I love how he refuses to answer the only question that actually challenges his actions.

I love that in a world where few journalists are being trained any more, paid any more, given time to cultivate sources and deep background any more, he provided so much raw material. Mostly not secret, mostly not news, but there's gold in there.

With journalism more a game for high-speed data sifters than reporters now, this kind of thing may be the best we can hope to get from journalism for the rest of our lives.

http://wikileaks.info/

While WikiLeaks is under attack here you can get around censorship at the above link to servers overseas.

One used to be able to access is his IQ.ORG writings via the Wayback Machine, but no longer. He is extremely bright.

Jeepers, how old is that photo on the link? because I've always found him strangely attractive but in that picture he's flat-out hot.

Not to mention he seems pretty damn smart.

I was wrong; you can still access his writings here: http://web.archive.org/web/2007100914214…

Charles, please don't use the word 'rape'. The accusations actually involve consensual sex and a broken condom.

See: http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/12/02/when… , http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg… and elsewhere.

Chaotic Good is a Good way to be.

He is an entertainment celebrity for the chattering classes. Smart, self-important, image-obsessed, and while he produces some very interesting stuff I can't imagine any of it will be of consequence. The fact that everyone is using this information to justify their established politics suggests that it's just another source to feed standard rhetoric.

But the hypothesis about China he raises is very interesting and it would be a worthwhile experiment to dig for documents there. Anyone think WikiLeaks will try?

@9 - I beg to differ, Wikileaks has a long history of leaking various information "of consequence": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikileaks#L…
And what are you basing your claims of his image-obsession on, exactly? You must know him quite well.

@7, i know. i know. i was just playing with the atmosphere.

@10 Well, it's all very interesting, but what exactly has changed due to those leaks? Has Scientology gone out of business? Has Guantanamo closed? Has the BNP folded? Are we all global warming skeptics now? Is Hillary Clinton going to resign? Etc. All of this stuff has only served as fodder to support established politics. It hasn't changed the way people think, much less what they do.

As for image-obsession, I mean his constant posturing as a victim. Maybe it's just careful image management. The guy actually has people believing he's a target for assassination, and I think that's the way he wants it.

He's neither sinner nor saint - just your basic, misguided anarchist. I'll bet he and the Unpaid Intern would get along famously.

That Interpol issued a warrant for his arrest on the 'refused to wear a condom and i let him fuck me anyway' charges says a lot about how Western governments see these documents.

They pull back the curtain, but only reveal what we already knew.

"The rulers of this most insecure of all worlds are rulers by accident; inept, frightened pilots at the controls of a vast machine they cannot understand, calling in experts to tell them which buttons to push." W. Burroughs

Al-Quaida the dinosaur still goaded us into prolonged wars that are helping bankrupt us, while Assange is right, in America free speech doesn't change the power structure.

I don't get why everyone cares about this guy instead of the guy who stole the documents. Or the guy who first decided to trust the guy who stole the documents. Once the were stolen and uploaded, they would have stayed on the Internet with or without Wikileaks or this Assange dude.

Putting stuff out on the net and keeping it there in spite of official demands has been old hat since before Napster. At least since Bittorrent. Assange has just put his face on a thing that has existed and would have continued to exist without him.

But there is nothing inevitable about trusting morons with state secrets or letting said morons walk out the door with them. Or accessing them on machine that even has a CD burner? Fuck.

Or even why it was a necessary thing to state the obvious hundreds of thousands of times in writing when it is so embarrassing. It's stuff that everyone but naifs already thought and only delinquents or naifs said out loud. So why did they have to send so many of these compromising emails in the first place?

so is wikileaks his alter ego or is there any difference. will it go on after him? otherwise is 9 right or just a stupid asshole?
and is there anything about wikileaks that piratebay is not? it is a confluence of events, but those of you who like personality can see it through that lens. it is about 2010, communications, internets, thumb drives, distributed computed, decentralized speed of light terabytes. im not going to say its inevitable any more than me getting drunk this weekend is, but there is more to it than the person, and i actually think assange would take that view.

fucking The Matrix dude! Minidiscs! if you have a minidisc you can put it on piratebay. but if wikileaks publishes your disc, then shit, i guess its like getting a big record contract. ok ok

incidentally these were some good charlie rose programs this week on the matter:
http://www.charlierose.com/search/?text=…

rose, whose line i usually appreciate asked Stengel when talking about Assange, "So where do you think he is delusional"?

is he?

try http://tinyurl.com/26yugfd

yes this is my thread now

TIME: Man of the Year

who else?

Bradly Manning is the real hero in this current situation.

Props to Mr Assange and the Wikileaks crew for setting up a network of servers, and layers of encryption that has so far foiled attempts to take them apart.

Please be aware that the members of Wikileaks are under heavy surveillance right now. Their cellphones, chat sessions, and emails are all 100% monitored. And worse, their relationships are being fucked with in order to increase the stress on them personally. I know this to be true. These are classic Cointelpro tactics, and they are in full swing.

What is more important to YOU, personally. That people can leak documents that will expose those in power? That will ensure free speech? That will impact the running of nations? Or to just allow certain people to be successfully suppressed?

Rights only exist in the exercise thereof.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that our own government is OK with censoring our internet.

Welcome to China and the Great Firewall the sequel.

This will only get worse.

The world, and more importantly people in power, will never understand hackers, and they will always underestimate us.