Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

WikiLeaks Assange: U.S. doesn't have the technology to take us down

By | January 30, 2011, 3:04pm PST

WikiLeaks sat down with 60 Minutes Julian Assange and said that the U.S. government couldn’t take the site down if it wanted to. That’s “just the way our technology is constructed,” he said.

In an interview with 60 Minutes
, Assange said WikiLeaks has 2,000 fully independent sites publishing its information. “It is not possible” to bring WikiLeaks down. 60 Minutes, which airs in about an hour Eastern Standard Time spent two days with the program. Here’s Assange on Bank of America and documents WikiLeaks claims to have.

All posts on WikiLeaks

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Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

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Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

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Never Confuse Capabilty With Intention
Lazarus439 15th Feb 2011
He has a feeling that those about whom he leaked would not expend the resources necessary to take down WikiLeaks. He has no clue whether WikiLeaks could be taken down if the desire was there to do so.
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If the US really wants to...
kraterz 30th Jan 2011
They could declare Wikileaks a global terror threat more dangerous than AQ and decide to shut down the US-controlled backbone core routers, with the aim of killing the whole net. I doubt it would come to this, though.
@kraterz

They could do the same to Fox News as well. Doing so would have the same negative effect with the American populace. Best to just learn how to deal with it.
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@Michael Kelly

Good point, Fox news spreads alot more disinformation than wikileaks, and ultimately does alot of harm to the US population by keeping thim ignorant and misinformed about the world.
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But if the US took down Faux News,
nix_hed 31st Jan 2011
@Michael Kelly - then we'd have ourselves a massive uprising of backwoods midwesterners who don't know any better, thanks to FUD only further propagated by the fact that many of them can't discern between FUD and fact.

To make matters worse, the uprising would most likely be led by Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Christine O'Donnell, and Rand Paul. Being that I'm a moderate living in the midwest, that personally scares the living daylights (among other things) out of me...
@nix_hed

But if the US took down Faux News,
then we'd have ourselves a massive uprising of backwoods midwesterners who don't know any better, thanks to FUD only further propagated by the fact that many of them can't discern between FUD and fact.


Well, you could always watch CNN... as long as you don't mind perverts like Eliot Spitzer.
Try MSNBC. They're the most skewed and biased news organization here in America, and people have responded with their low overall ratings. There's a reason why Fox News is number 1 in the ratings...fair and balanced reporting! Most of the others purport a liberal-biased agenda.
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FNDS so soon?
SAStarling 1st Feb 2011
@Michael Kelly

Wow, THAT was fast! This article had absolutely nothing to do with Fox News, yet somehow in your twisted little mind, Fox News was already on your fingertips.

Nothing brings a bigger grin to my face than someone who so readily reveals that Ruper Murdoch lives in their heads rent-free 24/7.
@kraterz: on behalf of American people -- while, actually, none of these people voted for these kind of deeds.

And BOA is can be quite nasty, too; so it is good that it fears leaks.
@kraterz It wouldnt even take that, I hope someone decides to take him up on his challenge though, I just love the word, CAN'T in the tech world, every system has a weakness, I dont care how brilliantly you set it up, there is always a hole somewhere, and assange just about dared someone to find it for them...
@kraterz since when is telling the truth global terror. Was about time someone told us what those liars in DC try to cover up.
until they spun themselves apart. Just because someone hasn't done something against you doesn't mean they can't do something against you.
@John Zern LOL - except the US intelligence agencies are the only source of this rumored success with centrifuges -- and they are relying on 1-2 informers who could easily be double, triple or quadruple agents.

Nice how a black programs works both ways. Both sides can claim success and interested outsiders do not really have any confirmation of what is going on. You simply give one side of the other the same sort of faith as religion asks but with more track record of both sides being wrong or lying.
@John Zern acutally I doubt the US success at Iranian centrifuges. I think they are buying BS from an Iranian insider. It really doesn't make sense that all the centrifuges would turn on at once. Start up current surges would practically prohibit that. Second I got to think that centrifuge jobs probably occur in several stages with different groups of centrifuges handling each stage.

Third and FOREMOST the centrifuges almost certainly have a hardwired power kill switch for just such a problem -- at least they did at the lab I worked at. Runaways are not that uncommon.

So at best I can see maybe a few centrifuges dying assuming they were computerized to the max. BUt after the first died you would not start others and shut off any still going. And of course there really isn't a need for a high degree of computerization. Digital readouts or instrumentation logging does not equal computerized motor control.

There is even less need for motors able to damage the centrifuge rotors. It not a racing event. In fact I would wager that you would need to remove passive safety features like motor current fuses to overload any quality centrifuge. Similarly most centrifuges will quietly spin to zero after emergency power kill is hit. Although a few have some mild braking available to speed unloading, most have none. Braking can disturb job samples just done and in an emergency it is already too late to brake as most accidents finish in 1/1000th or 1/100th of a second due to very high high rpm. So slamming on the brakes sounds wrong too.

If anything I would think Iranian orders for more centrifuges are to expand their program not replace lost centrifuges. Of course that might mean that they are having problems in centrifuge work just as easily as increasing production. Just not enough sources of information that are not highly questionable.
The arrogance of Assinine continues to astound me. Anybody can take him down low tech style.

If he keeps mouthing off, he'll probably end up floating down the Thames someday.
@paulbee

So he's Al-Quaeda and he should be murdered. PErhaps we could call him a Nazi as well. This is what passes for politics in the US at the moment.

How many sociopaths does America actually have?

If the truth is out there apparently it'd better start running.
@tonymcs@... If your doctor shared your health records by posting them to a website with thousands of mirrors, what would you do?

I know these are not health records but they very much have the potential to impact the health of our country and thus there is a reason some of this is classified...

You guys who think you have a right to know probably hack payroll records so you can complain about what everyone else makes!
@tonymcs@... He had the right to do what he did but I would still support the right of the CIA to assassinate him. No hypocrisy here. We live in a free world and it goes both way.
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Where did he say he was Al-Quaeda?
John Zern 31st Jan 2011
@tonymcs@...?
@tonymcs@... actually @PeterPerry
"there is a reason some of this is classified"

No, PP, one of the primary things Wikileaks exposed was that for the vast majority of the published leaks there was absolutely NO REASON to keep the information classified.
@tonymcs@... The government already publicly posts information about sex offenders. It seems only fair that Assange publishes the dirty little secrets the government tries to hide.
@paulbee
Yeah, he's an arrogant prick... but I am really glad that Wikileaks is gathering and publishing the information they do.

We are better off for it.

And you are right, he may someday end up dead because of it but fortunately there appears to be numerous conscientious whistle blowers and corresponding publishing sites. The disappearance of Assange would not end the process unless the internet and global media all came under the authoritarian control of governments. See "Internet Kill Switch".
@paulbee Assange is ridiculously arrogant. but, at least he is doing something good. i agree with your statement, he could quite easily get sniped.
i also notice that you never even called him a terrorist, and these noobs are jumping all over you.
@DevonS
"At least he is doing something good"? Tell that to the poor schmucks in foreign countries that are going to die as a result of his actions. You are hopelessly naive if you think the world in which you are dealing with the most dangerous elements is best served by not saying or doing anything that you wouldn't want the whole world to see. Make that *dangerously* naive.
@mepallow - those "poor shmucks" probably have it coming for supporting the Richard Scaife/Faux News/Darth Cheney neocon, ReTHUGliKKKan agenda!
@msftworshipper:
Most everything they are releasing now points at the Obama admin... and how Hillary is such a B!tc4 to the other diplomats.

At least she's off Bill's case, she's got new folks to complain about.
@DevonS
Two years since Bush, how's that cozying up and wanting to talk things out with the bad guys working out so far? You touchy feely types crack me up.
@paulbee LOL you really missed his point. Assange was talking about his political movement and use of the Internet to spread WikiLeaks. Killing Assange will not make most WikiLeak site go down. Assange is not the sys op for very many sites. He is not a critical cog in daily operations. Now it is possible that new materials wil be partly thwarted because Assange was the well known point of contact.

Besides anyone who cares has already looked at the WikiLeak material and been appalled at how much it is to National Enquirer or E! channel gossip "news".
This guy is a joke, they can stuxnet Iran Reactors but can't take down wikileaks? Right, that stuff propagates so you hit one with something like stuxnet you could hit them all through the replication of the mirrors.

Personally, I would work with Allies to pump so much False Information into the cables that they could never prove any of it was real.
"WikiLeaks sat down with 60 Minutes Julian Assange..."

I was not aware that Mr. Assange was sharing payroll with you at CBS (though it certainly wouldn't surprise me).

Do you guys even bother to proof-read your posts anymore?
@Playdrv4me proof of what too much caffeine does to a writer !
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I saw a claim on one news site or another...
Hallowed are the Ori Updated - 31st Jan 2011
...that claimed that the Egyptian protests were fueled in part by some of the cables Julian Asshat had released.

And from CNN: While it's difficult to ascertain a solid death toll during the violence, Human Rights Watch staffers have confirmed 80 deaths from two hospitals in Cairo, 36 deaths in Alexandria and 13 fatalities in Suez, according to Heba Morayef, a researcher for the group in Cairo.

So much for the claim that no one has been hurt or killed as a result of Julian Asshat's conduct.
@Hallowed are the Ori
The deaths wouldn't have occurred if the Egyptian regime didn't kill them for protesting (which was the choice of the protesters). This has nothing to do with the concerns of WikiLeaks identifying informants. You are really reaching, and you're not grasping anything.
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Released Cables
sboverie 31st Jan 2011
@Hallowed are the Ori
The cables showed that the diplomats were frustrated with dealing with the governments of some countries, including Egypt. The cables show a smoking gun to people who were already unhappy with the govenment treatment and it added to the provocation.

The use of social media like twitter and facebook aided the protests as much as wikileaks. The people have lived with corrupt governments for a long time and found their voice to demand change.
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Signature 'Hallowed are the Ori' seems unable
mhenriday Updated - 31st Jan 2011
to realise that a distinction exists between the Egyptian regime's responsibility for killing its citizens, and any responsibility which WikiLeaks may have for reproducing US diplomats' reports on talks with Egyptian authorities. Presumably, however,most ZDNet readers will be capable of making this distinction....

Henri
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Note : the following message was reported as spam !
mhenriday Updated - 31st Jan 2011
'Signature "Hallowed are the Ori" seems unable to to realise that a distinction exists between the Egyptian regime's responsibility for killing its citizens, and any responsibility which WikiLeaks may have for reproducing US diplomats' reports on talks with Egyptian authorities. Presumably, however, most ZDNet readers will be capable of making this distinction....

Henri'

Wonder if the person who reported it possesses the courage and the intellectual honesty to come forward in his or her own name and tell us just why it should be considered spam....

Henri
Wasn't me. Also, my screen doesn't show either of your comments being flagged as Spam.
@Hallowed are the Ori

I saw a claim on one news site or another that you're full of crap.
@Hallowed are the Ori
Speaking of "Asshats"...

Doesn't it bother you that governments and large organizations manipulate and control what filters through to you? The idea that Wikileaks is the cause of the riots in Egypt is ludicrous. Decades of neglect, poverty, corruption, oppression and authoritarian rule have far more to do with the riots than wikileaks.

There is nothing to fear about publishing the communications of the governments and organizations that are supposed to be working for us.

Or are you some kind of anti-democratic pinko? Har Har Har!
Doesn't it bother you that governments and large organizations manipulate and control what filters through to you?

I don't recall saying that it didn't bother me.

The idea that Wikileaks is the cause of the riots in Egypt is ludicrous. Decades of neglect, poverty, corruption, oppression and authoritarian rule have far more to do with the riots than wikileaks.

Which is why I said "fueled in part by".

There is nothing to fear about publishing the communications of the governments and organizations that are supposed to be working for us.

Well no... unless you live some place like Iran or North Korea... or Egypt. OR if you've discovered where the US has hidden the aliens and their spacecraft.

Or are you some kind of anti-democratic pinko?

"Pinko"? Do you mean this: http://www.pinko.it/home.asp ?
@Hallowed are the Ori
of coursed wikileaks played a role in starting these deadly protests. they emphasized to the people how corrupt their government is, and they decided to act on it. that's a good thing.
@DevonS So you admit Assange is directly responsible for Egyptian deaths!
@Hallowed are the Ori unless you think that destabilizing and perhaps toppling oppressive governments is a bad thing of course wink
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ok well lets play compare
Quebec-french 31st Jan 2011
@Hallowed are the Ori
How many dies because of usa interventionism in latin america , vietnam, irak, Afghanistan , ..... just to know

well you will say its was war ..... no no no ..... its was all lies
golf of tonkin , wmd in irak , assasination of Allende and so on .......

At least 150 death in Egypt as one little hick : its call a revolution .... people dies in revolution .

but you like Mubarak because his dictatorship guaranties oil at a good price in exchange of money and weapon .....


Assange may not be a white virgin but USA is in no saint neither . Its easy to call action of julian assange then what do you call usa action since 1881 ..... aggressive politics , acceptable slaughter..... american patriotism .



I can believe that a country like usa who has suffer under under a 2 dictatorship 1 British empire and then W bush . how you cannot be happy for the Egyptian or the Tunisian or any people who are held by a dictator .... wait because you sponsor them ..... sorry .

Take a freckking look in the mirror ask yourself what part of responsibility you have in those situation around the world. if you say nothing well you have a lots too learn .
He's just asking for trouble...
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U.S. better watch it's step
Dr_Zinj 31st Jan 2011
Theoretically (in accordance with the Declaration of Independence), we have the right to armed, lethal, rebellion against the federal government if they choose to shut down any news agency (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox, Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc.) What's playing out in Tunisa and Egypt could just as easily happen in Washington D.C., with considerable damage to the area, and possible loss of life on both sides.

More likely, the minute the feds did that, we'd have a legal injunction filed against their doing so. Problem is, the Prez could declare martial law, making it nearly impossible for us to take legal action against him/them; and placing the military in a position of defending against, or attacking, citizens of this country. Which of course makes it even harder for states governors to organize military resistance against federal tyranny.

As for Julian and Wikileaks; software is a wonderful thing. The U.S. government could develop (and may already have) malware to specifically seek out internet targets and mess them up. No physical raids required. Site goes up, and shortly afterwards, experiences crashes and corruption of data. Or they could just block the sites at the incoming lines and antennas.
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You've got a point there...
HollywoodDog 31st Jan 2011
@Dr_Zinj ... if the government just arbitrarily decides it's going to stop following the constitution and silence free speech, then I imagine our founding fathers would tell us that the time has come to alter or abolish it - peacefully if possible, but that alteration or abolishment was a duty.
@HollywoodDog

Actually, the Founding Fathers would think it's long overdue.
Its tough to tell if Assange is stupid or just incredibly naive.

Probably some of both.

(A) Your computers aren't secure against the NSA. Get over it. If you can get in remotely, so can they.

(B) The US "defense department" has an entire budget and quite a bit of man-power devoted to "cyber-warfare".

(C) Even if your machines were that secure, which they aren't, you depend on infrastructure you dont control. I guarantee you the government could screw up routing such that no one could get to you.
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Is the NSA
HollywoodDog 31st Jan 2011
@jeffpk ... going to find all 100,000 (or possibly many more) people around the world who have downloaded the encrypted "insurance" file, and can it be 100% certain to get every single copy out there, and once they start trying and the encryption key is released, are they really willing to lose the many lives of sources around the world who would certainly be killed by their own repressive governments once insurance was released? If you were the president would you order such an action to make yourself feel powerful, regardless of the damage it would inflict on so many people and their families and children, incalculable damage to the US government, and the damage to your own administration that would come as a result?

I think that weighing all the evidence in the balance, cooler heads would probably prevail. You may be very angry but at the end of the day, you're probably not stupid.
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Never Confuse Capabilty With Intention
Lazarus439 15th Feb 2011
He has a feeling that those about whom he leaked would not expend the resources necessary to take down WikiLeaks. He has no clue whether WikiLeaks could be taken down if the desire was there to do so.

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