Posted on 12/01/2010 3:10:27 PM PST by La Lydia
The US State Department has directed its staff around the world not to surf the WikiLeaks website, according to employees. The ban is in response to WikiLeaks' decision to published classified material, including US diplomatic cables. It’s not clear when the policy first began but it joins a similar order by the US Department of Defense put in place since the leaking of Iraq and Afghanistan war documents earlier this year.
Analysts suggest the State Department is temporarily falling back on traditional bureaucratic protocols in the face of a crisis that is emblematic of the shift to an online world. As the dust settles, the WikiLeaks upheaval may push to the fore tensions between new “digital diplomacy” efforts that use Twitter and smart-phone apps, and an older culture of classified cables.
“They need to engage with the broader public, which is empowered with web 2.0, but at the same time keep confidentiality, which is a huge tension that organizations like the State Department have to address,” says Jovan Kurbalija, an expert in diplomacy and information technology based in Geneva....
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pushed for more integration of Internet advances in US diplomacy. She supported young, tech-savvy officers who were developing huge Twitter followings.
In East Africa, the State Department supported a competition called "Apps 4 Africa" that challenged software developers to come up with a socially beneficial phone application. The winner was "iCow," an application that helps farmers track animal breeding cycles....
But the embrace of modern communications has not necessarily included the underlying philosophy of information openness. Much diplomatic work still depends upon confidential conversations, and the WikiLeaks crisis has, so far, moved the agency toward more information restrictions....
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
Close your eyes there’s no man behind the curtain.
There may be more to this. According to the hacker “The Jester”, Assange may be planting trojans in some of the .pdf files with triggers to go off at a certain time or if a certain event happens. Jester has already identified some of them but even he can’t crack what they do.
http://th3j35t3r.wordpress.com/2010/09/17/wikileaks-insurance-policy-expired/
OMG... this is a joke. Okay, Pandora, whatever you do, don’t open the box.
LOL! If this Administration and their ilk weren’t so dangerous they would be funny.
Okay, now that makes sense (read after I posted my other comment). Of course, it could all be a scam just so they don’t look.
ROTFLOL Now don’t you read that, Johnny.
Interesting. Also the use of “trojan” in relation to Wikileaks is as spot on as it could be...
That’s sooo junior high. The minute adults got bent out of shape over a book in the school library, every kid in town rushed out to see what it was all about.
The only way to get a government employee to not do something is to make it part of their work. They should post the leaks on the bulletin board and make it mandatory reading. That way no one would read it.
The list, ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
Best way to protect yourself from trojans in pdf files is to disable file attachments.
If you use Adobe, start up the reader, go to edit, go to preferences. Under “Trust Manager” uncheck the box that says “Allow opening of non-pdf file attachments with external applications.”
It doesnt protect you 100%. But it helps.
It should be unchecked by default because you would likely never need to use this feature. Don’t know why it isnt off by default.
post from a friend, IMHO, the best..
John Gargano commented:
“The guy (Assange) has clearly committed crimes against the US, and I believe our allies will assist in brining him to justice in our country because they are all equally as embarrassed by the publication of these documents as we are.
As the dust is settling around this entire affair, it is clear that Assange has unintentionally done the world a big favor in one respect and it is this: He has absolutely exposed that the emperors of the world collectively have absolutely no clothes whatsoever. When we read these documents it is painfully obvious that these “esteemed leaders” and “worldly statesmen” conduct their affairs with the level of immaturity and pettiness that barely raises to the level of a low budget soap opera script. While Assange has violated our sovereignty and committed crimes for which I believe he should be punished, we must not lose sight of this larger fact. If there was ever any doubt, it is quite clear now that most world leaders are nothing more than people of infantile incompetence. While many people have speculated that the world’s affairs were being tended to by nothing but diminutive people – there is no longer any doubt. Now we all know this is the case and I find this revelation to be even more disturbing than the violation of diplomatic and State privacy.”
Wow...Valerie is oo"0" compared to this.
Our poor, poor country!
Having served honorably on active duty as a Naval Officer I have no truck with those who deliberately transmit classified information to those not authorized to receive it with the intent of doing harm. Unfortunately, Assange, with good attorneys, may be beyond prosecution exactly because of this Gargano's argument. You cannot cover up government incompetence with classification. That is why whatshisname could not be prosecuted for the Pentagon papers.
And, if the government seeks to hide its incompetence in other information that would legitimately be classified, one can argue that it is the government that is as responsbile for the release of the classified information because of the people's right to know what its government is doing on its behalf.
As for the intent argument, the problem is that Assange can argue that his intent was exactly to do the world this big favor, which was arguably doing far more harm to the citizens of their respective, mismanaged, countries than the collateral release of the information could possibly have done.
For instance, the revelation that Obama chose as a matter of policy to put off dealing with Iran until hell freezes over, in the form of resolving the Palestinian question, is exactly an issue of this magnitude.
Let me repeat, before I get attacked, that anyone who releases information that is legitimately classified with the intent to bring harm to the US is a traitor and should be so treated, tried and dealt with.
Having served honorably on active duty as a Naval Officer I have no truck with those who deliberately transmit classified information to those not authorized to receive it with the intent of doing harm. Unfortunately, Assange, with good attorneys, may be beyond prosecution exactly because of this Gargano's argument. You cannot cover up government incompetence with classification. That is why whatshisname could not be prosecuted for the Pentagon papers.
And, if the government seeks to hide its incompetence in other information that would legitimately be classified, one can argue that it is the government that is as responsbile for the release of the classified information because of the people's right to know what its government is doing on its behalf.
As for the intent argument, the problem is that Assange can argue that his intent was exactly to do the world this big favor, which was arguably doing far more harm to the citizens of their respective, mismanaged, countries than the collateral release of the information could possibly have done.
For instance, the revelation that Obama chose as a matter of policy to put off dealing with Iran until hell freezes over, in the form of resolving the Palestinian question, is exactly an issue of this magnitude.
Let me repeat, before I get attacked, that anyone who releases information that is legitimately classified with the intent to bring harm to the US is a traitor and should be so treated, tried and dealt with.
Simple explanation that anyone who works in sensitive areas of the government knows, no classified materials on unclassified computers...no exceptions.
Half of them would probably first need to learn how to read, so they could be told not to read it.
This kind of figures. The only people in the world who won’t know what’s in the Wikileaks documents will be our State Dept. Another Hillary Epic Fail!
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