Within minutes of the electrons drying on my last column about the Wikileaks CIA document drop called Vault 7, Julian Assange came out with the novel idea that he and Wikileaks would assist big Internet companies with their technical responses to the obvious threats posed by all these government and third-party security hacks. After all, Wikileaks had so far published only documentation for the hacks, not the source code. There was still time! How noble of Assange and Wikileaks!
OR, Wikileaks has found a new business model. When organized crime offers assistance against a threat they effectively control it’s called a Protection Racket and is against the law pretty much everywhere.
Why am I the only one to write about this so far?
What Wikileaks has done by publishing the hacks is to define and validate the threat. There’s the distinction that Wikileaks isn’t the author, just the publisher, of the threat. But how much of a distinction is that, really? If I steal naked selfies from your phone then offer to assist you in their destruction (as opposed to their publication, which would be by, well, me) isn’t that still a crime?
I think the distinction here is that Wikileaks isn’t saying it will charge for its assistance. Nor is it saying that it won’t charge for its assistance. And there are any number of ways to cooperate that can also involve a transfer of resources.
Assange this week is reported to have sent an email to Apple, Google, Microsoft and other companies with a list of specific demands that must be met before the promised assistance will be provided. These demands include a 90-day deadline on patching the hacks. The other demands haven’t yet been revealed by their recipients.
If you know the full list of demands, please get in touch, okay?
In any case it wouldn’t be a surprise if Assange sees this as a way to improve his revenue or perhaps his legal situation. Maybe the Ecuadorian Embassy raised his rent.
But it only matters if the threat is real, which wasn’t absolutely clear when I was writing my last column. Now I’m quite sure the CIA documents are the real thing simply because there is so much agitation coming from that agency. Nobody inside has confirmed anything to me, Attorney General Sessions, but I’m not stupid and the contacts I have in that industry are sure spending a lot of time covering their asses.
Aren’t we all?
It’s a reasonable argument but if WIkileaks is to survive they can’t do this, all the serious leakers would stop sending them stuff, this might not be a bad thing – Wikileaks isn’t half as interesting as Cryptome.
Besides which, from the reports that I’ve seen so far, these are all old hacks that have been circulating underground for a while and most of the attack vectors are obvious – the fact that Apple acted surprised should tell you something. When they get fixed, others will be found.
Thanks for the info Cringely. You know, I don’t care what people say, you’re allllllright!
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The CIA has the code… Shouldn’t they be the ones to tell the vendors what the vulnerabilities are? Weren’t they supposed to do that anyway, without being outed?
The CIA has never verified that vault 7 came from them. They never will.
No need to verify, only to inform, which it looks like they may have done.
https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/853219802936225793
Assange was also upset that nobody had taken him up on the offer of help. What a dope.
Maybe Assange is using you as a role model to make promises and then never deliver.
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Even in this blog, on March 10 you promised an update “next week”. It is now almost 2 weeks later.
You should ask for your money back, I would!!
“You should ask for your money back, I would!!”
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Ooh, gee, now why didn’t I think of that! Wow, you must be so much smarter than me!
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Hey, Bob, can I have my money back?
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I’m sure he’ll send out a check in a few days.
I’ve long wondered what the business model for a Minecraft server would be.
C’mon Bob. ‘Fess up. If you were on the other side you’d be all over this story.
Did you just equate a kickstarter failure with the fact the CIA can and has snooped on internet traffic by all sorts of nefarious methods and wikileaks is apparently trying to extort payment?
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Damn right he would, especially if someone as familiar to the tech industry as he were behind it.
It’s gotten beyond disgusting at this point.
They would have been delivered by now, except Bob hired H1s to do the work.
>Nobody inside has confirmed anything to me, Attorney General Sessions, but I’m not stupid and the contacts I have in that industry are sure spending a lot of time covering their asses.
Are you saying that you are a pseudonym for Jeff Sessions?
@MikeN – He isn’t Jeff Sessions but Mark is always ready to quote unnamed sources that (like his PhD) might only exist in his imagination.
I’ve known a couple guys like you, poor pitiful bahstahds who drip acid from their soul everywhere they go. Even if Bob intentionally set out to screw you out of a measly $100 it wouldn’t be worth all the rage and effort you display.
No, your problem has nothing to do with the circumstances of the situation, whatever they are. Your problem comes from deep, deep down inside. You and the other few corrosive freaks here who feed off of each others nastiness.
We pray that you may be healed before it’s too late.
I stumbled over that name, thinking it didn’t even belong there, so I re-read the paragraph several times. I finally came to the conclusion that Bob is imagining Sessions is reading his article, so he is specifically addressing that paragraph to him, so he won’t be looking for a Cringely leaker in his organization.
Where’s Roger moaning about his mineserver? or lack thereof…
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A thread’s not complete until he’s had his say.
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Unlike Cringely, some of us actually have work that needs to get done. But don’t worry, I shall comment more in depth in a few days.
Yeah! Can’t wait, Roger…..
“Can’t wait”.
You won’t have to wait long.
Unlike when Cringely promised “more on that in a few days”, 73 days ago.
We’re still waiting.
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It’s called integrity.
Maybe Bob can try to buy some with that $35k he took from his (former) fans.
Oh, I see what you did there…
Wow, Cringely’s approval rating is following faster than Trumps. Bob, please, please post an update so that we can put that behind us. I usually like reading the comments on your articles but this is getting ridiculous.
I have no comment on Cringely, but if the point you are trying to make is the one I think you’re trying to make, then you used the wrong analogy…one that would make more sense would be that his believability factor is falling faster than the mainstream media’s.
Looked to me like he had a strange spell-checker that included “following” among the choices. He meant to choose “falling”.
Yep, should have been falling. Sorry.
@TV James I forgive you, because you were open and honest about your blunder and didn’t hide from it in shame. As a result I will not hound you for countless months expecting an apology or any acknowledgement that something happened (or didn’t).
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I shall erect a statue in your honor in hopes that it may one day inspire future generations on how it is deemed appropriate to conduct oneself when interacting with others. You, sir, are a pillar of hope in this dreary blog…errr, world!
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I’m reading the column in landscape mode, but wonder if I should turn my display 90 degrees to see the picture correctly. Either way I could use some help figuring out the details.
It’s supposed to be a grave but it got garbled because Cringely’s site/text editor doesn’t allow for much text editing and all double spaces (or more) get condensed into one space. It’s like he didn’t want people drawing on his blog or something…weird!
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Nah. It’s not a protection racket. The racket is our own government violating the law.
Wikileaks doesn’t have naked pictures of Bob off his phone; it does have evidence that others have ways to steal them. Putting that in the open should embarrass those who can fix security holes to do so. After all, who wants to see pictures of a naked Bob?
What law was broken? Does it really matter which 3 or 4 letter organization is spying on us? CIA, NSA, FBI, or GCHQ on their behalf? The point being that they can get the information they need by working within and around the laws, no matter how well intentioned those laws were when written.
The other angle here is that it’s likely that some of these companies enable the US government to spy on people. In fact, if your looking for a business model that involves aiding and abetting law breaking for money, in my book, that’s it.
So Assange says to them, “ok, do you want to turn away from the dark side? meet our conditions that show you really want to change and we’ll help you”. Sounds reasonable to me.
The big guys don’t want to take the Assange deal because they like the Uncle Sam deal just fine.
The problem is that the whole thing’s become such a furtive mess, that who’s to believe in the integrity of any surveillance (excuse me, I mean security) assistance measures done by Wikileaks for Apple or Google or Microsoft will result in the best interest of the American’ people’s security any more than Apple’s or Google’s (or other Big Data firms) actions on their own? Or the U.S. Government, for that matter? They certainly haven’t seem to have had any recent interest in the matter of protecting the privacy of American citizens’ data!
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After all, our own top-secret high-level security actors within the U.S. Government…mandated to protect us from foreign threats….illegally released info that they illegally surveiled by our (and their) OWN President’s team simply because they don’t agree with his politics. And then disseminated it to a corrupt media! Can you get any more “Banana Republic” than that????????
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And you think Wikileaks, or big internet companies, will act with MORE integrity than our own government?
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They may have their own “internal squabbles” but expecting that the collusion of Wikileaks, the U.S. Gov’t and big internet companies is going to end up as improved security for Mr. and Ms. U.S. Citizen is as likely as believing me when I say I have a bridge over the Golden Gate I’d like to sell you.
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Maybe what Cringely thinks could be Wikileak’s “Protection Racket” may instead be a ‘Gang Alliance” in which we have the Crips, the Bloods and MS13 all working together to split up a territory so each can perform their own specilaity. Guess who loses in that situation?.
Isn’t like Munchausen syndrome by proxy? Or Norton creating viruses so it can detect and defend against them. It’s sheer genius! Who knows? In a few years, there will be a picture of the garage at the Embassy of Ecuador in London, England on where this business was founded.
I was disturbed by an interview Assange did on Bill Maher’s show.
He pulled out some allegations pretty quickly when Bill Maher put a little bit of pressure on him.
https://youtu.be/5-EJAIXdGp8?t=3m35s
It disturbed me that he thought it necessary to have that “dirt” on hand… to use it with little provocation and that he hadn’t researched it very well to know it wasn’t dirt at all.
But then being holed up in an embassy for years can’t be fun either.. maybe he’s losing it.
How about posting the regular Thursday Update on MineServer. They were supposed to start last Fall. Haven’t seen a one.
Wikileaks may have finally opened up peoples eyes to what is really going on in our world. Everybody thinking our government is out for us and they us terrorism as there excuse to spy on us. It’s all garbage its all about control. The NSA, FBI and the CIA are all the same. Would you put anything past them, that they would do the hacking. Wake up people save our country now or its over. Also a safe search engine that doesn’t track you, a good old fashion private search engine Lookseek.com. Have a awesome day.
Not very good. I typed in the fully qualified domain name of a web site. Google lists it first, as it should, but Lookseek.com doesn’t list it at all. Also, unlike Google, it doesn’t use SSL so your queries and search results travel through the internet in the clear.
Try https://www.startpage.com/ .
Once again the list of search results is different. The domain name I put it was found on Google, third on the list this time, but not listed at all on Startpage. It does use SSL.
Ronc,
I’m not sure what term your are putting in, but StartPage says they use Google but strip your identifying information before they send the request to Google. I believe Snowden recommends
https://www.startpage.com/ .
Anyway, I would guess that if you are getting better results from Google directly that it is NOT because they have a better search engine but rather because they have more information about YOU. Perhaps you’ve accessed the fully qualified domain name before and so google says, “Oh, it’s Ronc. I know him. He frequents this site so I’ll put that at the top of the list.”
Apparently they do submit the query to Google, just don’t give you the same results. Try pro-research.com.
> save our country now or its over
The country’s owners laughed.
Another mark who fell for the “of the people” ad copy.
“But it only matters if the mineserver is real, which wasn’t absolutely clear when I was writing my last column.”
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Was it ever real, Bob? Was it? Somehow, I kinda doubt it. Which would mean you’ve been lying all along. That there’s some real good parenting, Bobby.
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“Nobody inside has confirmed anything to me, Attorney General Sessions, but . . .”
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So, either you’ve gone completely delusional and think you’re AG Sessions or your journalistic skills (if you ever had any) are so far gone you can’t construct a coherent sentence on the fly and don’t care enough to proofread what you write. Or both.
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“I’m not stupid . . . ”
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Really? Do you have any evidence to back up this statement?
Nunez to come out and answer questions about Mineserver !
Loretta Sanchez to meet Cringely in a plane on the tarmac at Phoenix….but only to have a casual conversation about their children! (right!)
“And some day in the not too distant future that will happen. And I never said — I guess I’m here, what, 523 days? I never said I’d ship mineservers. You’ve all heard my speeches. I never said ship them within 523 days. I have a long time.”
Genellikle ipekli kumaştan yapılan uzun, süslü ve astarsız kıyafete “kaftan” adı verilir. 19. yüzyılın ortalarına dek kullanılan kaftanların üzerine cübbe, kürk ya da kapaniça giyilirdi. Kaftanlar, giyen kişilerin toplumsal konumunu gösterecek şekilde hazırlanır ve giyen kişinin mertebesi renk, şerit ve düğmelerle belli edilirdi. Ağır ve değerli kumaşlardan üretilen kaftanların önü ve kolları gümüş ve altın telli şeritler ve kordonlarla süslenir, üstüne de altın ve elmas takılar takılırdı. Osmanlı sarayındaki ipekli ve pamukluların birçoğu Hint, İran ve Mısır kumaşı ile dokunmuştur.
Türkiye’nin en kaliteli ürünlerini barındıran mağazamız kiralık kaftan konusunda sektörün öncü firması olmaya devam ediyor. Kadıköy bağdat caddesinde bulunan mağazamız türkiyenin dört bir yanından sipariş almakla beraber ihtiyaçlarınızı karşılamaktadır.
Kadıköy kaftan kiralama olarak sizleri mağazamıza beklemekteyiz.
http://bagdatkaftan.com/
could be something useful here …http://blog.macuyiko.com/post/2015/rebuilding-our-jython-console-plugin-for-minecraft.html
İstanbul’un en gözde ve en işlem mekanı olan kadıköy ‘ de osmanlının yüzyıllardır süre gelen kına organizasyonlarına bağdat kaftan aracılığı ile ulaşabileceksiniz.
Kadıköy kaftan kiralama olarak yüzlerce çeşit ürünü farklı renk ve tarzda sizlere sunmaktadır. Asalet , Hurrem Bordosu , Sultani Yeşil , Gece Büyüsü , Pembe İncili kaftan çeşitlerini magazamızda bulabilirsiniz.
Bağdat Caddesinde bulunan mağazamız web sitemiz üzerinden sipariş alınmaktadır.
Bizi Takipte kalınız…
http://bagdatkaftan.com/
Would have posted this on an older article for better context, but since I can’t…
Here’s a link to a review of a Google paper on how bufferbloat was solved at YouTube.
https://blog.acolyer.org/2017/03/31/bbr-congestion-based-congestion-control/
So by their metrics CUBIC is better than BBR. They also emphasize mobile, referring to cellular providers that charge 10 cents per megabyte or more, above the plan rate. Most of us use unmetered connections over cable or dsl for bandwidth intensive stuff like video. What they don’t mention is that the size of the buffers or the speed of the connection is relevant if they would simply allow the video to download in the background as they did 10 years ago. I had better video performance in 1996 over dial-up than I do now. Never a single “buffering” circle ever occurred in those days, even at dial-up speeds.
Sorry, I meant “irrelevant”. Also cellular data costs one cent or more per megabyte, not ten cents.
In the Julian Assange documentary by Oz ABC (BBC?) he appears as a socialist if not communist from his youth.
Bill Gates broke into his school’s computer increasing students marks for profit. He went on to create a third class computer system and a monopoly. As an aside he and Windows is the direct cause of cybersecurity failure world wide.
Julian like Bill hacked computers in his youth but to find blackmailable data, or at least prove his world view of bad capitalists.
The CIA could do no better as to who directed old Julian to the Ecuadorian Embassy – a connection between CCCP & Wikileaks?!
Much as I hate him – Trump should pressure Ecuador to release Julian, or at least deny him internet/phone access permanently to break him.
There is a three pronged attack at USA – Wikileaks CCCP & Edward Snowden.
(Edward Snowden is a fcukwit naïve person who believes Queensbury rule occur in diplomacy. That’s a CIA/NSA education (indoctrination) failure. Spying and deception goes back to Troy!)
That Trump and many Republicans like CCCP is a worry to USA future.
The Soviet Union ended in 1991: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union