WikiLeaks and the End of the Beginning
Hey,
I wanted to send a letter to Wikileaks about Bitcoin since unfortunately they’ve had several incidents where their funds have been seized in the past.
http://wikileaks.org/media/support.html
Anyone know where to send a message to them?
Looking on the bright side, if Bitcoin did get known as the Wikileaks currency, attacked by governments all over the world, at least we’d get our Wikipedia page back!
Looking on the bright side, if Bitcoin did get known as the Wikileaks currency, attacked by governments all over the world, at least we’d get our Wikipedia page back!
This is so true. There certainly wouldn’t be a shortage of “reliable sources” about Bitcoins at that point. I think it would likely show up on the front page of most newspapers and be talked about extensively on both radio talk shows and the other broadcast networks too.
For myself, I’m getting to the point to say “bring it on” in regards to Wikileaks. Note that I’m using my real name here instead of a psuedonym and I’m willing to personally say “bring it on” in terms of being associated with Bitcoins as a project. I’ve had police come into my house without my permission already and do all kind of stupid stuff, so for me that line being crossed has already happened. I am also connected to enough people politically that if something was to happen to me that it would be noted and things would happen too.
It is the morally correct thing to be supporting Wikileaks, and if they’ll take a few of my bitcoins, I not only want to donate but to let the world know that they can donate to Wikileaks through Bitcoins as well.
I can’t speak for everybody here in the Bitcoins community but I am speaking for myself on this matter, and I’m not afraid of anything that the U.S. government might do to me if I was associated with backing Wikileaks financially. If anything, it would show that I no longer live under a constitutional government any more. If the U.S. government wants to tip their hand to expose themselves in that way, so be it. If the U.S. government kills me or puts me in jail, I’ll certainly set a way for this community to find out. I really don’t think it would come to that either, but I don’t care if it did.
If I have to “vote” on this matter, I would encourage the Bitcoin community to take up the plate like we did with the EFF and encourage Wikileaks to put up a Bitcoin address on their website for donations. It would bring in some new blood into the Bitcoin community regardless, and it might be beneficial to Wikileaks as well. Leave it to Wikileaks to see if they want to use Bitcoins or not. In terms of governmental review of Bitcoins, we know that is going to happen sooner or later, so why are we fighting that inevitable result? Anything other than a low-key investigation is only going to make more people interested in Bitcoins, which is only going to help the project even more. It can’t be killed as a project, only slowed down a little bit in its growth at this point and more likely its adoption would be accelerated by any kind of publicity that would happen.
The only possible concern I would have is over how sound the protocol itself is right now. If anything, a major flux of new people into Bitcoins would help there too, and the worst that could happen is that Bitcoins itself would be broken in some way where a new cryptocurrency would have to be created fixing the problems of Bitcoins. It is the idea of cryptocurrency that would then persist, and it is incredibly hard to censor an idea.
Basically, bring it on. Let’s encourage Wikileaks to use Bitcoins and I’m willing to face any risk or fallout from that act.
— Robert S. Horning Logan, Utah
With paypal down I’m increasing my pressure upon their board of directors to get a bitcoin address up.
With paypal down I’m increasing my pressure upon their board of directors to get a bitcoin address up.
So you decide to ignore the long discussion and just do it?
Listen to people’s argument, make a decision, give a reasoned case for what you’re going to do, and then do it.
Also, it would be nice if you explain what kind of “pressure” you’re doing. You represent the rest of the bitcoiners here, so it’s nice to know how bob182 is acting on our behalf.
Also, it would be nice if you explain what kind of “pressure” you’re doing. You represent the rest of the bitcoiners here, so it’s nice to know how bob182 is acting on our behalf.
bob182 is certainly not acting on my behalf, nor several others, as these threads seem to indicate.
And for Pete’s sake, bob182, please don’t misrepresent yourself as some sort of official Bitcoin representative.
Wikileaks is the enemy of major world powers right now, with many influential elites feeling that Assange committed an act of war against the United States, or, at a minimum, irrevocably disrupted world affairs. This is not some mailing list discussion or theoretical exercise; there are very real, very powerful organizations actively targetting wikileaks’ network infrastructure, organizational infrastructure, and most importantly, financial infrastructure.
It is extraordinarily unwise to make bitcoin such a highly visible target, at such an early stage in this project. There could be a lot of “collateral damage” in the bitcoin community while you make your principled stand.
Quote from: kiba on December 04, 2010, 11:02:58 PM UTCAlso, it would be nice if you explain what kind of “pressure” you’re doing. You represent the rest of the bitcoiners here, so it’s nice to know how bob182 is acting on our behalf.
bob182 is certainly not acting on my behalf, nor several others, as these threads seem to indicate.
And for Pete’s sake, bob182, please don’t misrepresent yourself as some sort of official Bitcoin representative.
bober182 doesn’t need to have anybody’s permission to do anything. Even if he were to present himself as being ‘official’, the Wikileaks people are probably smarter than the average visitor of this forum, so they would be able to figure that out in less than a minute.
Does anyone have an idea of how large the Wikileaks group is? I know one guy who is in it, but two guys don’t make a group 😉 I suppose the actual members are a secret, but is the number too?
Or, to put in military terms, we know that wikileaks’ entire financial infrastructure is being actively targeted, and The Powers That Be have successfully destroyed one target in the past 24 hours.
Only cannon fodder would stand up and wave a red flag that says “shoot me” at such a point in time 😊
bober182 doesn’t need to have anybody’s permission to do anything.
This isn’t about a permission issue.
I just want bober182 to be a responsible member of the community. He’s going in there, contacting the organization, when it is clear that members of the community don’t think it is the best idea. He didn’t address any of our concerns. He didn’t give us any details what he is planning to do, except putting additional “pressure” which could mean anything from “being pushy” or selling “snake oil”.
This is akin to somebody just go in there, with no plans and guns blazing, costing half of his squads and then costing us a war in the long run.
The wikileaks board of directors has 10 members + JA, then there are about 150~200 staff, and under that are 1400 volunteers.
Basically, bring it on. Let’s encourage Wikileaks to use Bitcoins and I’m willing to face any risk or fallout from that act.
No, don’t “bring it on”.
The project needs to grow gradually so the software can be strengthened along the way.
I make this appeal to WikiLeaks not to try to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a small beta community in its infancy. You would not stand to get more than pocket change, and the heat you would bring would likely destroy us at this stage.
Quote from: Anonymous on December 05, 2010, 5:31:02 AM UTCSeems that the main politician this embarrassed was Hillary Clinton.
Either the pentagon or the cia leaked these papers.
*Points finger at Robert Gates .
I’m sorry…I’m not totally following you…could you elaborate? Why would Robert Gates want to release videos of US Troops murdering Iraqi civilians?
Because the pentagon and the cia are in a tussle for control. It makes the military look bad.
Why isnt the US spying on UN officials and torture committed under the Bush administration being investigated? That is the real crime in all this. Instead they are focusing on assassinating Julian . That tells me everything about the morals of the people involved.
Quote from: RHorning on December 04, 2010, 10:17:44 PM UTCBasically, bring it on. Let’s encourage Wikileaks to use Bitcoins and I’m willing to face any risk or fallout from that act.
No, don’t “bring it on”.
The project needs to grow gradually so the software can be strengthened along the way.
I make this appeal to WikiLeaks not to try to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a small beta community in its infancy. You would not stand to get more than pocket change, and the heat you would bring would likely destroy us at this stage.
I strongly agree with this sentiment, bitcoin is young, we should behave accordingly. We should be working hard to grow and mature bitcoin with a goal that one day it will be of the standard and quality that it can be a great help for Wikileaks.
I suggest that when the bitcoin community commits to the sustained donation of more than 50% of Wikileaks operating expenses at a time to consider a formal relationship.
Until then, let’s not use Wikileaks as a cheap publicity stunt, but rather a goal that we use to spur us on to develop this ‘bitcoin’ tool that will help support the important work that Wikileaks is doing on freedoms behalf.
Ps. In another post I voiced a differing view, which Wikileaks and bitcoin could enter into a mutually beneficial relationship for development; however I have since revised this view, under the account of the different maturities between Wikileaks and bitcoin. Wikileaks is mature, while bitcoin is (relatively) immature. It would not be a balanced relationship.
Quote from: RHorning on December 04, 2010, 10:17:44 PM UTCBasically, bring it on. Let’s encourage Wikileaks to use Bitcoins and I’m willing to face any risk or fallout from that act.
No, don’t “bring it on”.
The project needs to grow gradually so the software can be strengthened along the way.
I make this appeal to WikiLeaks not to try to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a small beta community in its infancy. You would not stand to get more than pocket change, and the heat you would bring would likely destroy us at this stage.
Wow. Satoshi gets more than “just one vote”… in my opinion.
Let’s not let this issue divide us.
RHorning, and others, your commitment to what’s right, freedom of the press, etc is inspiring. It makes me want to support Wikileaks even more than ever.
Also, our hero in Congress, Ron Paul, coming out supporting Wikileaks… is very inspiring too. ( Did you see this? Ron Paul - Julian Assange - Federal Reserve | http://goo.gl/NIBsk )
I propose a win-win solution to this.
Let’s form a Wikileaks Support Task Force… where we brainstorm about ways to help Wikileaks … without bringing Bitcoin into the battle (or “war”).
We are a large group of very smart guys here. We can probably put our heads together and think of 1000 ways we could help Wikileaks … even in areas around funding, donations, etc… WITHOUT recommending Bitcoin. There are so many ideas we could give them. Even, in the area of money, recommending other alternative payment systems … Liberty Reserve? I don’t know… But you guys do! Recommend something far better than PayPal --- super easy for Americans to use --- (but something other than Bitcoin). MoneyBookers.com? GoldMoney.com? Paxum.com? You tell me…
We can put our collective heads together and come up with 1000 great ways we can HELP Wikileaks achieve what they need… without mentioning Bitcoin.
Honestly, I’m not sure that Bitcoin really is their best alternate funding channel anyway. It’s NOT EASY for Americans to buy and send Bitcoin yet!
Just after my radio interview the other day, I spent 40 minutes on the phone with a lady who called me from Toledo. She wanted me to talk her through the entire process of creating an account at MyBitcoin, then buying Bitcoin on BitcoinGateway… It was excruciating. This woman had never used copy & paste before. Apparently, she never did fully complete the purchase verification process.
My point is:
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Bitcoin is not ready for typical American users yet --- especially not millions of people all trying to use BitcoinGateway at once! Poor chaord will be pulling his hair out… and probably taking his site & service off-line completely, as a result.
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If we try not to be biased, we will see many other funding mechanisms that are probably much better suited for immediately use by average Americans, in USD, at this moment in time. Paxum?
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Let’s promote, propel, and support Wikileaks in every way.
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Let’s promote, propel, protect, and support our greatest tool of the 21st Century, Bitcoin, in every way. …at the same time.
Bitcoin is our secret weapon in this “war”. It is our Big Gun. Let’s save it, preserve it, protect it, strengthen it… and when the time is right, it will change everything.
If it gets too much bad publicity now… it’s mainstream adoption could be delayed by DECADES. Seriously.
While they’re busy trying to figure out how to block Wikileaks DNS …
We are quietly getting all the world’s most respected charities to accept Bitcoin. Then, all local barter clubs and local alternate currency groups, we convince to “join the Bitcoin electronic network”… Then, we get the world’s most respected businesses to accept Bitcoin. All the while … Bitcoin is getting stronger and stronger… going more and more mainstream … with every passing day. Under their radar. Right under their noses. In a way, it’s using Bitcoin’s obscurity to its best advantage… for this stage of its growth.
The giant Redwood … with a tiny ax… and a chop chop chop chop every day… it comes falling down.
Quote from: RHorning on December 04, 2010, 10:17:44 PM UTCBasically, bring it on. Let’s encourage Wikileaks to use Bitcoins and I’m willing to face any risk or fallout from that act.
No, don’t “bring it on”.
The project needs to grow gradually so the software can be strengthened along the way.
I make this appeal to WikiLeaks not to try to use Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a small beta community in its infancy. You would not stand to get more than pocket change, and the heat you would bring would likely destroy us at this stage.
This is exactly what I was saying all along, but nobody is listening. Bitcoin is not yet stron enough to take on such a huge task.
Pushing bitcoin on wikileaks will kill bitcoin, and still it won’t help wikileaks a lot.