Touching on the topic hacking always reminds me of Steig Larsson's saga - Millennium trilogy - where Lisbeth Salander, the main character, is an extreme genius hacker which slips into the laptops of prominent political figures to determine truth.
She's looks like a teenage punk, weak and vulnerable; truth is, she is nowhere near that at all. She's smart, she's dangerous and she can any info she wants at all. What's worse, she's got an international network of anonymous hackers who does the same thing too. And a terrific journalist, Blomkvist to top it off.
Okay, I probably should stop my narration about the books, but through the books, hacking showed me a whole new light, it's not necessarily the bad guys (hackers) versus the good guys, but nowadays, it's the good guys (hackers) versus the bad guys. Similarly, the books sort of reflects to the case of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Hence, this week's reflection would be on Raffi Khatchadourian's 'No Secrets: Julian Assange's mission for total transparency'.
"WikiLeaks is a non-profit media organization dedicated to bringing important news and information to the public. We provide an innovative, secure and anonymous way for independent sources around the world to leak information to our journalists. We publish material of ethical, political and historical significance while keeping the identity of our sources anonymous, thus providing a universal way for the revealing of suppressed and censored injustices." - http://wikileaks.org/
With that said, who really is the mastermind behind WikiLeaks? The answer, is the tall mysterious Australian man, Julian Paul Assange. His mop of silvery white hair does remind me of Anderson Cooper, right? Point is, Julian and his team has shaken the world with their discovery on truth. On hard, raw truth of prominent parties, figures and organizations. Truth we didn't know but needed to.
Freedom of Information Act is no longer to be taken lightly when WikiLeaks, with bravado stood up and broadcast and expose to the world on dark evil things done behind everyone's back by the big boys. Of course I'm talking about the infamous case, 'Collateral Murder'. Take a look at the documentary done by WikiLeaks in publishing the truth about what happened in Iraq.
What do you think?
I think if it wasn't for this, I would be kept in the dark from things that I should know, from the things the society should know. If criminals were put to court and then pleaded guilty to jail, why shouldn't others as well who has done something wrong? Despite any statuses, what is wrong is wrong. There ought to be no secrets, the conclusion is just.
WikiLeaks receives about 30 submission a day and only posts the ones that is the most credible in its raw and unedited state. Imagine this, 30 submissions a day, from all over the world. This goes to say that, 'Collateral Murder' is merely the beginning, there are still a lot of behind the scenes that we're not aware of.
Hacking. Hacking was the only tool that made all of these possible. So have you changed your judgement towards hacking? Hacking doesn't necessarily means damaging or taking control of someone's computer and the information. Hacking can be just going into the system, extracting valuable information and then going back out without harming anything. At times these good hackers might just leave you a house visit gift by upgrading your system.
What do you guys think of WikiLeaks? Is it a breach of privacy? Think about the private and confidential information, is it really ethical to expose them? But think again, if these information are clouded with dark intentions and selfish purposes that concerns people, will it be more ethical to expose them? Which one is the real sin?
Well, we certainly do know what Julian Assange's pick is. But what about yours? Do you know what's behind the real scenes?
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My take is that what really concerns the benefit and welfare of people really should be taken into account for. Why let someone who has done wrong remain in the shadows and continue to exploit more and more? If a criminal gets caught for an offense, why must it be different for other wrong doers as well, albeit any status and class? An eye for an eye.
Alas, if these pricks aren't caught, ah well, Karma will do its work and come back and do its magic. (:
