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Echoes from the Digital Frontier
Two interesting, semi-related items caught my eye this week.
The Rehabilitation of Julian Assange
Just a few short years ago, he was despised and rejected of men and women on the conservative side of the aisle for revealing information about Guantanamo and the NSA’s efforts to spy on friend and foe alike. The same people on social media who called him a traitor and demanded he be shot for damaging our intelligence-gathering abilities are now praising him for revealing the true depth and breadth of Clinton’s corruption.
It’s been my contention for a while now that the old labels of “conservative” and “liberal” will soon go away and be replaced with one side that embraces personal freedom and personal responsibility in all its forms, and one side that rejects such things in favor of centralized control and identity politics. Now that Julian Assange is a hero to some members of the conservative movement, maybe we can get serious on solving the problems of big-government liberalism and its invasive, pervasive role in our lives.
War Has Been Declared, And No One Noticed It
An American hacker by the name of “Jester” sent a shot across the bow of the Russians by hacking into the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Visitors to the website yesterday were greeted with a loud air-raid siren playing in their browser saw a note telling the Russian to cool their (virtual) jets.
Comrades! We interrupt regular scheduled Russian Foreign Affairs Website programming to bring you the following important message … Knock it off. You may be able to push around nations around you, but this is America. Nobody is impressed.
“Jester” is no hacker-come-lately. He’s taken down a number of websites related to Islamic Jihad and is no fan of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who brought Wikileaks to the forefront of American culture by leaking the aforementioned NSA documents on Gitmo, Iraq and other classified subjects.
Information is a weapon, and like all weapons, it can be used for offense or defense. In the 1991 Gulf War, satellite-guided weapons and air superiority showed that to the world. On the modern battlefield, if it can be seen, it can be destroyed with a guided bomb. Wikileaks, “Jester” and other hacktivists are taking those same principles into the information age and are changing how information is used and abused in our society. In today’s world, if you want to find out someone’s secrets, you probably can, whether they like it or not.
What that means for our future, we don’t really know yet.
Published in Technology
I have heard this asserted but have yet to come across it myself. Many do seem pleased at Clinton’s corruption being revealed but I have not heard praise for Assange himself being spoken.
Certainly it is possible to be pleased with the deed while having no respect for the man.
I think it’s a stretch to say finding a use for Assange means that he’s been rehabilitated. However, it’s possible that I’ve just missed those who have crossed the line from viewing his revelations as a tool to outright praise. That’s not a good idea IMO.
Assange is an insufferable bore with an oversize sense of importance about his role in the world. I’ve always been uncomfortable with the idea of wikileaks and state secret reveals; at least the Democrats are feeling the same exposure Republicans felt when Bush was president.
Just one more disgusting element of this election. Julian Assange is a traitor, and still is. The enemy of my enemy is still my enemy.
I hadn’t seen this latest by Jester, so thanks for sharing. It’s interesting you post this, though. Sunday night I was talking to my Dad, and told him that the coming wars will not see a single shot fired; they will all by cyber wars. This article is also worth a read to understand the spywar with Russia.
I don’t even know where this information comes from to evaluate Assange’s personality, but i suspect it’s the hate media. I know about Wikileaks, but wouldn’t be able to pick this Assange person out of a police lineup. I suppose he really exists, though.
There have always been some on the right with an envy for Putin’s authoritarianism, which leads to an enthusiasm for the Putin media (Breitbart and pals). There are some who have switched their views, but most on the real (not alt) right despised the rapist before and despise him now. A similar thing is true for the left. Regrettably, the alternatives have a loud voice right now, but the voice has just been empowered, not created.