
Google tags Wikileaks as a dangerous site - xname2
https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/safebrowsing/diagnostic/?hl=en#url=wikileaks.org
======
nl
The biggest downside to the NSA revelations is how quickly people accept
conspiracy theories.

Wikileaks just released a big email dump. People looked at it with Google
Chrome, and it detected malware in the archive. That blacklisted the site it
was downloaded from.

There is no big "Google is protecting the Democrats and hates Wikileaks".
Wikileaks was serving malware, and Google detected it.

~~~
gkoberger
Really? The takeaway I got from the NSA revelations was that it's now
completely reasonable to assume that Google/FB/Twitter/etc are working
directly with the government or politicians.

Twitter removed #DNCLeaks right while it was the top trending topic today.
Reddit paid staff has been suspending people who talk about Correct The Record
or the DNC leaks. Facebook admitted to filtering certain topics due to
political bias. Google just took down Wikileaks links. And while all of this
is happening, there's not a single mention of the DNC leaks on CNN, MSNBC,
Politico, etc.

You're right, this probably _was_ just a mistake... but is it wrong to
question it? Everything I've learned from the NSA leaks and the DNC leaks
shows that the media, politicians, the intelligence community, banks, large
tech companies, etc are all working together against the public.

~~~
nl
The alternative interpretation is that the #DNCLeaks don't seem very
interesting. I don't know why Twitter removed it (assuming that did happen),
but to me it looks like most of the same people tweeting about are also
tweeting about #Munich and or Tim Kaine, both of which _are_ trending. If I
was building a trends algorithm I'd try to aim for diversity of sources of
trends.

I have no idea about Reddit. The first search result I got for "Correct the
Record Reddit" was a Reddit post about some paid social media campaign by a
Clinton Super PAC.

The explanation for Wikileaks is pretty clearly correct, and Google no longer
is marking it as dangerous.

 _Not saying that 's happening here_

Well then what on earth are you saying? Vaguely insinuating bad behaviour is
pretty easy, especially if you then say that isn't what you are doing.

Like I said - it is easy to accept conspiracy theories. They are easy
explanations, but usually the truth is complex and involves multiple subtle
explanations which are much harder to think about.

~~~
gkoberger
I'm not saying _this_ particular theory is true. It's probably a mistake.

I'm just saying that it's completely reasonable to be suspicious and ask
questions, however, given that we have definitive proof that Google is known
to work with the government.

~~~
nl
"Work with government" means lots of things.

The NSA leaks proved that the NSA hacked Google's network infrastructure. That
isn't exactly "working with the government".

There are other things where Google does work with the US and other
governments. I believe they pass Flu Trends data to the CDC for example....

And _which government branch_ do you think that Google is working with here?

The #DNCLeaks thing is a anti-Hillary story, promoted mostly by bitter Bernie
Sanders promoters. There are some Trump supporters jumping on too, but they
seem a minority. It's inside-baseball for DNC wonks.

I could see an argument that someone at Google is a Hillary Clinton supporter
and therefore took it on themselves to take it down. That would be a dumb
thing to do, but at least would make sense.

But which government branch would try to get Google to do it? The White House
wouldn't be so stupid - it would leak in an instant. Some secret three-letter
agency? Why would they care? Some other department?

~~~
colordrops
> The NSA leaks proved that the NSA hacked Google's network infrastructure.

.

Total misinformation. They WORKED with the NSA. Do you not remember the PRISM
program?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_\(surveillance_program\))

You really should stop spreading ignorance and misinformation. You should also
disclose that you work in the National Security industry, at a Palantir
equivalent in Australia.

~~~
MichaelGG
Citation? Nothing there says Google worked with the government. In fact, the
article has Google saying the opposite. The slides just say "direct access"
with no clarification.

Can you point me to exactly what you're reading that indicates Google _worked
with_ the NSA ?

~~~
colordrops
You're joking right? This was national news when this was revealed.

You obviously didn't read the link: "The PRISM program collects stored
internet communications based on demands made to internet companies such as
Google Inc. under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to turn over
any data that match court-approved search terms."

~~~
emmelaich
Obeying the law is not "working with"

~~~
colordrops
The previous accusation was that Google was hacked and unaware that PRISM was
collecting data, which is what I was referring to. Please read the thread
before commenting.

~~~
MichaelGG
OK well in that case every person/company in the country "works with" the USG
since they comply with some laws/demands.

~~~
colordrops
Google initially denied that they complied with the usage of PRISM, until
documentation showed they were lying. Apple held out longer than Google, so at
some point they all had to decide that they were going to "work" with the USG.

~~~
MichaelGG
Please give me an exact citation. Perhaps update Wikipedia while you're at it?

~~~
colordrops
I've never edited wikipedia, but my understanding is that it is labor
intensive. I'll just provide a citation here:

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/19/us-tech-
giants...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/19/us-tech-giants-knew-
nsa-data-collection-rajesh-de)

~~~
emmelaich
The words "mandatory" and "compulsory" figure prominently in that article.

------
user837728
This is technically accurate since I found out myself this week when browsing
the AKP email leak. Some of the attachments in the emails were clearly malware
of some sort. See for example: [https://wikileaks.org/akp-
emails/emailid/27482](https://wikileaks.org/akp-emails/emailid/27482)

~~~
nchelluri
The exact same thing happened to me when I was downloading a email containing
a MIME base64 encoded PDF. I was curious as to what it was so I clicked the
download button and Chrome warned me that it was malicious.

Funny, it doesn't give that same warning on this URL now. I've downloaded it
and base64 decoded it but I'm slightly afraid to open it; I don't know how I'd
do it safely. On a VM with no internet connection maybe?

[https://wikileaks.org/dnc-](https://wikileaks.org/dnc-) emails/emailid/829

Space-broken URL provided above, if anyone wants it.

~~~
x0x0
use a disposable amazon desktop vm

~~~
popey456963
You can start a spot instance or something like pence and then remove it
minutes later.

------
Sylos
I figure this link needs to stand here somewhere, even if it's just for
someone trying to understand the political implications that this could have:
[https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-
seems/](https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/)

~~~
yuhong
And while I don't take all of the claims at face value, I do wonder why Google
supports the TPP.

~~~
2k03kv4r5p
It requires explanation that a multinational company would support a trade
deal?

~~~
rhizome
Good question. Do they support every single trade deal? Do they lobby
equitably between them? If not, then why this one?

~~~
argonaut
Since you're the one making the insinuations/argument, you should be answering
those questions for us.

~~~
rhizome
No problem! 1) No. 2) No. 3) Because they like what they think it will do.

------
AWildDHHAppears
I don't think there's anything to see here. Google now tags it as "safe." The
mechanism worked; the website administrators removed the malware, and the
warning was removed.

See! Everything works in a rational way. There's no conspiracy.

~~~
adrenalinelol
Eric Schmidt got spooked we were onto his trilateral commission
connections!!!111

/s

------
dpweb
More interesting is the debate here in the comments where people are unsure if
it's legal for them to _read_ something on the Internet. I doubt Google is
censoring Wikileaks. Too obvious. But startling is the chilling effect
nowadays.

------
astronautjones
it could be political, but it's probably because they're hosting all of the
attachments from all of the e-mails that were leaked - including spam

~~~
asuffield
(Tedious disclaimer: my opinion only, not speaking for anybody else. I'm an
SRE at Google.)

What you want to be thinking is: all of the attachments _including malware_.
Safebrowsing is an anti-malware system. Large collections of unfiltered email
invariably contain malware.

(I can't say much more than that, sorry)

------
tszming
[youtube.com]
[https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/safebrowsing/diagn...](https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/safebrowsing/diagnostic/?hl=en#url=youtube.com)

# Some pages on this website install malware on visitors' computers...

# Some pages on this website redirect visitors to dangerous websites that
install malware on visitors..

------
brudgers
Shows me "not dangerous" at UTC 00:43 22.07.2016.

~~~
avs733
ditto. UTC 02:05 03.07.2016

I wonder if this is related to them publishing emails containing unredacted
ssn and ccn information...

~~~
wutbrodo
I highly doubt it. Unredacted SSN and Cc numbers aren't "dangerous" to the
reader by any stretch of the imagination. It's much more likely that it's
malware or something, in the email attachments.

~~~
avs733
probably more accurate

------
rbolla
its not a dangerous site anymore...

as of 7:15 PM PST.

[https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/safebrowsing/diagn...](https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/safebrowsing/diagnostic/?hl=en#url=wikileaks.org)

~~~
lucb1e
> 7:15 PM UTC-8

Fixed that for you. Not everyone know every timezone ever, but we don't need
to because with UTC it's very simple arithmetic.

~~~
brute
Even worse, sometimes different timezones share the same acronym.

[https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/](https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/)

------
cesarbs
If you refresh the page multiple times, it switches between "Not dangerous"
and "Dangerous downloads".

------
dljsjr
I'm not sure that this is completely tin-foil hat worthy.

I was working at a defense contractor in 2010 when the big leak of all the
cables occurred, and was forced to learn a lot of things I wouldn't have
otherwise, including something that maybe a lot of people don't fully grasp:

When stuff like this leaks, if any of the information is considered
sensitive/classified/restricted in any manner, the act of it being leaked does
not dissolve its restricted status. In other words, if you are a regular US
citizen and you go to Wikileaks and look at something that is classified
without having the proper security clearance, then you're now on the wrong
side of the law.

I don't think there's any political shadiness going on here, I think Google is
just trying to be on the correct side of the system. Whether or not that
system is on the right side of some moral or ethical line is a different
conversation entirely.

~~~
dragonwriter
> When stuff like this leaks, if any of the information is considered
> sensitive/classified/restricted in any manner, the act of it being leaked
> does not dissolve its restricted status. In other words, if you are a
> regular US citizen and you go to Wikileaks and look at something that is
> classified without having the proper security clearance, then you're now on
> the wrong side of the law.

I'm pretty sure this is wrong: regular citizens are _not_ prohibited from
viewing classified material without clearance.

OTOH, if you are in particular government or government-contract jobs
(including, at least, all jobs that involve a security clearance), you _are_
prohibited from any viewing classified material you aren't cleared for (and, I
believe, also have all kinds of required reporting processes if you discover
you have unintentionally been exposed to such information.)

~~~
dljsjr
There's a good chance this is true: I'm going off what I was told, which being
that I was at a government contractor was probably largely FUD because they
didn't want me doing anything that would jeopardize their business (I may not
have ended up in jail but I would have cost them a lot of money and probably
would have been fired).

Somebody much more knowledgeable than me can chime in on this.

~~~
dragonwriter
Yeah, and if it was a defense contractor, its quite likely that a substantial
number of people (maybe everyone) in the firm may have actually been subject
to the kind of rules you describe, even when most citizens are not.

------
throw2016
This really doesn't matter. The kind of people who are concerned about the
information revealed by wikileaks, Snowden, Manning and the burgeoning
surveillance infrastructure have little reason to trust what Google says or
does.

What seems off is the default kneejerk response especially in places like HN
where one would assume a far more informed audience - working in the industry
which is spearheading this - to brush things under the carpet or make
discredited, desperate and increasingly irrational references to conpiracy
theorists.

There have always been conspiracy theorists and always will be, but the
current narrative on surveillance has moved so well beyond that point that to
have this discussion tarred by these tired and banal references to conspiracy
theorists is completely disingenious and makes those making these arguments
look out of touch.

If you know what has been revealed so far it should not be difficult to engage
with some degree of seriousness at the issues at hand without immediately
resorting to strawmen.

------
daveloyall
Update: Over the weekend, I encountered some guy at a store who probably
doesn't read HN. He believed that Google was deliberately filtering out WL for
political/conspiracy reasons.

When I explained the automated malware protection (Safe Browsing or whatever
the call it), he accepted that explanation (I had him at "emails have
viruses") but he countered that "google filtered out wikileaks last time".

This concludes today's observation from IRL.

------
fixermark
"Current Status: Not dangerous."

Did this change in the intervening (clock-check) 4 hours, or is there some
definition of dangerous I'm missing?

------
retox
Andrew Simpson was possibly the first to report. Comes very soon after DNC
email leak.
[https://twitter.com/Andrewmd5/status/756529847762087936](https://twitter.com/Andrewmd5/status/756529847762087936)

------
rocketgoldstar
WikiLeaks has a well documented history of knowingly distributing malware.
Dates back years at this point.

------
jusob
[https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/safebrowsing/diagn...](https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/safebrowsing/diagnostic/#url=wikileaks.org)

------
smoyer
As of approximately 1000 EDT (US) on 07/23/2016, the link above gives the
status of wikileaks.org as "Not Dangerous".

------
miliefsky
WikiLeaks.org is NOT SERVING MALWARE today. I validated this against 210
malware URL block lists with over 2.4m domains loaded in real-time in our
NetSHIELD appliances. www.snoopwall.com Gary Miliefsky, CEO

------
miliefsky
WikiLeaks is not serving malware. I checked it today. Gary Miliefsky, CEO,
www.snoopwall.com - sounds like someone wants you to NOT VISIT WikiLeaks.

------
seoguru
I am not getting the warning on my browser chrome 52.0.2743.82 beta

------
mjwilliams
It says "not dangerous"

------
faddat
Well, in that case, they probably really are working for Killary.

Damn, I thought google was one of the good guys.

------
prashant10
actually it doesnt anymore...

------
MooBah
Welp, GJ - Google Changed it back.

------
MooBah
yelp - looks google changed it back. GJ Thread!

