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.
Between the Lines
Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel KingWikiLeaks Assange: U.S. doesn't have the technology to take us down
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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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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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
And BOA is can be quite nasty, too; so it is good that it fears leaks.
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.
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.
If he keeps mouthing off, he'll probably end up floating down the Thames someday.
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.
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!
"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.
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".
i also notice that you never even called him a terrorist, and these noobs are jumping all over you.
"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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Henri
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
I saw a claim on one news site or another that you're full of crap.
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!
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 ?
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.
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 .
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.
Actually, the Founding Fathers would think it's long overdue.
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.
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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