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Originally Posted by knox
I think you misunderstood. Wikileaks is not pirate or hacking, it is just a website that posts information sent to them, nothing illegal about it, nothing newspapers cannot do - in theory.
They wouldn't have gotten the same publicity and impact, because the real significance is not in the documents themselves (tho scary, nothing that people did not know or imagine) but what they're actually doing to this one person: ignoring laws, calling for execution, unfair accusations and procedures. That is saying something significant, that causes a reaction in people. It's not like they didn't know this was going to happen. It isn't about the documents it's about the fuss.
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Originally Posted by kinn
the people doing the hacking of paypal etc. are not affliated with wikileaks in anyway. they are a completely separate group of hackers.
suchfriends' point about wikileaks staying "underground" doesn't make any kind of sense. they need donations to keep going, what is the point of leaking things if noone sees them? the whole point is visibility. there's no way to be "underground" and some how avoid the apparatus of the state when you leak its secrets, because if you are underground enough it will just be able to arrest you and noone will find out.
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you're both absolutely wrong. WikiLeaks is by definition pirate, as ALL of the documents they are leaking over the past few years are not authorized, they are stolen (not just these war chest documents and diplomatic cables, wikileaks has been leaking corporate and govt documents for years now) and it is a crime. The people who directly leak these documents face prison terms, shit even potentially the death penalty in the US
Further, I think the current situations with people being incarcerated across the world, from China to Burma to the US to the UK effectively demonstrates that even with the spotlight of mass media attention and publicity, the government still can and will find and arrest those it deems a threat. Shit President Obama has been continually fighting for the legal authority to assassinate US citizens (under the pretext of this Awlaki character) as a war strategy!
this is by very definition piracy. If wikileaks wanted to be the LATimes, they would have leaked the documents like Ellsburg, but they are pirates, so they went entirely with the hacker/pirate DIY vibe, which worked quite well for them over the past few years. It is only recently when they starting using corporate mechanisms for fund raising and corporate mechanisms for publicity (like inviting mainstream news crews to film their servers or using paypal/mastercard/visa to solicit funds)
Had they stayed underground like they were, they could have easily publicized the material on their reputation alone, without having to go for the full out walmartization effect and go brutally corporate. They have been whistle blowing against corrupt government, media and corporations for years now, what did they honestly expect? You can not use the devils tools to take down the devil, you can never take down the System as an insider. If you try kill the snake from the inside by crawling in its belly, unfortunately all the happens is the snake makes a meal of you..
If illegally leaking stolen government and corporate material isn't piracy, and using the DIY internet model for public distribution isn't hacking, what is?