Sneakers (1992)

….In a surprise announcement, the Republican National Committee has revealed it is bankrupt. A spokesman for the party said they had plenty of money in their accounts last week, but today they just don’t know where the money has gone. But not everybody is going begging. Amnesty International, Greenpeace and the United Negro College Fund announced record earnings this week, due mostly to large, anonymous donations.

No more secrets.

Hundreds of WikiLeaks Mirror Sites Appear

By RAVI SOMAIYA

Published: December 5, 2010

LONDON – The battle lines between supporters of the whistle-blowing Web site WikiLeaks and its detractors began to form on Sunday, as supporters erected numerous copies of the site on the Internet and the United States put pressure on Switzerland not to offer a haven to the site’s founder, Julian Assange.

Since several major Internet companies cut off services to WikiLeaks in recent days, activists have created hundreds of mirror sites, Web sites that host exact copies of another site’s content, making censorship difficult….

The genie never goes back in to the bottle.

Six months ago:

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange releases 100,000 encrypted secret files as insurance policy

by Greig Box-Turnbull, Daily Mirror 6/12/2010

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has sent out 100,000 encrypted copies of secret diplomatic cables as an insurance policy against being silenced.

The file is encrypted with a code so strong it is deemed unbreakable.

Mr Assange, 39, vowed if anything happens to him or the site a key to unlock the files will be released.

He took action in the face of attempts to crush his website, death threats and an arrest warrant…

That’s how you’re supposed to play 11 dimensional chess.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Robert Ludlum’s The Assange Supremacy

Posted by Zandar

….You had to have figured that Assange had something like this, a mutually assured destruction type backup plan, in case his site was obliterated. Putting out an example file and daring the NSA to break it is a damn good way to assure the US and other governments that he has the goods as well, and that calling his bluff would be a bad idea if he’s actually holding the cards. Should the NSA be able to break the file’s encryption, they only learn how serious Assange is on his threats.

Even better, you have to assume now that people will be ready to believe whatever this insurance file contains, even if it’s fantastic or not. Assange has the credibility right now based on the massively disproportionate reaction by world governments to his cable leaks. If Assange tomorrow completely fabricated files tomorrow purporting contact with aliens from another solar system, he’d have more credibility than world governments right now, and all sides know it. Even if the NSA is unable to break encryption on the file, they have to take that into account.

That’s why the lunatic idea of openly calling for Assange’s assassination plays right into his hands and ironically makes his position stronger. The calls for such action are by no means new but are increasingly getting louder…and more self-defeating by the day.

It’s a hell of a dangerous game he’s playing, but so far Julian Assange is playing it well.

(hat tip to They gave us a republic…)

Life imitates art imitating life.