Ecuador Offers WikiLeak's Founder Assange Residency, No Questions Asked

[Hissyspit]

Source: AFP

Ecuador offers WikiLeak's founder Assange residency, no questions asked

AFP NOVEMBER 29, 2010 8:03 PM

QUITO - Ecuador on Monday offered Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who has enraged Washington by releasing masses of classified U.S. documents, residency with no questions asked.

"We are ready to give him residence in Ecuador, with no problems and no conditions," Deputy Foreign Minister Kintto Lucas told the Internet site Ecuadorinmediato.

"We are going to invite him to come to Ecuador so he can freely present the information he possesses and all the documentation, not just over the Internet but in a variety of public forums," he said.

An international arrest warrant was issued in mid-November against Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, on suspicion of rape and sexual molestation of two women in Sweden.

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Ecuador+offers+WikiLeak+founder+Assange+residency+questions+asked/3902251/story.html

[Newsjock]

1. Bomb Ecuador, say Palin and McCain

Just predicting tomorrow's Twits from the twits.

[Hissyspit]

2. Unfortunately, your predictions are not satirical.

They are probably spot on. Would that they were satirical, the world would be more sane.

[Kolesar]

5. Hey, not funny

They actually do "stuff" like that

[bemildred]

3. K&R. nt

[thunder rising]

4. The International Law couldn't haul in Roman Polanski on serious and well founded charges for what

30 years. Watch, they will find Assange.

[bluesmail]

6. Hell Yes K&R!

[EFerrari]

7. Payback for the attempt on Correa's life.

I hope Assange doesn't come to this continent. Ecuador is likely not safe.

[bemildred]

8. Latin America has a vested interest in exposing US "diplomacy" in the area.

It's not just payback. Don't be surprised if Brazil or various other countries offer to help.

[EFerrari]

11. Agreed. But Ecuador in particular is not safe.

Their security forces were thoroughly infiltrated according to internal report. I've begun to think of it as the El Salvador of South America because it's small enough that you can have a big impact without much effort. Correa barely escaped with his life.

There would be better places, imho, like Brazil or Argentina. After that cable about her mental health, maybe Cristina will extend an invitation, too.

[bemildred]

13. Well true.

So far it does not appear to me that it is Mr Assange that is in over his head though. I see lots of FUD and name calling, and total impotence to stop him from doing what he wants.

[EFerrari]

14. He seems incredibly cool.

I'd be locked in the hotel bathroom with the contents of the minibar by now. :hi:

[bemildred]

17. He sounds whip smart to me.

But it does not matter, the Genii is out of the bottle. Whether he dies soon or lives to a ripe old age no longer matters, the revolution will go on. He is right out of the old Hacker culture and not at all unique in his capabilities, nor can the ideas he has demonstrated be stamped out. I don't mean to minimize what he has done, he is clearly a wizard, and has more balls than Hillary.

I worked in computers for twenty-some years, in the 80s and 90s, and I came to feel that there would come a time when the ruling elites would regret all this digitization and automation BECAUSE it makes information so immaterial, copyable and transferable. A great deal of what passes for "property" these days is really just data on magnetic media somewheres, infinitely copyable, transferable, and impossible in any real sense to possess in the way you can own a car or a piece of land. I mean the same problem is driving the RIAA nuts. They wanted the computer revolution, and they are stuck with it now. You can get a 32 gig thumb drive and plug it in anywhere and copy anything you have access to and walk out and nobody knows. Similar things can be done over the network. It takes Stalinist level police state measures to really prevent that.

I for one intend to enjoy the show and wallow in schadenfreude.

[Pavulon]

20. And a system can scan and store every phone and internet conversation

looking for patterns. Facial recognition software used by faces and places on you mac can identify, target, and kill a person from a drone orbiting at 40,000 feet. Computers give a very false sense of security.

Cache engines can find file patterns, even encrypted patterns, while they cross the wire. Technology has far more potential in the hands china to oppress than it does to fuck us over.

At the end of the day there are just people. People like to live, gerry bull probably wanted to live, that iranian nuclear scientist probably wanted to live. But they made choices.

Assange is a figurehead, it would be far worse for him for his friends to suffer because of his little jihad. That is exactly what will happen, he will be left with a destroyed little empire.

Computers are just like the xerox or microfilm, tools used to accomplish a goal. Polonium is similar in that respect.

[bemildred]

22. I have worked with that stuff, and it is prattle. It does not scare me at all. nt

[Pavulon]

25. Me too. And I am quite impressed with the capability

just looking at the capability to voice match and scan cell traffic is quite interesting. Much of where this was 10 years ago is in public now so one can assume it has become better over the last decade.

A quick look at CALEA gives an idea to the capability of the systems.

[bemildred]

29. Oh they can do simple stuff.

And computers are fast, but they still have too high an error rate, organic systems are still much better. But the real problem is that you can't arrest everybody, a stalinist security state is not compatible with democratic rule, and even stalinist police states require some degree of consent from the governed. And if you do have really good search and matching algorithms, you get huges piles of hits which some human expert has to examine before you can actually do anything, and the humans wind up the bottleneck just like before. At best these things are tools, when they work right, or toys, they do not really change the game, and they are not something that anybody in particular owns either.

[snooper2]

44. Have you ever actually ran a trace?

You do know that the LEA don't have direct access to telecomunications networks. Everyone I know of uses a trusted third party to perform the mediation services. There are limits though...as with anything.

First off, obviously you need facilities between yourself and the mediation company. All data is collected real time obviously, so based on some rough numbers you can forecast how many active warrants you may have at any given point in time. For a company like one of the big three that number is in the 100's. (100's of warrants, which could translate to any given number of individual TN). So for 1000 VoIP calls at G.711 you'll need at least a 100M connection.

Verint is probably the leader in mediation solutions so you can look at their website for more info if you are curious. Not cheap by the way...

http://verint.com/corporate/

But then somebody who doens't understand what they are reading will see the section titled Mass interception and think they are listening to all our calls! :rofl:

http://verint.com/communications_interception/section2a.cfm?article_level2_category_id=2&article_level2a_id=232
Mass Interception
Integral to intelligence gathering, mass interception enables analysts to identify unknown suspects and threats, generate leads, and extract clues from past communications in order to decipher current cases.

[bemildred]

48. Thanks.

That is correct, it's the gory details that get you. There are at least two problems.

1.) All those mass search and scanning systems are based on heuristics. You can estimate what your ratio of false positives is fairly well, by sampling and groveling over the results, but there is really no way to tell about the stuff you missed that you wanted to get (the "unknown unknowns") except by creating and inserting test cases, and in that situation you only see what you look for, and all you see is that it got matched.

2.) Just because you have the haystack in the barn, that does not mean you have found the needle. Collection of data is easy, structuring it in a useful way is hard. Effective search algorithms reduce the amount of material that must be human inspected, they do not make human inspection and judgement unnecessary.

[snooper2]

50. One point, collection of the data isn't always "easy"

Signaling, is doable as it doesn't require the HUGE amount of storage required for media. (the audio portion of the conversation).

I was working on a customer issue a couple weeks back and had capture up on their 10M pipe. They were averaging about 40-50 simulataneous calls and I had the file set to roll over at 100M. (Wireshark tends to crap out with files larger than that :) ) It was rolling about every 15-20 minutes. That's on one single small customer. A system like I mentioned above is where the "mass gathering" comes in play. They can run the data and try to hit on key words after the data is collected. Most of the time it's old school though, just listening to the files by a bunch of humans.

I don't think people really have a grasp of how many 100's of Billions of minutes a month of phone conversations there are. Actually in the Trillions now....


The raw numbers are actually staggering...Here's a five year old FCC report on phone trends if you are REALLY bored :P
http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Reports/FCC-State_Link/IAD/trend605.pdf

For example, in 2003, for just local calls, there were 424,617,408,000 calls. 81,217,462,000 toll calls...

[boppers]

52. It's all about scaling.

Google has over 400,000 machines... and some of those machines do nothing but transcribe voice.

To reduce false positives, and machine time, your point is well taken, in that recording and storing every conversation would be a huge waste of energy.

[bemildred]

58. You can only scale problems that scale well.

I know that sounds circular, but computing problems have structure, and the structure affects whether and to what degree you can partition them into parts that can be processed independently. Problems that scale well are problems that partition well. Some do, some don't. The particular architecture that allows you to scale well can depend on the problem too, there are many variations.

I used to work with large simulations, and the customers always wanted to make them large as possible, so this issue came up a lot.

And there are limits on the "speedup" you can get even in the best of cases. To scale "arbitrarily" like the internet (sort of) you have to be like the internet, where each node is able to operate correctly on the basis of local information, with no "bottlenecks" that cannot be routed around.

[boppers]

60. All problems scale well.

It's merely an issue of cost.

:evilgrin:

[bemildred]

61. Oh they tried that, trust me.

I told my superiors, and I use that word loosely, that it would not work and why, and was told it was none of my business, money was flowing. And son-of-a-gun it did not work, and for the reasons I stated. But eventually they sorted it out somewhat, sims do often have a lot of parallelism in them, lots of separate things going on all at once, and you can generally farm out the data collection and graphics display and so on.
:evilgrin:

[boppers]

65. I have never seen an unlimited budget, ever.

If you have, let me know, it might be fun to work on such a scale.

[bemildred]

57. LOL. Yes. Exactly.

I just used (when I was working) to run into people who wanted to collect big piles of data thinking that was somehow useful to do by itself, like a big pile of data gave you POWER or something. What one really wants is a very small human-scale pile of data that is exactly right, and that can be very hard to do.
:thumbsup:

I am sure Wikileaks, with its big pile of data, is struggling with the same problem.

[boppers]

62. I currently gather about 80Gb a day...

For a a few hundred <1K reports.

Fishers drag their nets though many tons of water to collect a few pounds of fish.

The fools want the tons of water, the smart ones just want the fish.

[bemildred]

64. Yep. nt

[bemildred]

19. Remember how the Abu Ghraib thing got started with cellphone pictures and videos?

The endless stream of videos of cops doing things they ought not be doing?
What about all those little 4 gig chips you put in your camera and read in a slot on your computer?
And who can forget WiFi?
There is really no end to it.

[Pavulon]

21. What's funny is everyone opts in to the system.

facebook, your cell, cards, passports, all on the wire. If someone bothered to read bradwees myspace and facebook page, his clearance would be yanked.

[bemildred]

23. Most people really do not give a shit about security.

Safety yes, but not "security". I see this over an over.

"Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose" as the song says. People that really get into security are people with a lot to lose, assets.

Keeping a low profile, "security through obscurity", is the best method if it is feasible. When that becomes infeasible, it just starts to grow and grow what you have to deal with, it becomes and arms race, a "Red Queen" situation.

[Pavulon]

27. Most people are fucking stupid and lazy.

start trying to telnet or ssh into devices you bump into on the internet and you will find the default password is never changed. I work on machine tools for a living. The work and programming has value and I also dont want it changed without my knowledge. Securing my finished product not only protects me (and my employer) from being sued but people from changing stuff on controllers that cut rotors, stators, and fans and killing people or fucking up millions of dollars worth of work.

None of the work is "secure" but like why leave your garage door up if you know what I mean. Security is a state of mind, if someone really wants something they can get it, but that does not mean stop trying. Intrusion Detection would have caught manning, my small company runs it to prevent shit going places it should not..

[bemildred]

30. Now now, don't sink to name calling.

They don't care. Perhaps they ought to, but often they just don't know. I could tell you stories about that sort of thing, "secure" government systems with open telnet/ftp ports on the internet and the like. Less common now though, the default "come in and take over" attitude that used to exist in system default arrangements has been tightened up a bit. But I do know what you mean.

[bemildred]

31. PS, I agree about the machine tools etc.

They are always easy to hack into. Nobody ever resets the password on their broadband modems or routers or what have you. Some people were hacking HP printers via Internet/USB. I used to do some work with Postscript, it's amazing what you can get a printer to do. If Adobe had not been so greedy, Postscript would be everywhere like Java.

But the problem is they put computers in the damn things, and then you have to have a way to configure it and off you go, you have something that can be hacked into. And some guy whose boss buys him this new machine does not have time to sit down for two weeks to play with it and study the manual and figure out what the appropriate config is. So it sits there in the default state until something "happens".

[bemildred]

33. I had a job where they wanted me to break into their phone system.

The previous admin left under unhappy circumstances. Nortel I think it was. I googled up the reset password, and off we go. Very annoying menu system.

[EFerrari]

24. I'll never, ever forget Rumsfeld pausing some Congressional hearing

where he was being made to answer for Abu Graib and saying, "digital cameras". In those few syllables, you could hear profound defeat.

[bemildred]

32. Yah, exactly. nt

[Poll_Blind]

9. I was so right to give up fiction: The news is consistently more outrageous and interesting!

:rofl:

PB

[EFerrari]

12. I've written everyhing but fiction and for that very reason.

lol

[ProgressiveMajority]

10. Yup. That will last up until the point he leaks some documents that embarass someone in Ecuador

At that point, his welcome will wear thin. If I were him I'd think about accepting the amnesty in Ecuador and once there publish no documents critical of Ecuadorian politicians or institutions.

[Pavulon]

15. Any time any place.. He has no place to hide and no one can protect him

from the people he is pissing on. Nation states would be required to backstop his existence, even then no guarantees..

[Zhade]

16. He's a hero.

I love that he's pissing off people like you.

[Pavulon]

18. People like me are the least of his problem. People like me just have to pay for this mess

with the FIT line item on my check. This is generally a money problem. He should worry about the HEU recovery operation in pakistan he exposed. Maybe he should worry about the documents he dumped on china north korean stability. Maybe he should worry what a fucking nut in the north will do now that he knows his only supporters are fucking him.

Maybe he should know that the worst position to be in is the head of an organization where everyone under you has been taken out of the picture. That is a very plausible situation.

People like me can find advantage in what he dumped, use it to support things that most fringe people do not like. He just paid for boost phase interceptors by dumping the Iranian ICBM systems. 2 men died in Iran this morning, wonder if his dump modified that schedule.



He should worry, but not about me he is playing in a unforgiving space with people that have long histories..

[boppers]

34. Fear of government enables oppressive government.

What makes Assange and his ilk unique is that they lack that fear, or are willing to die in the name of their freedom... which weakens the power of governments everywhere.

[Pavulon]

38. Or they just work for someone and you dont know about it

homeypot or running op. Time will tell.

[boppers]

51. From the private conversations I've seen...

If this is a honeypot, it's one of the most dysfunctional, poorly run, honeypots possible.

Time will tell, indeed.

[ooglymoogly]

37. +1 nt

[mbperrin]

39. Look, this country, with hundreds of billions of dollars spent each year

for "defense" and with TRILLIONS in assets, could not prevent one private from using a thumb drive to take all the info he wanted. The overpaid, lazy, incompetent fucks who continue to rob us blind in the name of security are simply incompetent, and threatening Assange really just tries to paper over their incompetence.

Fidel Castro has outlived many a US President, to name one.

In 9 years, we cannot defeat a stone age country with no air force, no organized defense system, hell, no uniforms. That's just a measure of simple incompetence, corruption, and cronyism.

Hell, they couldn't find Jimmy Hoffa.

[bemildred]

40. Well said.

There are many more examples just like those too.

[HEyHEY]

26. I guess they're sick of the USA fucking with Small Latin American countries n/t

[Zorro]

28. I hope he takes up the offer

It is a lovely country.

[Downwinder]

36. That it is, but do they have enough bandwidth for his traffic?

[druidity33]

69. Maybe in Quito. nt.

[somone]

35. If they give him protection

maybe he should consider moving there.

[Solly Mack]

41. K&R

[conspirator]

42. Ecuador is a Colombia style dictatorship. He would be assassinated there

He would be much safer in Venezuela or Cuba. Less infiltrated CIA agents.

[EFerrari]

46. The democratically elected government of Rafael Correa is not a dictatorship.

Which is why it is under more or less constant internal attack by the United States.

[Hissyspit]

66. And propagandists?

[EFerrari]

67. That's a good point. Them, too. n/t

[kgnu_fan]

47. Last I checked, Ecuador fought off coup d'état, its constitution recognizes "the rights of Nature"

Yesterday, a coalition of environmentalists have filed a groundbreaking lawsuit in Ecuador against the oil giant BP for violating Ecuador's constitution.

Vandana Shiva: "This morning we filed in the constitutional court of Ecuador this lawsuit defending the rights of nature in particular the right of the Gulf of Mexico and the sea which has been violated by the BP oil spill. We see this as a test case of the rights of nature enshrined in the constitution of Ecuador—it’s about universal jurisdiction beyond the boundaries of Ecuador because nature has rights everywhere."

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/11/29/headlines#7

[Lorien]

59. Awesome. nt

[sasha031]

43. this is great, Julian can change the world

[aranthus]

45. Does Wikileaks publish any other country's secret communications besides the US?

I checked their site, but I didn't see any.

[kgnu_fan]

49. You need to check the web, ton of information available - their site is under attack.

[aranthus]

53. I got to their site.

The only things that I found there were the Cablegate docs, US Warlogs and US wardiaries. Where are the leaks of Chinese, Iranian, French, Nigerian, and other countries' secrets? It's not that they're being blocked. Assange only posts embarrassments to the US. Why do you think that is? What is his real agenda?

[Hissyspit]

63. There is much much more than that that has been released on WikiLeaks for several years now.

Sure, I'd like to see more from Russia and China, but apparently they are better at creating fear in their whistleblowers. China blocks access to WikiLeaks.

What is your agenda?

[TroglodyteScholar]

70. Rumor has it...

...that some Russian info is going to come out.

[Lars77]

54. Ecuador offers residency to WikiLeaks' Assange

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - An Ecuadorean government official has invited the founder of the WikiLeaks whistleblower website to live and lecture in the country, days after the site caused an international uproar by releasing additional sensitive U.S. documents.

Deputy Foreign Minister Kintto Lucas told local media that Ecuador was attempting to get in touch with WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange to invite him to the country, praising his work as an investigator.

Ecuador is part of a leftist bloc of governments in South America, including Venezuela and Bolivia, that have been highly critical of U.S. policy in the region.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AT3D820101130

[COLGATE4]

55. Correa desperately seeking some attention. Hey, look at me -

I'm offering Assange asylum.

[naaman fletcher]

56. Perhaps but it's still a good thing. Nt

[EFerrari]

68. Correa is an attractive, highly accomplished and charming person.

How hard is it to pay attention to him?