Cav's Place

It’s time for another update about WikiLeaks, who even got the original domain name back. This post’ll be quite crazy because a lot of things have happened since the last one. Excuse me if I’ll be jumping from topic to topic quite a lot. Not that I don’t usually do that, or that anyone reads these posts, but I had to mention it before starting.
I’ll be writing this in bits and pieces, so it’ll take even longer than such a post usually takes, which is way too long anyway. That said, there will likely be further developments while I’m writing it and I may or may not learn of them, since I won’t be actively looking for them. If I’ll learn of them, I’ll try to include them, but otherwise they’ll probably make it into the next post on this issue, which you’ll likely see in the first half of next week.

Obviously, the biggest story was that Julian Assange was finally granted bail, after the appeal to the original decision was also dismissed. It’s actually still unclear whether Swedish or British prosecutors appealed, but I guess it doesn’t really matter anymore. What matters is that the leader of this operation is once again able to take the helm, even if his freedom of movement is severely restricted. The judge warned him that he’s likely to be extradited to Sweden anyway, but for the moment this is one battle we won.
Speaking of battles, we should expect to lose one as well, as the United States is very likely to find a way to charge him of a serious crime, despite the fact that even Human Rights Watch released a statement asking them not to prosecute him. Under these circumstances, being extradited to Sweden could even be in his advantage, as Sweden could prove less willing than the United Kingdom to accept their extradition request. It would certainly be far better if both requests would be denied and he’d be cleared of all charges, but only those that will soon be pressed by the United States are actually relevant to the matter at hand, so what’s important to the cause is for him to be cleared of those. Or for the United States to never charge him of anything, of course, but that’s really a battle I don’t expect us to win.
Either way, all these legal battles are taking a toll on his finances, especially since his Swiss bank account has been blocked ever since the start of this scandal and, at least so far, he doesn’t seem to be using the donations made for WikiLeaks in order to cover these costs as well. His lawyers must be quite unhappy with that, though I imagine that they value the publicity at least as much as the money, since winning such a case would greatly increase their reputation and is therefore likely to make more important cases go their way in the future. But money are certain and winning the case is not, so they’ll probably find a way to allow people to donate to cover their fees.
And speaking of donations, the Wau Holland Foundation, which is likely the main WikiLeaks funding channel, reports that they’re still going strong, despite all attempts to stop them. As you can see from that interview, WikiLeaks shouldn’t have any problems covering its operating costs for quite some time, as they apparently received more than twice the amount they required so far. Yes, said operating costs are likely to increase significantly now, considering the efforts they are required to make, but donations are also on the rise thanks to all the publicity, so the only financial problem has to do with Assange’s legal fees.

Moving on to the front lines of the on-line war, Assange has called on the world to protect WikiLeaks, though I’m not sure how much such a call counts, considering the nature of the group that is behind most of these efforts. I actually can’t say that I heard of any new successful attacks on the sites of governments or companies that oppose WikiLeaks, so it’s possible that new strategies are being developed, and there do appear to be some really good ideas on that front. All that remains is to see how much of it will actually be put in practice, especially since these new strategies require people who were used to only act on-line to make the streets their new theater of operations.
But I started talking about the on-line war and ended up somewhere else, so let me get back to it by pointing out an interesting article published by The Economist. I generally agree with that view, namely that such actions should be legal if they’re meant as a protest and do not cause direct damage but that those behind them shouldn’t hide their identities, but there is one problem: As the article points out, such actions are not legal, regardless of circumstances, while their off-line equivalents are. I also very often berate people for hiding their identity and not taking full responsibility for their actions, but there are times when you have to do what you have to do in order to be able to continue the fight…

More good news are coming in from Australia, where it was finally determined that WikiLeaks did not break any law. This puts prime minister Julia Gillard in a very uncomfortable position, as she now has to figure out a way to make everyone else forget the fact that she pretty much demanded charges against Assange, despite knowing that even her own party was against such a course of action. What’s more, the Australian media rallied in support of WikiLeaks and foreign minister Kevin Rudd promised assistance to Assange even if he’ll have to go against the prime minister’s wishes, so it certainly looks as if Australia is on our side in this war, at least for the moment.

Now I’d like to point out a pretty good analysis of the potential consequences of this situation. I take it as a good sign that a source of such good repute basically says that, while this scandal could theoretically make things better for the world, the governments will do everything they can to use it to gain even more control and drastically worsen the situation. But they won’t be able to do that if we won’t allow them, so it’s basically what I keep saying: It will never be the same after this, so we either win and change some things for the better, at least for a while, or lose and have others change a whole lot of things for the worse. So we can’t afford to lose, no matter what!
Oh, in case you’re not convinced, here’s a little example of how this is being used to make things worse: The French government has granted itself the right to censor the Internet. Yes, just like that. Of course, this isn’t exactly a new development, as child pornography has been used as an excuse to do that for years, but it is rather interesting that such a law is being passed just when said government is struggling to block WikiLeaks and has so far been unable to do so, isn’t it?

Otherwise, even though Assange very comfortably won the readers’ vote, he was only selected as a runner-up, Mark Zuckerberg being the TIME Person of the Year 2010, despite quite frankly not doing anything this year to justify such an award in any way, unless you count the fact that someone released a movie about him in his favor. Obviously, even such a publication is afraid to do something that’d bother the powers that be, so they pushed back the one nominee who’d have created the worst problems for them and selected someone who was quite likely harmless from that point of view… But, if you want an odd piece of related news, at least Rolling Stone Italy has named Assange Rockstar of the Year.

Let me also point you to a profile for Julian Assange that I thought was pretty nicely put together, so it should prove interesting for those who want to know more about him. That doesn’t mean that I changed my mind: It’s still all about the cause, not particularly about WikiLeaks and certainly not at all about Assange himself. But knowledge always helps, and he is the leader after all, at least until the powers that be will find a way to silence him, at which point another will need to pick up from where he left off, and then another, and then another… But we’re not there yet.
Still on the topic of Assange, you may also learn something more about him from what appears to be his profile on OkCupid. Not used in four years, but certainly seems to be his, doesn’t it?

Let’s take a little break from the “regular programming” for a moment. I picked this up from somewhere, so here goes:
– Write a post. The post should contain your list of ten holiday wishes. The wishes can be anything at all, from simple to really big. The important thing is to make sure that these wishes are things you really, truly want.
– If you wish for “real life” things, make sure you include some sort of contact information in your post, whether it’s your address or just your e-mail address, so Santa (or one of his elves) will be able to get in touch with you.
– Also, make sure you post some version of these guidelines so that the holiday joy will spread.
– Surf around to see who has posted their list. And now here’s the important part:
– If you see a wish you can grant, and it’s in your heart to do so, make someone’s wish come true. Sometimes someone’s trash is another’s treasure, and if you have a leather jacket you don’t want or a gift certificate you won’t use, or even know where you could get someone’s dream purebred Basset Hound for free, do it.
– You needn’t spend money on these wishes unless you want to. The point isn’t to put people out, but to provide everyone a chance to be someone else’s holiday elf, to spread the joy. Gifts can be made anonymously or not; it’s your call.
– There are no rules with this project, no guarantees and no strings attached. Just wish and it might come true. Give, and you might receive. And you’ll have the joy of knowing you made someone’s holiday special.

“Some version of these guidelines” posted just in case someone else will pick it up from me, because I’m not in a position to give anything and obviously don’t expect anything either, and either way I hate it when people give gifts on such occasions when current social norms state that gifts are expected. But let’s see if I can come up with ten things that I want and can be bought with money…
1. The Born Queen (Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone 4) – Greg Keyes, because I really, really want to finish this series.
2. The Witcher: Enhanced Edition Director’s Cut, because I’ve been wanting to play this ever since it was still in development and it’s up there on the list of games I’d really rather not play “pirated”.
3. Dragon Age: Origins Ultimate Edition, since there’s finally a point in getting it now that they bundled everything in a single package.
4. Victory of Eagles (Temeraire 5) – Naomi Novik, because I want to continue this series.
5. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman, simply out of curiosity.
6. Mount & Blade: Warband, hoping that it really is sort of an enhanced version of the original and I won’t lose anything because I didn’t play that one.
7. The Creators (Shanji 3) – James C. Glass, if anyone could actually still find a copy anywhere, because I read the first two in the series several years ago, thought they were interesting and didn’t even know there was a third until relatively recently.
8. Epiphany of the Long Sun (The Book of the Long Sun 3 and 4) – Gene Wolfe, because it’s the only part of the Solar Cycle that I’m yet to read.
9. King’s Bounty: Crossworlds Game of the Year Edition, though I’m extremely bothered by the use of StarForce, so I’m not particularly keen on getting it legally.
10. Babylon 5: The Complete Universe, because I’ve been struggling to come up with a tenth item for the past 30 minutes and, since all the other books I’m interested in are series that I haven’t started yet, meaning that I couldn’t pick just one more item, it looked like I would pick Risen, but then somehow the idea that I’m still so awed by this series that I really should actually have it someday, legally, crept up on me and won the spot.

Not counting the box set, all I have are books and games, and that’s pretty much what I always have on such wishlists. I may need a couple of new articles of clothing, but I never accept clothes as gifts, so that’s out of the question and either way it’s nothing I’d care to look for on-line, and my computer is still powerful enough for everything I need, so there’s no point in replacing or upgrading anything in the near future, unless of course some component would need replacement due to failing. And other than that I can’t really think of anything I’d really want or need that could be bought with money…
Of course, the really important things are those that money can’t buy, and those can’t be given to me by anyone who might read this, but they’re known well enough to anyone who knows me, so there’s no point in mentioning them again either. The really sad part is that I have far better odds of getting a pretty significant number of things that money can buy than even a single one of the others. Then again, it’s probably more likely for the Moon to be kicked out of orbit than for me to get what I really need, isn’t it?

But enough about that. Getting back to the matter at hand, a reminder: Use your money to speak your mind! Make a statement through your purchases! Boycott Amazon, PayPal, MasterCard and Visa for the way they handled the WikiLeaks situation! Hit them where it hurts the most, to make sure they’ll think really long and hard before doing anything like this again! (Incidentally, you may have noticed that I didn’t link to anything on Amazon, even though it’d certainly have been the easiest thing to do.)

Oh, I was supposed to add some contact information, wasn’t I? Well, if you don’t already know how to contact me there’s certainly no point in me writing it here, but let me just follow the rules and say there’s an e-mail link at the bottom of the page, if you click on “Cavalary”.

It’s about time to wrap up the week’s news regarding WikiLeaks and prepare for the next one, which will certainly also see a lot of action and further developments in all related areas. I can only hope that the developments will be positive, which is to say that I hope support for WikiLeaks and, more importantly, the concepts it stands for will grow significantly both on-line and off-line, but also that the movement will become more organized and focused, because our opponents certainly are and we won’t be able to properly fight against them if we pull in all directions at once.
I’m saying that because, despite some pretty good new strategy ideas, there is simply no focus anymore and trying to organize these efforts seems to become quite similar to trying to herd cats. And that’s a huge problem, because without focus and discipline their skills and enthusiasm are being completely wasted, no matter how useful they’d otherwise be. Not that anyone thought it’d be easy to organize such a group, if it can even be called a group, but good leaders know how to make the best use of the people they have available. We sure need a few of those to step up if we are to have a good chance at winning this…

Yet, even though the Avaaz petition, despite the very good start, is now gathering signatures far slower than expected and is certain to fail reaching the goal of one million by the end of the week by a large margin, we do have good news as well. What’s more, said good news are about off-line efforts, which are certainly much needed in our repertoire. There are plans for protests in several countries around the world and those that took place in Spain and, most notably, Australia already managed to gather a significant number of participants. This is very important not only for the issue at hand but also as a way to show the powers that be that we can still see what’s going on in the world at large, think with our own heads and fight for important causes no matter how much they try to beat us into submission with the economic crisis and scare us into inaction with the threat of terrorism.
It’s very important to start piling up the pressure at street level as well, so this will become a battle that the society at large is interested and involved in and not just an “infowar”. Not that the on-line component is any less important, far from it, but those in charge often react faster to one thousand people marching in the streets than to one million signing a petition, plus that many other people are more likely to notice such a protest than an on-line campaign, which means they could also decide to join. Or they could decide to fight for the other side, of course, but that’s always a risk you have to take.
If each such protest could manage to gather at least one thousand people, it would already be a victory, though of course even much smaller numbers can make a difference as well. If something like this would take place in all the countries where officials have expressed views against WikiLeaks and similar projects, as well as in front of as many embassies of such countries as possible everywhere else in the world, it would send an extremely powerful message. The United States, United Kingdom and Australia are of course of particular importance, but the pressure must be maintained at high levels everywhere. No matter where you are, follow what your elected representatives have to say about the issue, ask them if they don’t volunteer their opinion, and react accordingly.
What worries me is that I’m yet to see anything about protests actually taking place in the United States. I see that they’re planned, but I can’t readily find information about any that already took place. Does anyone know of any? How many people showed up? How did they behave? How did the authorities react? I don’t think I need to point out how important it is to send a particularly strong message there…

In other good news, some companies do have some backbone and choose to support WikiLeaks despite the pressure. And that list sould also include EasyDNS, which was at first wrongly accused of dropping WikiLeaks even though they never had anything to do with the site in the first place and then ended up actually providing services for them.
While certain authority figures keep stressing the dangers, this situation also outlines the benefits of helping WikiLeaks, as the people who approve of WikiLeaks will, as shown in the EasyDNS statement, fully appreciate this course of action and possibly show that appreciation by choosing that company’s services over those of its competitors. So if you know of any other companies that should be listed here alongside DataCell, EasyDNS, Flattr, OVH, XIPWIRE and, at least for the time being, possibly also Facebook and Twitter, show your support and at least promote them. Such gestures serve to simply make it good business to support such controversial projects despite the pressure coming from the authorities, and that can really go a long way.

Finally, it seems that some former members of the WikiLeaks team will launch a competing project called OpenLeaks. Normally I’d say that any such projects, like the new Balkan Leaks and perhaps also the older Cryptome, can only be a good thing, because they promote transparency and freedom of speech and information, fighting against those who want to control everything themselves. However, the fact that OpenLeaks will obviously refuse to take responsibility for their actions, instead choosing to hide behind the other companies or organizations chosen to publish the information they’ll receive, makes the concept questionable at best, and most likely detrimental.
While I’m at it, I need to mention that Cryptome seems to have recently turned itself into a conduit for opinions and information shining a bad light on WikiLeaks. As long as it’s accurate information, it should obviously be revealed, but the opinions are the part I have a problem with when it comes to such a service. Still, it certainly could be true and Assange and WikiLeaks may have some dirt to hide as well, but it wouldn’t make any difference. As I keep saying, this war is about way more than WikiLeaks and pretty much not at all about Assange himself, as you may have noticed that I didn’t even mention his name in this post until now. That means that we need to stop bickering and fight together for the common cause. If some bad apples need to be thrown out of the basket, they will be, no matter who they are, but that must never be allowed to jeopardize our real quest.

As expected, the war has started and it won’t end anytime soon, especially since protests are not just on-line anymore. Or it won’t end unless, of course, the other side will surrender, allowing WikiLeaks to continue as planned, including once again allowing donations through PayPal, MasterCard and Visa, and also, even more importantly, truly strive for a far more open society, where information will no longer be controlled by a few, but freely available to all. Which we all know they’ll never do unless forced, and perhaps not even then. So we get mad, put whatever skills we have to use, fight to the best of our abilities, and force them!

But let’s take a step back for a moment and see what happened in the first part of this war, which started with the attacks against www.wikileaks.org. Then Amazon ended its partnership with WikiLeaks and EveryDNS removed www.wikileaks.org, citing the attacks aimed against the site that were affecting its entire infrastructure. WikiLeaks reacted by telling people to go directly to the site’s IP address and then, helped by Pirate Parties everywhere, started a massive campaign meant to create a large number of site mirrors, so the site will never be taken off-line again. Currently, there are 1368 mirrors listed, even though the site itself is now nearly impossible to take down.
Next came the financial front. PayPal and PostFinance blocked their accounts and then MasterCard and Visa refused to accept payments made to WikiLeaks anymore. In response, DataCell, who is the WikiLeaks payment processor, announced that they will sue MasterCard and Visa, while donations for WikiLeaks are now accepted by another firm, namely Flattr. Recently, PayPal has announced that they will release the remaining funds in the WikiLeaks account, though they will not accept any other donations made for the site.
Otherwise, Julian Assange has been arrested on rape charges, after turning himself in as soon as the proper warrant arrived from the Swedish authorities and being denied bail. The charges are obviously quite weak, in fact only being possible thanks to the very drastic Swedish sex laws, and they were originally dismissed by the Swedish courts some months ago, so the fact that they have been brought back into focus just as this scandal started is extremely dubious to say the least. But, once again, Julian Assange may be the founder and leader of WikiLeaks, but he is not WikiLeaks and this is not about him. He certainly needs to be defended from those who wish him harm because of WikiLeaks and look for other topics to bring up because they have nothing to charge him with, but “the show must go on” even while he’s in jail or, if it comes to that, even if he’ll be assassinated. But I doubt they’d go that far, because that’d turn him into a martyr and make even more people rise up against them.
As for the attacks against the sites of the companies that acted against WikiLeaks, they seem to be winding down, those who organize them saying that they are switching focus to what can they do to actually support WikiLeaks. At the same time, Avaaz has finally acted and started a petition in support of WikiLeaks, which they hope will gather at least one million signatures by the end of the week, which doesn’t seem hard at all when you consider that WikiLeaks’ Facebook page has over one million fans already.
In some other news, I’ll start with the good and say that Bradley Manning, who is currently accused of leaking the data released by WikiLeaks, may be declared a hero. At the same time, Amazon tries to make money off WikiLeaks, despite, as I said before, ending their partnership with them as soon as this scandal started. As for this paragraph’s bad news, those come from Pakistan, where the media has taken advantage of the WikiLeaks scandal to publish fake cables that support the nationalist agenda. Then again, as we all know, “the first casualty of war is always the truth”.

This is only the beginning, but it is where we are today. What next? Well, it partly depends on what “they” do next, because we will need to react in time and in force to any new developments. But we also need to be active by ourselves, not just when we have something to react to, and this movement has certainly gathered enough supporters and gained enough momentum to achieve amazing results. We do not lack ideas, but they must be selected carefully, though also swiftly. We cannot waste all of this potential, which means that we can’t wait, but we also can’t act rashly and make mistakes that will come back to haunt us, forcing us to spend precious time and resources to fix the damage caused.
This is a big fight, an important fight. It is a battle for freedom of speech. It is a battle for freedom of information. It is a battle for the right to know what our elected officials are really using their powers for and to make our opinion heard. It is, as I said before, ultimately a battle for control, because “he who controls information controls the world”. It is a dangerous war to fight and will certainly become even more so. It will also very likely be a long war, with many difficult battles. But we cannot back down, no matter what. The outcome of this war will have extremely important consequences, likely deciding the direction of the world, at least from certain points of view, at least for the next few years. We must make sure that we will emerge as victors!

All I can say in the end is this: Stick to what you know you can do, but make full use of whatever skills and resources you have and do your part! Do not expect to win every battle, because we certainly will not, but fight every step of the way, never giving in and never giving up! If we all work together and refuse to be frightened into inaction, we will prevail!

John Perry Barlow, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, posted this call to arms on his Twitter page: “The first serious infowar is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You are the troops.” And indeed we are. Or at least we should be, because the fight is not specifically over WikiLeaks, but over who controls information, who controls what we know and, ultimately, who controls our lives. As such, the outcome of this war will affect all of us, whether we realize it now or not.
You might have noticed that I used an IP address to link to WikiLeaks, as suggested in one of their Twitter posts, since the domain names can, have been and will be blocked as this continues. Interestingly, going to that “official” IP address currently redirects you to another, which may or may not be their way of saying that not even blocking their IP will stop them. Either way, a list of mirrors is also available, though there are terribly few real ones on it.

Yet, as I said, WikiLeaks is just the battlefield and the scandal just the catalyst. It doesn’t even matter what was in those leaked documents. What matters is that those who wish to know everything about us hide all they can about themselves. And that is wrong. The only things that should be kept secret by authorities are the details of attack and defense plans when they are directly and openly involved in a war and those of plans to stop real and immediate threats to the citizens they are supposed to protect. Everything else should be done openly, so this is something that had to happen sooner or later, and indeed it happened way too late for far too many, but at least it finally did happen and we can finally see the reaction of the powers that be to having some of their dirt pulled out from under the rug, which serves as one more, albeit unnecessary, reminder of what they’re made of. So all that remains is to see what our reaction to their reaction will be. All that remains is to see what we are made of.
Let me also quickly go over the topic of Julian Assange himself and say that my opinion of him as a person, if I have one at all, is quite neutral. In fact, even without the rape charges, which under the circumstances seem highly unlikely to be founded in any way, I may say that there is something that bothers me about him, though I can’t quite put my finger on it, especially since I never cared to find out much of anything about him in the first place. But, despite many currently hailing him as a hero, all of that is irrelevant because this fight is neither for him nor about him.
This fight is for and about freedom. This fight is for and about the world, because “he who controls information controls the world“. Ultimately, this fight is for and about every single one of us. They can’t win a war against all of us, but we will obviously lose it if we refuse to fight. So will we give it our best and fight to gain control of our lives and of our world or will we bury our heads in the sand and get exactly what we deserve for such a course of action? Will we learn from the world’s failure to make any use of the chance offered by Georgia, which may well result in a new Cold War, or will we repeat the mistakes of just these leaders we should now be fighting?

In the end, I’ll leave you with some quotes from the outstanding Babylon 5:
“Nobody takes power. They’re given power by the rest of us, because we are stupid or afraid or both.”
“How many people actually belong to the Nazi Party, the Communist Party, the Jihad Party? A very small number, but there are always plenty of other people who are happy to do the work for them and others afraid enough to let it happen.”
“Governments deal in matters of convenience, not conscience. If they fall behind, it is up to the rest of us to make up the difference. If we don’t, who will?”
“When you stumble a lot, you… You start looking at your feet. We have to make people lift their eyes back to the horizon and see the line of ancestors behind us saying ‘Make my life have meaning.’ And to our inheritors before us saying ‘Create the world we will live in.’ I mean, we’re not just holding jobs and having dinner. We are in the process of building the future.”
“I’d rather do something and make a mistake than be frightened into doing nothing. That’s the problem back home. Folks have been conned into thinking they can’t change the world, have to accept what is. I’ll tell you something my friends: The world is changing every day, the only question is who’s doing it.”
“You can refuse to surrender; you can refuse to be broken. You just have to say ‘no I won’t’ one more time than they can say ‘yes you will’.”
And, of course, this.

We do not answer to kings, queens, presidents, prime ministers, governments, parliaments or any other political, military or religious leaders. We answer to our own consciences. Let us act, so we will not live to regret not doing so. We answer to our loved ones. Let us act, so they will not suffer as a result of our failure to do so. We answer to those who will come after us. Let us act, so they will not blame us for the world they’ll live in.
We are many. We are skilled, albeit in different ways. We are smart, albeit in different ways. We are strong, albeit in different ways. And, make no mistake, as long as we’ll fight, as long as we won’t let them frighten us into inaction, we will win!