Jaron Lanier's recent lengthy essay about Wikileaks... misses the central lesson of this affair: the increasing control of (relatively) unaccountable corporations and states over the key components of the Internet, and their increased willingness to use this control in politicized ways to impose a "dissent tax" on content they find objectionable. Ability to disseminate one's ideas on the Internet is now a sine qua non of inclusion in the global public sphere. However, the Internet is not a true public sphere; it is a public sphere erected on private property, what I have dubbed a "quasi-public sphere," where the property owners can sideline and constrain dissent.

I have to say that I agree with this. As I've said, the primary consequence of Wikileaks will be the tools, process, and laws that will be used in the future to suppress other leaks. The tool that seems to have emerged is deactivation of service by corporations in response to unofficial "requests" for cooperation made by senior politicians. That result is a worst case scenario for people who are concerned about due process of law and safeguarding fundamental rights. It means that any disfavored content can simply be removed forthwith. The "digiratti" ought to be focused on that problem, which is a real issue, rather that dithering about unrealistic cypherpunk fantasies about the collapse of states, which would only matter if things were drawn out to an extreme that they are very unlikely to reach in reality. I think the state's own recent aversion to the rule of law is a greater threat to its long term existence than the fact that secrets can be leaked on the Internet.

Tufekci presents her views on Wikileaks more comprehensively in this blog post which is definitely worth reading.

This kind of information only matters if it gets out to a wider public and even then only if it is presented within a particular context. If newspapers don’t print stories based on leaked information, if the very act of obtaining the information is can be portrayed to be criminal and treasonous, then the mere fact that the information is technically available to anyone who wants it will have no discernible consequence.

Wikileaks Exposes Internet's Dissent Tax, not Nerd Supremacy - Zeynep Tufekci - Technology - The Atlantic

Merry Christmas!

xkcd: Incident

The Internet as it is, which supports the abilities of Anonymous and Wikileaks, is an outgrowth of a particular design history which was influenced in equal degrees by 1960s romanticism and cold war paranoia. It aligned the two poles of the bit to these two archetypal dramas. But the poles of the bit can be aligned with other things.  The Internet can and must be redesigned to reflect a more moderate and realistically human-centered philosophy.

I haven't read this whole thing yet but I looks interesting.

The Hazards of Nerd Supremacy: The Case of WikiLeaks - Jaron Lanier - Technology - The Atlantic

Bruce Sterling on the Wikileaks drama - he rambles and errors but nevertheless manages to make some useful observations that haven't been made elsewhere:

As a novelist, I never think of Monica Lewinsky, that once-everyday young woman, without a sense of dread at the freakish, occult fate that overtook her. Imagine what it must be like, to wake up being her, to face the inevitability of being That Woman. Monica, too, transgressed in apparent safety and then she had the utter foolishness to brag to a lethal enemy, a trusted confidante who ran a tape machine and who brought her a mediated circus of hells. The titillation of that massive, shattering scandal has faded now. But think of the quotidian daily horror of being Monica Lewinsky, and that should take a bite from the soul.

Bradley Manning now shares that exciting, oh my God, Monica Lewinsky, tortured media-freak condition. This mild little nobody has become super-famous, and in his lonely military brig, screenless and without a computer, he’s strictly confined and, no doubt, he’s horribly bored. I don’t want to condone or condemn the acts of Bradley Manning. Because legions of people are gonna do that for me, until we’re all good and sick of it, and then some. I don’t have the heart to make this transgressor into some hockey-puck for an ideological struggle. I sit here and I gloomily contemplate his all-too-modern situation with a sense of Sartrean nausea.

Many of the comments are interesting too.

The Blast Shack

It seems the prospect of gigabytes of e-mail and other documents from financial institutions can be viewed one of two ways: as a treasure trove for regulators to scrutinize — or as an embarrassment for the United States government, which has spent millions of dollars investigating Wall Street in the last two years without a scalp to show for it.

Don't have probable cause? Steal the data and send it to Julian Assange - we leaked it becomes admissible in court! Problem solved!

Wikileaks as a 4th amendment loophole

The eclipse will actually begin when the moon enters the faint outer portion, or penumbra, of the Earth's shadow a little over an hour before it begins moving into the umbra. The penumbra, however, is all but invisible to the eye until the moon becomes deeply immersed in it. Sharp-eyed viewers may get their first glimpse of the penumbra as a faint smudge on the left part of the moon's disk at or around 6:15 UT (on Dec. 21) which corresponds to 1:15 a.m. Eastern Time or 10:15 p.m. Pacific Time (on Dec. 20).
The most noticeable part of this eclipse will come when the moon begins to enter the Earth's dark inner shadow (called the umbra). A small scallop of darkness will begin to appear on the moon's left edge at 6:33 UT (on Dec. 21) corresponding to 1:33 a.m. EST or 10:33 p.m. PST (on Dec. 20).

The moon is expected to take 3 hours and 28 minutes to pass completely through the umbra.
The total phase of the eclipse will last 72 minutes beginning at 7:41 UT (on Dec. 21), corresponding to 2:41 a.m. EST or 11:41 p.m. PST (on Dec. 20).

At the moment of mid-totality (8:17 UT/3:17 a.m. EST/12:17 a.m. PST), the moon will stand directly overhead from a point in the North Pacific Ocean about 800 miles (1,300 km) west of La Paz, Mexico.
The moon will pass entirely out of the Earth's umbra at 10:01 UT/5:01 a.m. EST/2:01 a.m. PST and the last evidence of the penumbra should vanish about 15 or 20 minutes later.

Amazing Spectacle: Total Lunar Eclipse Monday Night

I’d love to see a million social bookmarking sites bloom, both as new public services and self-hosted sites for friends.

Let a million bookmarks bloom – 0xDECAFBAD

No, we are not shutting down Delicious. While we have determined that there is not a strategic fit at Yahoo!, we believe there is a ideal home for Delicious outside of the company where it can be resourced to the level where it can be competitive.

delicious blog » What’s Next for Delicious?

In some kind of weird founder solidarity, the slide was originally posted on Twitter by MyBlogLog founder Eric Marcoullier.

Listed under the ominous “Sunset” are: Delicious, Altavista, MyBlogLog, Yahoo! Bookmarks, Yahoo! Picks

Is Yahoo Shutting Down Del.icio.us? [Update: Yes] [[Update 2: No]]

I wish I was responding to a transcript not a paraphrase but this will have to do for now:

Wainstein said that WikiLeaks had shown itself to be fundamentally different [from the press] in three ways.

[1.] While traditional media outlets focus on publishing newsworthy information to educate the public, WikiLeaks focuses on obtaining and disclosing any official secrets.

I don't see how the other things that you do are legally relevant to the question of whether or not its legal for you to do THIS thing. That is sort of like saying "its OK for person A to commit this crime because he is wealthy and is otherwise an upstanding member of the community but person B is a "criminal" and only exists to commit this crime and therefore he is culpable for his actions." Frankly, thats fucking bullshit.

[2.] The media also gathers news about sensitive areas of government operations through investigative reporting, he said, while WikiLeaks uses encrypted digital drop boxes to encourage disclosures of sensitive government information and circumvent laws prohibiting such disclosures.

You can write "Steal This Book," wherein you explain how to commit crimes and advocate that people commit them. You cannot, however, provide a specific person with specific advice knowing or intending that the person commit a specific crime. The former is freedom of speech. The later is conspiracy. As far as I know Wikileaks is an example of the former not the later. If they did the later, they have committed a crime.

[3.] The media also typically limits disclosures only to sensitive information that specifically relates to a particular story deemed to be of public importance. WikiLeaks, however, releases troves of documents with little or no regard for their relevance.

Wikileaks thinks they are all relevant. I don't think this gets you very far. Its ok to publish leaks as long as you can establish that they are relevant?

In his written statement to the committee (.pdf), Wainstein also cited Assange’s oft-quoted remark that he “enjoy[s] crushing bastards” as evidence that his release of sensitive information is “more personal rather than simply a public-minded agenda.”

I don't know the context for this remark but find me a police officer who hasn't muttered something similar.

Furthermore, WikiLeaks’ distribution of an encrypted “insurance” file, containing secrets that would be revealed if anything happened to Assange, “reflects a willingness to use his leaked documents for extortion and personal protection rather than simply to advance the values of transparency and public awareness,” Wainstein argued.

This one really bugs me. You have senior politicians publicly calling for this guy to be killed and then you accuse him of "blackmail" for having an insurance file. Its like a school yard bully who complains to the teacher when his victim fights back. The fact that they would make this argument is just disgusting.

Congress Hears WikiLeaks is ‘Fundamentally Different’ From Media | Threat Level | Wired.com