WikiLeaks raises some of the most poignant questions of our time about the power of cyber warfare, the role of hackers, and the future of the Internet. It is not a coincidence that Madame Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has created a whole new effort to explore and fight cyber terrorism. In fact, WikiLeaks and Assange may represent the first of the wholesale anarchists using today's information highway to do battle. Consider that instead of taking to the streets in protest, this generation may take to the Internet to wage their battles and carry their message. We are living a time represented by the power of Facebook that links over 500 million people together. And if this is true, we may have unleashed a whole new generation of cyber warlords on the world's information centers.
Many of our brethren are writing about democracy, liberty and the freedom of information pivoting off what they believe WikiLeaks stands for. Julian Assange has been elevated to the "Man of the People" as filmmaker Michael Moore contributes to his bail fund, and the Huffington Post sets up a whole section devoted to whistleblower Fantasy Land. You know, we all need something valiant to believe in during the difficult days of Obama. The obnoxious wealthy are dancing on the heads of US lawmakers. The banks are still doing the Texas two-step, and the Middle Class continues to suffer in silence with simmering rage. There are two deeply divisive wars. China is rising and scaring the heck out of us. The liberals of the Democratic Party continue to act like toddlers, and Sarah Palin is making hay laughing all the way to her off-shore accounts. So Julian Assange, or whoever is backing him, could not have picked a better moment of discontent. They are evoking new archetypes of good and bad in a world that is increasing grey.
Assange is the anti-hero. He has been personified as a man with no country who is a metrosexual kind of guy willing to risk it all to uncover the truth. Yet, we don't really know much about this man, or what makes him tick. Is he really the wizard behind or the curtain, or there really someone or something else pulling the strings. Is he a hacker extraordinaire, or just a man that is a brilliant online community organizer? In fact and most importantly, what does it mean to be a hacker? Are hackers by definition anarchists, or is it just Julian that wants to topple the establishment at any cost. Or are there droves of these cyber-sleuths trolling the black lands of the Internet looking for back doors into silos of information? Remember Assange was a cryptologist of sorts which is the super duper folks that develop the ways to tunnel into software code. And it may be fair to assume that these same hackers were probably responsible for the DOS (Denial of Service) attacks on Visa, Master Card and others. And if this is true then who is really pulling the strings since these were very, targeted attacks on specific corporations that shut out the money flow for WikiLeaks? The bottom line is that we still don't know how the WikiLeaks information is gathered and/or obtained. Does it come from this new breed of whistleblowers, such as Private Manning that had a rare blend of tech talents and access? If so; does this new breed even resemble our beloved archetypical whistleblowers circa Daniel Ellsberg, or even Erin Brockovich? And I ask again, have we grappled with the ramifications of an Internet that is locked down in response to WikiLeaks? Are we ready to usher in a new age of restrictions? This sadly will make the debate around net neutrality seem like child's play if cyber war erupts.
Please note that a selection of the reference material used for this article and others in the past on WikiLeaks is included in the complex pearltree below.
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Foreign Children
Little Indian, Sioux or Crow,
Little Frosty Eskimo, Little Turk or Japanese,
Oh! don't you wish that you were me?
You have curious things to eat,
I am fed on proper meat;
You must dwell beyond the foam,
But I am safe and live at home.
This is from the poet's Child's Garden of Verses. How touching. Wonder why so much of the world dislikes the USA? This is what was taught the latest surviving generation. An arrogance that is tough to swallow and own.
"Are hackers by definition anarchists, or is it just Julian that wants to topple the establishment at any cost."
Good question! Yes. The hacker and Julian Assange are anarchists, and they both are promoting anarchy. Leon Whipple was spot on when he wrote in his book "The Story Of Civil Liberty: “They present a paradox, for although they do not believe in government, they appeal to the constitutional guarantees of government for protection in the agitation of their views.”
And who is being appealed to this time?
None other than the American ignoramus.
Ignoramus to the height of some arguing: 'that WikiLeaks is a good thing because it brings transparency to government, and that it did no wrong in doing so, it was looking out for our interests, and continue(emphasis) to leak it; the U.S. govt should just get use to it because it's not breaking any law.' To think some have never read the 14th Amendment.
Michael Moore didn't do any favor to the 14th Amendment by endorsing Assange. I'm not as willing to trade away my opportunity to equal protections before the law away as foolishly as Moore did for the "stale bait" of the moment.
Sadly, the cyberkids just got done watching a double matinee of "Fight Club" and "The Matrix."
The hackers don't know any better than Justin Long's character in "Live Free or Die Hard." Julian Assange has his mom speaking for him now. Go figure!
those damn ungrateful kids…
Oh, Julian Assange is for real all right. I've known of him for years and have even been in contact with him a few times (as many thousands of others have I'm sure). He is very much the idealist that he is being played up to be, as brilliant at social understanding as he is with computers and networks. He has a knack for quantifying, qualifying and reducing a problem to it's lowest common denominator. We call these nuances in the real world, tight code in the computer world. He's not only brilliant at both but he knows how to combine them effectively.
I'd say more but I'm not trying to convince you. We all have the tools to make judgment calls on our own... literally at our fingertips.
I've already made mine.