
Ola Bini, Swedish Software Developer with Ties to Assange, Arrested in Ecuador - synthc
https://nypost.com/2019/04/12/software-engineer-close-to-julian-assange-arrested-while-trying-to-leave-ecuador/
======
maxheadroom
>" _He has been detained simply for investigation purposes_ "

And then

>" _Ecuadorian diplomats told their counterparts in the UK that they were
worried that Assange’s associates would try to seek revenge with cyberattacks
and information leaks if he was handed over.

Britain agreed to assist Ecuador in shoring up its cybersecurity, the
newspaper reported._"

If I'm reading the subtext here, correctly, Bini was arrested but not charged
with anything, presumably as a measure to keep him from orchestrating
"retaliation".

>" _Ecuadorian officials believe Bini may be part of a blackmail ring
assembled to pressure President Lenin Moreno and his government to allow
Assange to remain in the embassy, according to the Times of London._ "

I don't see how they can claim blackmail, if the INA Papers were released
_before_ they ousted Assange. Isn't this the antithesis of how blackmail
works...?

Edit: Ecuador is now saying hacking is the charge, it sounds like (admittedly,
my Spanish isn't that great).

[https://www.fiscalia.gob.ec/ciudadano-sueco-fue-procesado-
po...](https://www.fiscalia.gob.ec/ciudadano-sueco-fue-procesado-por-presunto-
ataque-a-la-integridad-de-sistemas-informaticos/)

~~~
jm4
It was reported that Assange had a “panic button”. The report said that he had
directly threatened the government of Ecuador with with retaliation if
anything happened to him. I don’t have a link handy, but it shouldn’t be hard
to find.

There were also those strange tweets back in 2016 - codes or something, I
don’t remember clearly - and speculation about some sort of dead man switch.

Who knows if it’s true, but this seems to be what they’re worried about.

~~~
blhack
People have claimed this dead man switch thing, but it just seems to counter
to what Wikileaks has been doing for the last 10+ years.

If they had some crazy leak to make, it doesn’t seem like something they would
just sit on to use as personal leverage for assange.

~~~
wybiral
> If they had some crazy leak to make, it doesn’t seem like something they
> would just sit on to use as personal leverage for assange.

Really? They seem to have a narrow focus of interest with their leaks. I
wouldn't put something like that beyond them at all.

~~~
codewiz
Could you elaborate? Have they been leaking selectively?

~~~
digsy
WikiLeaks turned down leaks on Russian Government during U.S. Presidential
Campaign - [https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-
down-l...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-leaks-
on-russian-government-during-u-s-presidential-campaign/)

~~~
thevardanian
Yah. And Trump is still a Manchurian candidate that Russia controls.

From your article:

"“As far as we recall these are already public,” WikiLeaks wrote at the time.

"WikiLeaks rejects all submissions that it cannot verify. WikiLeaks rejects
submissions that have already been published elsewhere or which are likely to
be considered insignificant. WikiLeaks has never rejected a submission due to
its country of origin,” the organization wrote in a Twitter direct message
when contacted by FP about the Russian cache."

"A WikiLeaks spokesperson told the Daily Dot that no emails were removed from
what the organization published. The spokesperson also suggested the Daily Dot
was “pushing the Hillary Clinton campaign’s neo-McCarthyist conspiracy
theories about critical media.”"

~~~
wybiral
> WikiLeaks rejects all submissions that it cannot verify. WikiLeaks rejects
> submissions that have already been published elsewhere or which are likely
> to be considered insignificant.

They published the PizzaGate conspiracy theory.

~~~
jm4
They didn’t produce that story. It came from emails in the Podesta dump.
Several of them were about “pizza” and other food items and they were very,
very strange. They did not seem to be talking about food. In one of those
there was a reference to different color handkerchiefs and one with a map on
it. It appeared to be some sort of code speak because no one normal uses the
English language the way those emails do. From there, some internet detective
produced an alleged list of pedophile code words that included colors and
foods and there was some overlap with some of the strangest emails in the
dump. Then, someone alleged a link with a famous DC pizza joint.

~~~
wybiral
They put the conspiracy theory on their site [1], not just the emails. It says
"speculative" now, but it's there.

Why don't they put all speculative stories related to candidates on their
site?

[1] [https://our.wikileaks.org/Pizzagate](https://our.wikileaks.org/Pizzagate)

~~~
jm4
Huh. Didn’t know that. I stand corrected.

------
synthc
Ola Bini was on the core development team of JRuby, created the Ioke
programming language, and blogs about his research on privacy, security an
croptography: [https://olabini.com/blog/](https://olabini.com/blog/)

~~~
gimmeThaBeet
Ah, bingo, I was scratching my head trying to remember where I'd heard the
name, because I was sure it was definitely not in the Assange/wikileaks
context. That's certainly wild.

~~~
username223
Indeed. I heard of him back when he was a popular Ruby on Rails blogger, but
had stopped paying attention years ago. It's crazy to see him arrested in
Ecuador in association with WikiLeaks.

------
erpellan
Blog post from his employer: [https://autonomia.digital/cad/2019/04/12/ola-
bini-arrest.htm...](https://autonomia.digital/cad/2019/04/12/ola-bini-
arrest.html)

------
duxup
Is nypost reliable here?

In the past I've found them to be pretty much a celeb gossip mag and the
harder news they cover has similar skewed and sensationalized stories.

I hate to go down the path of questing every media source like happens these
days, but nypost in particular seems a bit of generally speaking.

Not saying I know any different that this story or if they're right / wrong.

~~~
thrwwy412947
The NYPost is the oldest newspaper in the US. It was founded by Alexander
Hamilton to push anti-Jeffersonian propaganda.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Post#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Post#History)

It is as reliable as the nytimes. Meaning it has a bias towards their
benefactors like every media source.

~~~
duxup
I'm not really sure history that long ago really is a good way to measure such
things.

~~~
thrwwy412947
Why not? The nature of the news industry hasn't changed fundamentally since
the 1800s.

~~~
duxup
The type of news / reliability a given paper provides can change.

I'm not sure Alexander Hamilton is relevant as to my question.

------
wslh
It is always fine to check double standards when these things happen. Just
remembering when Augusto Pinochet was freed in UK [1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment_and_arrest_of_Augus...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment_and_arrest_of_Augusto_Pinochet#Arrest_in_London)

~~~
kmlx
that was a very interesting case back in the day: “Despite his release on
grounds of ill health, the unprecedented detention of Pinochet in a foreign
country for crimes against humanity committed in his own country, without a
warrant or request for extradition from his own country, marks a watershed in
international law. ”

------
sandebert
He's also a former columnist for the largest IT newspaper in Sweden, called
Computer Sweden.

A search for his name brings up lots of columns (Swedish only, sorry):

[https://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.50095?actionType=search&queryTex...](https://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.50095?actionType=search&queryText=ola+bini&articleType=0&publicationSelect=0&dateRange=4&sort=1)

------
coldtea
In "totally unrelated" news, IMF approved a multi-billion loan to Ecuador last
month:

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecuador-imf/ecuador-
inks-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecuador-imf/ecuador-
inks-4-2-billion-financing-deal-with-imf-moreno-idUSKCN1QA05Z)

------
huxflux
"underground networks", that made me laugh.

------
jasonvorhe
> Ecuadorian officials believe Bini may be part of a blackmail ring assembled
> to pressure President Lenin Moreno and his government to allow Assange to
> remain in the embassy, according to the Times of London.

Ouch. Don't miss with nation state officials.

------
lgleason
I'll bet you that if you pull further on that string past Ola you will find a
lot more that just him. Software has a lot of loud activists, private
organizations that hire based on political ideology with ties to governments
and many underground networks.

~~~
SahAssar
Have something substantive to back any of that up? It just sounds like vague
conspiracy fluff right now.

