterCard
Speaker 1: and PayPal. So we've got this ugly guerrilla warfare going
Speaker 1: on in cyberspace among two different camps. The really crazy
Speaker 1: thing is these hackers are not necessarily state sponsored at all.
Speaker 1: It's not like there's a government behind these hackers. These
Speaker 1: are a lot of individuals who have a strong opinion
Speaker 1: about the subject and they're acting on it. It's anarchy
Speaker 1: really when you look at it, I mean, right now
Speaker 1: from our perspective, you know, from our experience, it just
Speaker 1: feels like, oh, this one side is really slow or gosh,
Speaker 1: that's annoying. You know, the site is down. But when
Speaker 1: you think about it behind the scenes, if you were
Speaker 1: able to kind of get a virtual look at what's
Speaker 1: going on, it's some of the fiercest fighting and I've
Speaker 1: seen in an online capacity. And in a way, you
Speaker 1: might say that this is an indication of what true
Speaker 1: warfare is going to be like from here on out.
Speaker 1: It's going to have not just state armies battling one another,
Speaker 1: but it's going to have concerned people on either side
Speaker 1: of issues, acting on their own on behalf of whatever
Speaker 1: side they support, and using basic computers. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is not like cutting edge technology about any stretch of
Speaker 1: the imagination. If you have a decent computer, you can
Speaker 1: create a bot net and you can direct it to
Speaker 1: attack whichever site you want, and I may not like
Speaker 1: the attack might not last very long, depending upon the
Speaker 1: defenses of that site, but you can do it, and
Speaker 1: it's truly terrifying to me that that this is happening. Well, um,
Speaker 1: you know, did you want to talk about some of
Speaker 1: the content that was on there, because just speaking of
Speaker 1: that reminded me of a topic that we've brought up
Speaker 1: several times in the show and back on Tech Stuff Live,
Speaker 1: and we still had Tech Stuff Live going. Was the
Speaker 1: attack on Google. Yes, and apparently the the wiki leaks
Speaker 1: documents that that are already been posted. Uh, clarified who
Speaker 1: was actually behind that attack? If you if you remember
Speaker 1: back when this was making the news, the the story
Speaker 1: was that Google's site in China was Google was going
Speaker 1: to start providing unrestricted search results in China because the
Speaker 1: company had come to the conclusion that following China's rules
Speaker 1: was sort of fundamentally against their philosophy China. As a
Speaker 1: result that there was an attack on Google websites. There
Speaker 1: was some data stolen quite a bit actually from Google,
Speaker 1: and it was stolen by hackers, and China claimed that
Speaker 1: it had the government had nothing to do with the attacks.
Speaker 1: The attacks were carried out by others, individual hackers who
Speaker 1: were acting on their own, not not state sponsored. Turns out,
Speaker 1: according to the Wiki leagus documents, not so much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: according to WikiLeaks documents, China is not quite as innocent.
Speaker 1: Now the Poet Bureau uh directed the attacks, according to
Speaker 1: the information. Now that that's something else too. I don't know,
Speaker 1: how whether there's any way to verify the information that
Speaker 1: has been posted in these cables. They you know, it's
Speaker 1: already been pointed out that some of them are actually
Speaker 1: kind of fluffy and and personal. They're not necessarily you know, espionage,
Speaker 1: heavy duty uh high classified information. So I don't know
Speaker 1: for sure whether you know. That's why I'm sort of
Speaker 1: hedging on that is because according to these documents, right,
Speaker 1: and wiki leaks does claim that they put every single
Speaker 1: submission through a very rigorous um uh examination to make
Speaker 1: sure that it's true. And part of that part of
Speaker 1: that is as they say, well, how much would it
Speaker 1: cost to create a fake version of this? The more
Speaker 1: it costs, the more likely it's not a fake, because
Speaker 1: it becomes prohibitive. Right, But if it's, if it would
Speaker 1: be cheap, it would be really easy to make a
Speaker 1: fake version of that story, Well then you're like, all right,
Speaker 1: well this this is less reliable. We have to really
Speaker 1: look into it and see if we can truly source this. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: they lay out their process pretty clearly on the or page,
Speaker 1: so you can actually read how what you know, what
Speaker 1: process they follow to try and verify a document's veracity.
Speaker 1: But that being said, we still don't really know, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, we can you things, things go into a
Speaker 1: spectrum of believability. Well, that's true, and it's certainly judging
Speaker 1: by the reactions of different governments around the world to
Speaker 1: some of the information that has come out, I'd say
Speaker 1: that a lot of it is the information that's been
Speaker 1: posted so far is probably has a high degree of accuracy.
Speaker 1: Like NATO, you know, trying to apologize to the Russians
Speaker 1: about the Baltics. Yes, yes, apparently, and this isn't This
Speaker 1: is another instance where it's not necessarily the United States government,
Speaker 1: that's of all, of course they do, you know, they
Speaker 1: are involved in NATO, but NATO, um, apparently they were.
Speaker 1: They leaked a defense plan and NATO is going, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're really sorry. Yeah, a defense plan in the case
Speaker 1: of essentially an attack by Russia. Right right. So, So
Speaker 1: here's the thing. Some people argue that the information Wiki
Speaker 1: leaks reveals is stuff we all know it's just stuff
Speaker 1: we don't say. So in other words, like you think
Speaker 1: about it, it makes sense that we would have contingency
Speaker 1: plans if random country attacked random other country, right, I
Speaker 1: mean that just makes sense, especially if there's, you know,
Speaker 1: an antagonistic relationship between the two nations. There have to
Speaker 1: be contingency plans. If there are no contingency plans, you
Speaker 1: are you don't have a good defense system, right. You
Speaker 1: have to make those plans so that you know how
Speaker 1: to react in case the worst happens. So we all
Speaker 1: know this, everyone knows it, but you don't say it.
Speaker 1: When you say it, then it becomes a problem. And
Speaker 1: it's it's so crazy because you because everyone knows it already,
Speaker 1: Like wait, we all know, were we just having a
Speaker 1: shared hallucination that we all are ignorant of this information?
Speaker 1: And somehow it doesn't exist until someone says something that's
Speaker 1: human beings. We some crazy people. That's all I have
Speaker 1: to say about that. Um, you know it's funny because
Speaker 1: as I was poking around doing some research for this, uh,
Speaker 1: I came across the name of somebody from our past
Speaker 1: that a lot of us either may not have heard of,
Speaker 1: depending on their age, or had forgotten about somewhat since
Speaker 1: his name hasn't been in the news as much. Daniel
Speaker 1: Ellsworth remember him, Yes, he uh. He used to be
Speaker 1: in the in the Marine Corps in the United States. Um.
Speaker 1: Later on he uh he went to work for the
Speaker 1: Rand Corporation in the nineteen sixties and he ended up
Speaker 1: working on the McNamara study of United States decision making
Speaker 1: in Vietnam. Uh. And then came across and and supplied
Speaker 1: some documents known as the Pentagon Papers to some newspapers,
Speaker 1: including The Times and the Washington Post. UM. And he
Speaker 1: actually uh posted um and I'll quote here. Uh. The
Speaker 1: truth is that every attack now made on Wiki leaks
Speaker 1: and Julian Assange was made against me and the release
Speaker 1: of the Pentagon Papers at the time. So there there
Speaker 1: is a precedent for sensitive information being leaked to the
Speaker 1: media of whatever kind of media, you know, to public
Speaker 1: media and it being spread. Now. I mean, not all
Speaker 1: the media have been okay with posting this. Um. The
Speaker 1: Times is among those that are are posting sort of selectively,
Speaker 1: uh some of the information. Well. And and it's a
Speaker 1: totally different world now too, because it's now possible to
Speaker 1: distribute this information on a much wider scale than ever before,
Speaker 1: and much much more easily than ever before. It takes
Speaker 1: less effort to share that to share even more information
Speaker 1: than you could in the past. Yes, so, and plus
Speaker 1: there's a there's a ready built audience in there. We've
Speaker 1: got an audience of people who, to some degree or another,
Speaker 1: are disenchanted with the way government runs things. And not
Speaker 1: just the United States government, but this is true and
Speaker 1: very in many countries around the world. You have as
Speaker 1: enchanted audience, and they're eager to look at this information
Speaker 1: because it's natural. Right. You get this sort of suspicious
Speaker 1: feeling that things are not going the way they should be,
Speaker 1: or they're being directed in a way that is somewhat
Speaker 1: or at least seems at least on a surface level,
Speaker 1: to be somewhat sinister. And it doesn't help that you
Speaker 1: have proclamations from the government claiming that it's going to
Speaker 1: be more transparent going forward, and that there that that's
Speaker 1: their philosophy, is transparency so that they can prove that
Speaker 1: they're acting on the best interests of the citizens. And
Speaker 1: then when things like this come out, it seems to
Speaker 1: contradict that message, and so it it breeds even more
Speaker 1: distrust and it breeds more confusion and anger, and so
Speaker 1: it's really I mean, it's hard to say who would
Speaker 1: be at fault. I mean you could argue that, okay, well,
Speaker 1: Wiki Leaks is at fault because it's letting the information
Speaker 1: be available. But then you could argue weight this information exists,
Speaker 1: whether it's available or not, the people who are at
Speaker 1: fault or the people who generate this information who are
Speaker 1: causing these things to happen. And but then you think, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but who puts those people in power? Technically it's us
Speaker 1: And then you say, well, yeah, but look at the
Speaker 1: choices we have no matter who we put in power there,
Speaker 1: it just becomes this this domino effect until you finally
Speaker 1: sit down. You're like, I need some chocolate and I'm
Speaker 1: going to turn on some music, maybe the Monkeys, and
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna listen to something happy and I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna pay attention no more. Well, I think that in
Speaker 1: these cases, the release of information like this is one thing,
Speaker 1: But whether or not it fosters a discourse of some kind,
Speaker 1: whether people are talking about I see what you did there?
Speaker 1: Um no, But I mean that's that's one of the
Speaker 1: things that I think you could say about releasing it
Speaker 1: to a major news outlet is whether or not there
Speaker 1: is any framing of the information, whether it's being released
Speaker 1: on its own, or whether there's a context built around
Speaker 1: the information that explains what's going on and um sort
Speaker 1: of a dialogue going on about it. Um. You know.
Speaker 1: So it's I it's kind of interesting because there's I
Speaker 1: think that really makes a difference in the way people
Speaker 1: react to it. Um. And then there are the people
Speaker 1: who are just information junkies who are just completely fascinated. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, they're not necessarily the uh um people who
Speaker 1: are either skeptical of the government's plans and the people
Speaker 1: who support it, but they're just going, huh, that's weird.
Speaker 1: I have to say, some of this stuff that that's
Speaker 1: come out has been really fascinating, just just on it
Speaker 1: completely the middle of the dial spectrum, just going that's
Speaker 1: really really interesting. You know that people are even talking
Speaker 1: about this stuff, Like the unification of Korea is one
Speaker 1: of the things that's come out that that people have
Speaker 1: been talking about, uh, the possibility that North Korea might
Speaker 1: cave and uh, they might be able to unify Korea's
Speaker 1: in the different countries of the world how they they
Speaker 1: interpret that, um, and I just never considered that as
Speaker 1: a possibility in my lifetime. So it's it's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: It's again, I agree with you, some of the information
Speaker 1: that's available on wiki leaks is uh not necessarily the
Speaker 1: most useful, and you kind of wonder why even bother
Speaker 1: hosting it because really, you think about you'd think, ultimately,
Speaker 1: the only thing I see this doing is ticking people off.
Speaker 1: It doesn't it's not helpful in any way. It's not
Speaker 1: like it it's not like it revealed. Again, a lot
Speaker 1: of these are the unspoken truths that I was talking about.
Speaker 1: It's stuff that we all kind of know on some level,
Speaker 1: but to see it written down makes it some somehow
Speaker 1: more real. Someone In some of those cases, I just
Speaker 1: don't see any real sense in that, Like I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: sure it's there and it's embarrassing, but it's not like
Speaker 1: it's a betrayal of trust on uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: government's part for on behalf of the citizens you know
Speaker 1: so well. Of course, everybody interprets information differently, so something
Speaker 1: that may be completely benign to me maybe very inflammatory
Speaker 1: to someone else. Yeah, un Like that whole cable about
Speaker 1: how bald guys are just total jerk wads. I mean,
Speaker 1: that was just mean spirited. I told you, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: I wrote that. Yeah, all right, well whatever, no takebacks,
Speaker 1: you know what, We're gonna have to wrap this up.
Speaker 1: But anyway, Yeah, the Wiki leaks story, it's gonna keep
Speaker 1: on unfolding. I mean, by the time this podcast publishers
Speaker 1: will probably be you know, dozens more developments. But it
Speaker 1: was something that we felt that we really needed to tackle.
Speaker 1: We had a lot of requests from various listeners to
Speaker 1: talk about this topic. Yeah, I feel like there's a
Speaker 1: lot that we haven't said, and I'm I'm interested to
Speaker 1: see more of what comes out about it in the
Speaker 1: weeks to come, because there's it's very likely that this
Speaker 1: will continue for some time. Yeah, I'm sure we'll do
Speaker 1: a follow up on wiki leaks in the future. I
Speaker 1: mean it it's really brought a lot of issues on
Speaker 1: the Internet to life, not not just ones directly connected
Speaker 1: to wiki leaks, but free speech issues and journalism issues,
Speaker 1: cyber terrorism issues. I mean, there's security problems. There's just
Speaker 1: so much that Wiki Leaks has brought to light, directly
Speaker 1: or indirectly. So it's really been a fascinating and somewhat
Speaker 1: disturbing story to follow, and they're they're important issues to
Speaker 1: talk about. So yeah, yeah, I'm glad we have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to do that so far for for today. All right,
Speaker 1: well we're gonna wrap this up. If you guys want
Speaker 1: to pipe up and let us know what you think
Speaker 1: of wiki leaks, or you have other topics you'd like
Speaker 1: to suggest, you can follow us on Twitter and Facebook
Speaker 1: are handled. There is tech Stuff hs W, or you
Speaker 1: can email us. That address is tech stuff at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com and Chris and I will tell
Speaker 1: you again really soon. Don't tell anyone. For more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, vinit how stuff works
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