I generally don't trust Anonymous that much, and don't trust information from an unproven source. I don't see any reason to trust this particular thing at all. At least with Wikileaks we had that smug jerk saying he was in charge of it.
The armored raven
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Leaking scandalous and potentially public threatening information is being a jerk now? There's a father and son combo running News International that you might want to check.
On topic: I will not trust leaking unless there's a proof of journalism, proof of record, proof of fact and proof of value. Julian Assange's leaks fulfill all of those. In order for Anon to fulfill even one of them would be to show the face of such a site's lead, which may be impossible, given their track record with their own identities
What profit is it to a man, when he gains his money, but loses his internet? Anonymous 16:26 I believe...
This site is essentially just going to be another mirror of Wikileaks. They already have had something similar on the deep web.
It's not a mirror at all. It's everything that everyone accuses Wikileaks of doing that they don't do (such as leaking potentially dangerous information that could get people killed) and then just doing that.
Wikileaks processes its information via journalists through partnerships with well known news organisations. It fulfils the requirements of journalistic integrity without compromising the personal security of anyone, such as overseas personnel in combat operations, but allowing a venue for the media to air any wrongdoings our governments might engage in faraway (or close to home) places.
Anonymous might have good intentions but I sense they don't really know anything beyond shouting freedom and being reckless.
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Personally I don't trust Wikileaks. Assange talked big but hasn't really put his money where his mouth is. Still waiting on that fabled massive dump of info from the "should i ever be arrested" bit along with the release of the crypto key. Or the dearths of information that would knock big banks off of their power bases, or any number of claimed piles of data we still have yet to see.
I suspect Anonymous will find this a serious pain in the ass to run. It takes a lot of work to run leaks site to even try and organize the data. They are talking about becoming data analysts. Anyone who has done that on for any reason can tell you it is boring, tedious, and labor intensive.
Who watches the watchmen?
I'm not sure why that would be relevant to why you would trust or not trust Wikileaks. The opinion should be based on the information they put out on a regular basis such as now with the Syrian file leak.
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
That they released via other parties and if iirc it was mostly the anons. who got him the data in the first place.
I don't trust wikileaks because it is led by Assange. As long as he is nominally or functionally in charge wikileaks will be hampered.
He attempted to sell information to the highest bidder, rampantly accuse various groups or peoples of conpsiring against them without any evidence (my favourite was accusing Threat Level on wired.com. Didn't even get the content of threat level right in their tirade and accused them of getting Bradly Manning caught), and are still holding information that could supposedly be of great value to the people in helping us push for better change in our society at large. Instead they hold onto the info, if they actually have it, and wave it around at governments and businesses as a vague threat that never materialized. Remember Assange's promise about him being detained and the release of that key info dump. Still waiting on it. Large swathes of information they have dumped has been extraordinarily useless garbage with far too few useful nuggets buried in it. They also are not above spinning the information to suit their needs.
While I may not agree with their methods Anonymous has done more then wikileaks. Hell Anonymous has done it's fair share of grunt work and data release compared to wikileaks. Last I checked Anonymous are the ones getting Assange a lot of the info in the first place.
They have targeted everything from various business, corrupt cops, powerful foreign regimes, etc. and have been more successful and general productive then wikileaks.
My two nit-picks with Anons leak site is that does not seem secure enough for the users and uploads. Then there is trying to sort through the data is heavy workload and I believe the anons will get bored with it very quickly and possibly abandon it.
Who watches the watchmen?
scratching at .8, just hopin'
.
Information shouldn't be trusted if you can't back it up. I say this largely to my "take everything on the internet with a grain of salt" philosophy.
That and there's the fact that if these Anons can get this kind of information they can also probably forge it.
@Cassias: I think he's a smug jerk because of how he acts, not because of the sole fact that he runs or ran Wikileaks. If Wikileaks had never happened and he got caught for something else and behaved the same way I'd still think he was a smug jerk.
scratching at .8, just hopin'
Good points. Verification with the most reliable journalistic sources is necessary.
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Assange is a bit of a naracist and is excessively paranoid for starters. His behaviour paints a less then positive image of wikileaks.
For example pointing to someone else and firing off an accusation without presenting any proof. Prime example would be contained in the article in the OP.
There are other lesser sins wikileaks and Assange is guilty of that came from people who have left wikileaks due to how Assange leads.
Doesn't paint a very nice picture Not the first person to have beef with Assange and his leadership either.
Among accusations are a lack of verification outside of a google check. So much for quality of leaks. That is until they started working with news outlets. one problem there. All the news outlets are owned by one shady big business interest or another. I don't exactly trust Assange's dealings with them.
[[http://www.alternet.org/rss/1/585722/assange%5C's_employee_nondisclosure%3A_wikileakers_caught_leaking_slapped_with_$20_million_fine/ Wiki leaks employee agreement]]
Threatened to sue a new agency after they were given the diplo cables
So much for leaking for the good of public. Even if you leak info that could save lives you would be fined.
Assange does not paint someone I would find trustworthy and his various actions are less then noble.
I am glad there are other sites that have arisen as leak sites seperate from wiki leaks. I am hoping the Anons find some measure of success with their attempts at a leak site.
edited 18th Jul '12 9:05:12 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?
So I'd like to point out that this focus on Assange is merely a western media campaign. The core group of Wikileaks is a bunch of Chinese dissidents who have never ever shown their faces for obvious reasons. Assange was a fundraiser from Australia who travelled to the US to promote the organisation and get funds to run it. He makes for an easy target.
Anon is not very useful in that they have no journalistic standard of conduct. That is and will always be important. That point has never changed. Anon can do good by providing information to Wikileaks but the point of brown enveloping is to allow journalists to do digging. Wikileaks understands that and provides a good gateway. I don't think Anonymous really thinks about what they're doing when they could just as well be spreading Pentagon made lies as well as real information.
Other leak sites are fine, but I don't think many of your points against Wikileaks are valid. Assange is an asshole. Big deal who cares.
edited 19th Jul '12 9:59:04 AM by breadloaf
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Problem is Wikileaks is holding info that would be valuable to the public at large and has ye to release it. I also don't trust the large media bodies in general to honestly deliver us good info.
I would rather have the anons then wikileaks any day of the week. I have a much better idea what to expect of the anons then wikileaks. Not only do they do the work to get the data they are looking like they are possibly going to do the work to distribute what they get.
Journalistic integrity is a bit of joke in the big media outlets and is one of those sadly waning items from reporting in general.
Funny Assange almost never mentions the Chinese dissidents who pretty much gave wikileaks its start. Good on the dissidents for doing what they do.
I would consider trusting wikileaks again if Assange handed off the operation to someone else along with the keys and funding or he puts his money where his mouth is and gives us that insurance packet that would help the people at largea against our corrupt governments.
Who watches the watchmen?
Well, the large media organisations might not be entirely great but organisations like AP, CP and so on, can and do eventually blow open news stories. Whether anybody reads or cares about it is another question.
I understand where Anon's lack of bureaucracy and organisation overhead is a nice concept but at a certain point if nobody is verifying anything you end up not caring about anything they say.
So how does Assange being an asshole invalidate the accuracy of his leaks?
I just said he was a smug jerk, and actually using the fact that he said he was in charge of it as a reason anything published by Anonymous was less trustworthy by comparison. He was claiming responsibility for the information, in a way.
Yeah. I just want to say that Assange being an asshat doesn't affect whether his leaks are factually accurate.
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Well see how the anons intend to run the show. It sounds like one of those undertakings that might fall through from a lack of dedicated people.
Who watches the watchmen?
Wired Article
Supposedly Anonymous has launched their doc site citing sorted issues with wiki leaks.
Issues range from wikileaks having a harder time supposedly getting docs out, slow dissemination of the docs, and Anons have supposedly been asked by wiki leaks a few times to help distribute documents they were having issues getting out.
Supposedly the idea is to try to get the public more interested in the leaked info and to examine it vs leaking agency partnership with news agencies. Another concept is to use this as a tool for handling and distributing big data leaks.
Wikileaks has supposedly accused them via twitter of promoting an unsecure proxy and/or the site was being run by law enforcement.
There are refrences to other leak projects like leakspin.
They are using cloudflare and are claiming to be DMCA proof servers and hosts.
They plan to release documents with unredacted information as quickly as possible and hopefully with some organization instead of just a raw data dump.
I have noticed several commentors stating that they find the set up to be untrustworthy.
edited 14th Jul '12 8:30:23 AM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?