834: Wikileaks

|< < Prev Comic #834 (December 15, 2010) Next > >|

Wikileaks

Title text: STUDENTS ARE CALLING PRESIDENT JOHNSON EN MASSE TO PROTEST THE BOMBING AND IT'S JAMMED THE WHITE HOUSE SWITCHBOARD. COULD THEY COLLAPSE OUR CRITICAL PHONE SYSTEMS? HAS THE FIRST TELEPHONE WAR BEGUN? STAY TUNED FOR MORE ON THIS DANGEROUS NEW TECHNOLOGY.

Anonymous' emblem. (from Wikimedia Commons)

Explanation

This comic references WikiLeaks, a site to which classified data can be sent for publication, while nobody would know who leaked the data. Many people dislike WikiLeaks, but proponents claim that, since government is supposed to work for the people, all government information should be available to anyone who wants to see it. WikiLeaks' actions are illegal in most countries, and the people maintaining WikiLeaks stay anonymous, with the notable exception of Julian Assange, the spokesperson. Among the supporters of Wikileaks are the 4chan-based activism/hacker group Anonymous, who, for the week or so prior to this comic's release, used DDoS attacks to take down servers for companies that aided the governments of the world in taking down Wikileaks and its CEO, Julian Assange. Amazon, PayPal and MasterCard were all targets of Anonymous. The claim 'We are legion' is a reference to Mark chapter 5 in the Bible, in which Jesus throws out a group of demons that call themselves Legion, "for we are many."

The comic imagines an ironic scenario in which WikiLeaks, the organization Anonymous fought to protect, stays true to their mission of releasing secrets to the public, and publishes the personal information of Anonymous members. The joke in the comic notes a contradiction in Anonymous's position, relying on strict secrecy of its members' private information while supporting an anti-secrecy organization like WikiLeaks. This may be a reference to an incident in 2009 when WikiLeaks published a leaked list of some of their anonymous donors, following their then-policy of complete impartiality regarding leaks.

In theory, Anonymous consists of everyone who takes steps to remain anonymous, not merely the hackers and criminals. In practice, Julian would merely have to post a list of Wikileaks contributors.

The title text appears to be a news wire from during the Vietnam War when Lyndon B. Johnson was President in the United States. The students were calling to protest the War, in what xkcd implicates as the first DDoS attack. A DDoS attack is a Distributed Denial of Service attack, one of Anonymous' favorite tactics, in which the attackers send vast quantities of traffic from many different points to take down a web server, or, in the case of the title text, a phone network. Taken as a whole, the title text satirizes news reports in which a DDoS attack is confused with an actual hack, as only in the latter does the attacker gain (partial) access to the system itself.

Transcript

[A black formal suit with no head is talking.]

Suit: We are Anonymous.

We are legion.

We are no one

and everyone.

And we are here to fight for WikiLeaks.

[The panel is presented as the front page of WikiLeaks, in a browser.]

New Leak:

Names, addresses, IPs, and phone numbers of everyone in Anonymous.

Download Now

Suit: ...Dammit, Julian.

 add a comment! ⋅  add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅  refresh comments!

Discussion

The third paragraph sounds awkward to me, and I couldn't figure out anything to do about it. Could somebody fix that, please? Kyt (talk) 03:15, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Had a crack, not sure its any less awkward, but it is more balanced Plm-qaz snr (talk) 10:21, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

:This could be Randall's criticism of Wikileaks for betraying the United States Government. Such a criticism would imply that Wikileaks gains allies, but needs betrayal and secrets in order to continue working. Randall could be implying that Wikileaks can only survive by betraying its supporters, as total declassification of the Government would render them useless. Equally, it could be just for laffs or a reflection on the risks of allying with a dispassionate organisation with a single agenda that could be as readily used against you as against its current target of the government. 

I don't think it is a crack. The students making a nuisance of themselves in the Johnson era turned out to be heroic. Who denies that, these days?

ummm ...my australianism may have been confusing "Had a crack" was an abbreviation of "i had a crack at it" meaning "i have had a go at fixing the third paragraph". No reference to cracks in the content or fracturing generally Plm-qaz snr (talk) 11:59, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

It's a paradox though and a joke in what Wikileaks does (in the comic.) Currently Julian Assange is being "held hostage" by the British government over a Swedish case the Swedes have no interest in. The FBI (ostensibly) unmasked the culprits in Anonymous' DDoS of the US government. Wikileaks have never given identities away. Shoddy security has seen it hacked though.

Who knows what else went on with heartbleed and the like. It is a sack of shit all around. I used Google News BEFORE it was clickbait (talk) 20:48, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I feel like we need an explanation for that IP address in the address bar. Incomplete? 108.162.218.35 14:04, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

    It is from japan from a quick search

bc wikileaks' isp terminated services to them, they were only accessible through their ip broke the interwebs jk (talk) 04:46, 12 October 2024 (UTC)