<story><title>Wikileaks: Julian Assange&apos;s internet access &apos;cut&apos;</title><url>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37680411</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tptacek</author><text>No, it&amp;#x27;s pretty well known that Assange &lt;i&gt;claims&lt;/i&gt; to have a vendetta against HRC. The details of that vendetta don&amp;#x27;t make much sense. It&amp;#x27;s clearly easier for him and his supporters to claim that they&amp;#x27;re acting out of enmity towards Clinton --- a minor figure in virtually all of Assange&amp;#x27;s dealings with the US --- than to simply cop to the fact that they are aggressively and overly supporting Donald Trump.&lt;p&gt;Nerddom and the left (and I&amp;#x27;m somewhere in the overlapping circles on that Venn diagram) have a powerful rooting interest in Julian Assange and Wikileaks, who many of us see as a vanguard of an effort to disrupt politics and the media, both of whom we as a demographic have little respect for. The simple fact is that Assange is campaigning for Donald Trump. But that&amp;#x27;s very hard for us to admit, regardless of the amount of evidence we&amp;#x27;re confronted with.</text></item><item><author>edanm</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s pretty well known that Assange has a vendetta against Hillary Clinton. Just searching for Assange Clinton on Google brings up lots of articles on the subject.</text></item><item><author>joshuaheard</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think Assange is a partisan. He&amp;#x27;s Australian after all and has no stake in this election. I think he is releasing info on Hillary because that is what he has and is timing the release for maximum public exposure. If he had similar info on Trump, I firmly believe he would be doing the same thing.</text></item><item><author>HillRat</author><text>On the other hand, &amp;quot;state actor&amp;quot; could certainly refer to Ecuador deciding to turn off Assange&amp;#x27;s access. WikiLeaks tends to be fairly economical with the truth about its own operations, so being purposefully ambiguous isn&amp;#x27;t anything new for them.&lt;p&gt;And, while Ecuador hasn&amp;#x27;t had to deal with meaningful diplomatic repercussions from sheltering Assange, the high-profile role WL is taking in the 2016 elections, and specifically the partisan and selective nature of their leaks, means that Ecuador is dealing with a very different qualitative situation than when WL was acting as an impartial if indiscriminate journalistic source.&lt;p&gt;In other words, Quito may very well be looking at the situation and deciding that being implicated in attempts to manipulate the US election is way more trouble than it&amp;#x27;s worth.</text></item><item><author>mikeash</author><text>They can&amp;#x27;t possibly isolate it to just Assange, so it must be the whole embassy.&lt;p&gt;My money is on this being an errant backhoe or similar, and Assange is just turning it into a big deal because he can.</text></item><item><author>jacquesm</author><text>- Is the whole embassy shut down?&lt;p&gt;- Is there any direct reason for the timing (US elections, attack on Mosul or other current headlines)?&lt;p&gt;- Was there any imminent release? (last week there was an announcement of a leak but it didn&amp;#x27;t materialize as far as I know)&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theverge.com&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;13159914&amp;#x2F;wikileaks-hillary-clinton-julian-assange-google&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theverge.com&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;13159914&amp;#x2F;wikileaks-hillary...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;- You&amp;#x27;d assume that Wikileaks the organization will continue to work even without Assange having internet access so what exactly will this accomplish other than lending support to Assange&amp;#x27;s stated reasons for hiding in an embassy to begin with?&lt;p&gt;edit: another comment here suggests the reason may be because his extradition is imminent.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;time.com&amp;#x2F;4532984&amp;#x2F;wikileaks-julian-assange-theories&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;time.com&amp;#x2F;4532984&amp;#x2F;wikileaks-julian-assange-theories&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>admax88q</author><text>&amp;gt; The simple fact is that Assange is campaigning for Donald Trump.&lt;p&gt;This is classic US politics.  This A vs B mentality is what leads to such a fierce two party system.&lt;p&gt;If you don&amp;#x27;t support choice A, then you are assumed to support choice B.  Any attack on Hillary is viewed as support for Trump and vice versa.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think that&amp;#x27;s a fair interpretation.</text></comment>
<story><title>Wikileaks: Julian Assange&apos;s internet access &apos;cut&apos;</title><url>http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37680411</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tptacek</author><text>No, it&amp;#x27;s pretty well known that Assange &lt;i&gt;claims&lt;/i&gt; to have a vendetta against HRC. The details of that vendetta don&amp;#x27;t make much sense. It&amp;#x27;s clearly easier for him and his supporters to claim that they&amp;#x27;re acting out of enmity towards Clinton --- a minor figure in virtually all of Assange&amp;#x27;s dealings with the US --- than to simply cop to the fact that they are aggressively and overly supporting Donald Trump.&lt;p&gt;Nerddom and the left (and I&amp;#x27;m somewhere in the overlapping circles on that Venn diagram) have a powerful rooting interest in Julian Assange and Wikileaks, who many of us see as a vanguard of an effort to disrupt politics and the media, both of whom we as a demographic have little respect for. The simple fact is that Assange is campaigning for Donald Trump. But that&amp;#x27;s very hard for us to admit, regardless of the amount of evidence we&amp;#x27;re confronted with.</text></item><item><author>edanm</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s pretty well known that Assange has a vendetta against Hillary Clinton. Just searching for Assange Clinton on Google brings up lots of articles on the subject.</text></item><item><author>joshuaheard</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think Assange is a partisan. He&amp;#x27;s Australian after all and has no stake in this election. I think he is releasing info on Hillary because that is what he has and is timing the release for maximum public exposure. If he had similar info on Trump, I firmly believe he would be doing the same thing.</text></item><item><author>HillRat</author><text>On the other hand, &amp;quot;state actor&amp;quot; could certainly refer to Ecuador deciding to turn off Assange&amp;#x27;s access. WikiLeaks tends to be fairly economical with the truth about its own operations, so being purposefully ambiguous isn&amp;#x27;t anything new for them.&lt;p&gt;And, while Ecuador hasn&amp;#x27;t had to deal with meaningful diplomatic repercussions from sheltering Assange, the high-profile role WL is taking in the 2016 elections, and specifically the partisan and selective nature of their leaks, means that Ecuador is dealing with a very different qualitative situation than when WL was acting as an impartial if indiscriminate journalistic source.&lt;p&gt;In other words, Quito may very well be looking at the situation and deciding that being implicated in attempts to manipulate the US election is way more trouble than it&amp;#x27;s worth.</text></item><item><author>mikeash</author><text>They can&amp;#x27;t possibly isolate it to just Assange, so it must be the whole embassy.&lt;p&gt;My money is on this being an errant backhoe or similar, and Assange is just turning it into a big deal because he can.</text></item><item><author>jacquesm</author><text>- Is the whole embassy shut down?&lt;p&gt;- Is there any direct reason for the timing (US elections, attack on Mosul or other current headlines)?&lt;p&gt;- Was there any imminent release? (last week there was an announcement of a leak but it didn&amp;#x27;t materialize as far as I know)&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theverge.com&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;13159914&amp;#x2F;wikileaks-hillary-clinton-julian-assange-google&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theverge.com&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;4&amp;#x2F;13159914&amp;#x2F;wikileaks-hillary...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;- You&amp;#x27;d assume that Wikileaks the organization will continue to work even without Assange having internet access so what exactly will this accomplish other than lending support to Assange&amp;#x27;s stated reasons for hiding in an embassy to begin with?&lt;p&gt;edit: another comment here suggests the reason may be because his extradition is imminent.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;time.com&amp;#x2F;4532984&amp;#x2F;wikileaks-julian-assange-theories&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;time.com&amp;#x2F;4532984&amp;#x2F;wikileaks-julian-assange-theories&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jacquesm</author><text>&amp;gt; The simple fact is that Assange is campaigning for Donald Trump.&lt;p&gt;One possible explanation for this is that Assange will support the candidate that he believes will hurt US interests most.</text></comment>