
Julian Assange Status – Time since last proof of life: 46 days - level09
http://assange.net/
======
jlmorton
Isn't the simple answer that the embassy of Ecuador in London cut off his
access to the Internet? The embassy announced they had restricted his access
to the Internet beginning October 17th.

[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/19/wikileaks-
ecua...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/19/wikileaks-ecuador-
julian-assange-internet-access)

~~~
level09
This sequence of events can give some light on the issue (quoted from 4chan):

Oct 20th/21st: Wikileaks tweets 5 tweets with misspelled words. The incorrect
letters spell "HELP HIM". The Wikileaks twitter has never made a spelling
error, let alone 5 in two days. [1]

Oct 21st: Massive DDoS attack on US internet. Wikileaks tweets to imply the
attack originates from its supporters, asking them to stop, no evidence
supports claim.

Oct 21st: London Airport evacuated due to "chemical attack", potentially used
as cover to fly Assange out of country.

Oct 22nd: Gavin MacFadyen (mentor to Assange and key player in Wikileaks) dies
of lung cancer.

Oct 23rd: Wikileaks Tweets poll asking how best to prove Assange is alive (he
still hasn't appeared on video or at the window since).

Oct 24th: Wikileaks Tweets video of Assange and Michael Moore recorded in
June.

Oct 26th: 4chan users successfully successfully decode their first message in
Wikileak's blockchain. Threads are instantly flooded by shills saying that
it's not worth looking into. The blockchain is blocked with fees and 43000
unconfirmed transactions appear in the mempool.

Nov 6th: Huge DDoS takes down Wikileaks for first time in years.

Nov 7th: Various entities notice hundreds of Podesta and DNC emails are
missing from recent leaks, accessed with direct entry.

Nov 8th: Trump wins.

Nov 12th: Assange meets with Swedish prosecutor regarding rape allegations,
lawyers barred from attending, meeting conducted via an Equadorian ambassador
(not face to face)

Nov 14th: Wikileaks releases insurance files, SHA-256 hashes do not match
those tweeted in October.

[1]:
[http://img.pr0gramm.com/2016/11/17/a4af28fa5ce1c059.png](http://img.pr0gramm.com/2016/11/17/a4af28fa5ce1c059.png)

~~~
tzs
> Oct 21st: London Airport evacuated due to "chemical attack", potentially
> used as cover to fly Assange out of country.

Cover for who to fly Assange out of the country?

When an airport is evacuated that's going to stop air traffic out of the
airport, and it is likely to cause enhanced scrutiny of the people who are at
the airport. If the people trying to get him out are _not_ working with the UK
government, that would not be the opposite of what they want.

If it was the UK government trying to get him out, they _could_ probably
arrange for a special flight to leave the airport while it is ostensibly down.
Of course, that would draw attention to that flight because you'd have
assorted airport workers see that a flight had received special permission to
leave a closed airport, and so it must be something very important.

Why would they do that, when if it is the UK government they could simply take
Assange in a windowless van to a UK military base and fly him out on a
military flight? That could easily be done in a way that would have virtually
no risk whatsoever of calling attention to the operation.

Actually, the same goes for anyone else trying to get him out. The hard part
in moving Assange is at the Ecuador embassy end of things, not at the
transport out of the UK end. If the Ecuador embassy is cooperating with the
move, then the windowless van works no matter who the party is.

~~~
dingaling
Furthermore, in addition to the practical aspects you list, it was actually
London _City_ Airport that was evacuated; that's the small, single-runway one
in the Docklands.

Because of its steep approach there are only certain specified aircraft types
permitted to operate there and anything untoward would be quickly spotted.

It's also 11 miles east of the Ecuadorian embassy, requiring a journey right
through the heart of the city. Whereas RAF Northolt is a much quicker and
easier trip to the north-west...

I think we see here how 'false news' starts. Unhelpful facts are omitted or
made ambiguous, and then mixed with a spoonful of conjecture.

------
wbhart
The first minute of this interview should clear this up quite quickly. Julian
Assange has certainly been seen alive recently, and certainly much more
recently than 46 days ago!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sbT3_9dJY4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sbT3_9dJY4)

~~~
wbhart
I'm sorry, but can someone explain to me why this would not be accepted as
proof of life? He is asked questions in the first minutes of the interview and
gives answers about events that happened this month. Isn't that conclusive?
Somehow I must be missing something.

~~~
rando444
Can you explain what events that you saw referenced in the video that happened
after Oct 16?

I'm not seeing it.

~~~
wbhart
In the first minute of the video, he is asked about "this final week of the
election campaign". Also, he refers to the following Podesta email that was
released on October 10th, which is quite clearly more recent than 46 days.

This is nothing more than a silly conspiracy theory.

[https://wikileaks.org/podesta-
emails/emailid/3774](https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3774)

~~~
rando444
Looking at the video more, I agree with you that this is more recent.

However, I don't see any reason to believe that wikileaks itself is not
compromised.

Wikileaks is saying assange is in control, wants to give proof, does not give
proof, releases hashes, releases files that don't match the hashes, and
despite all the calls for proof of life, they do nothing.. which if assange is
still alive is possibly his way of trying to get people to not trust wikileaks
anymore because it's been compromised and he can't say anything about it. (1)
because they're not letting him and (2) because ecuador might kick him out for
revealing the truth

Until the man himself gives some proof that he is alive and in control of the
organization, I see no reason to trust wikileaks.

~~~
wbhart
If you start going looking for evidence that you are right about this, you
will keep finding it, due to confirmation bias, and you will never let the
conspiracy theory go. The only thing which I think is reasonable to suspect at
present is that Assange's internet was cut off, and wasn't reinstated after
the election. Once you go beyond that you are into conspiracy theory
territory. To shut up the whole of Wikileaks in all the countries it operates
in, would be a conspiracy of such massive proportions that the chances of it
being pulled off are negligible.

If you think about it, Assange normally appears in interviews via some
internet based conference software. If he hasn't got internet, he can't do
that. So the only interviews you will see for a while are ones like Pilger's,
where the interviewer actually goes into the embassy.

~~~
rando444
I'm not looking for evidence that "I'm right".. I have nothing to be right
about, I'm not even claiming anything.

All I know is that it doesn't look like Assange has control of wikileaks
anymore, and until he offers proof himself that he does, I find it
unreasonable to just blindly trust re-assurances from nameless twitter posts.

~~~
wbhart
What possible proof could Assange offer to convince everyone that he is "in
control of Wikileaks"? And why should/would he do that for you personally.
There's probably a thousand people demanding Assange offer proof of this or
that.

~~~
rando444
I'm not suggesting he do anything for me personally (?) And yes, there are
thousands of people demanding proof that he is alive, that's the whole point
of this post.

The fact that he and wikileaks aren't providing this despite saying they want
to is the topic of discussion.

And as far as what possible proof.. GPG signed statement would be preferable.
This can easily be accomplished without internet. Even a video statement would
be somewhat acceptable. Wikileaks held a poll asking for how people wanted
proof, and video was the top response. None was supplied.

------
toyg
For the record, it looks like things are actually moving, with the Swedish
prosecutor finally meeting him at the embassy (and without his lawyer):
[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/14/julian-
assange...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/14/julian-assange-to-
face-swedish-prosecutors-over-accusation)

~~~
meric
The Swedish will only be talking to Ecuadorian embassy staff who will pass
questions in written form to Assange. They will not meet Assange himself.

~~~
sorenjan
The questions are asked by an Ecuadorian prosecutor and was supplied by
Swedish prosecutors earlier. The Swedish prosecutor and a Swedish police is
present at the hearing and is allowed to ask Assange to clarify his answers
but not to ask any new ones. A DNA sample will be taken if Assange agrees to
it. Ecuador has not permitted Assange's lawyer to be present against
Asssange's wishes.

Who knew Ecuador wasn't an ideal country for human rights? Is it possibly even
worse than Great Britain and Sweden?

[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/14/julian-
assange...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/14/julian-assange-to-
face-swedish-prosecutors-over-accusation)

[https://www.aklagare.se/nyheter-
press/pressmeddelanden/?news...](https://www.aklagare.se/nyheter-
press/pressmeddelanden/?newsId=C04E8A0A2B026877)

------
gotofritz
Counter-conspiracy: after the Reddit AMA in which most redditors were pissed
off and accused WikiLeakas to act in Putin's interests, Assange engineered
this drama as a way to regain his previous cult status among the digerati.

------
corey_moncure
The poll is missing an option: GPG-signed message with an un-knowable current
event.

~~~
x1798DE
I agree that that could be a proof of life, but in Assange's particular
situation, that _would_ be putting a good amount of faith in his operational
security with respect to his GPG keys. I try to keep good op-sec, but I'm not
sure that my GPG keys would be secure if someone had physical possession of
both me and my devices and the motivation to try and get at my keys.

------
Jamesbeam
This would all be super easy to end, for so many smart people in here you guys
are acting pretty dumb. Guess making up conspiracy theories is better than
actually finding a solution to get PoL.

According to the previous photos from Assange and the data that I could find
publicly, he's most likely in this part of the embassy.

[https://www.google.de/maps/@51.4991122,-0.1612139,3a,53.6y,2...](https://www.google.de/maps/@51.4991122,-0.1612139,3a,53.6y,214.36h,88.99t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sDxQ0uuKHq-
uKgRtnnErS-w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

A Vanity Fair article says:

"Assange’s living space, a former embassy office, is located on a ground-floor
corner overlooking a small dead-end street.His window sits above one of the
hundreds of thousands of security cameras."

That is also the part of the building where he talked to the press, and his
cat is sitting most of the time.

Now that we have established where he is most likely to find we look at how
far the office he is staying in is from the building on the other side of the
street ( what would be our observation point, I'll come to that later again.)

According to Google, that is surprisingly accurate for measurements the
distance is:

Total distance: 19.67 m (64.52 ft)

So let's say about 65 ft or 20m. Now how does that help us to find out if
Assange is still alive?

There is a technique mostly used by the military called "TTWS" (Through-the-
Wall Sensors). The portable devices in the price range up to $80k have a range
up to 65ft.

While this does not deliver a clear image of Assange if you had this running
from a window in the observation point across the street, there is a pretty
high chance you will see if someone stays / lives in that room.

The better devices also can give you a "signature" and work up to 230ft (70m),
so setting this up for a few days you will be able to track pretty precisely
who stays in that part of the embassy and if he left and came back to that
room.

So if you really care if he lives or not, if you start a crowdfunding or find
someone with such a device / willing to spend about $150k for a new device, a
ticket to London, and a few grand to bribe someone in the building across the
embassy to let you stay for a few days you could make a pretty good guess if
Assange is still in the embassy / alive.

P.S.: Just letting you know that this is a gray area and you'd most likely get
arrested if the Ecuadorian embassy finds out you do surveillance on them.

Also, I think Assange is well and alive, it plays into his cards greatly to
have people believe he got kidnapped / killed / exfiltrated.

At least I had a good laugh reading all these bullshit theories. Thanks for
the entertainment.

------
nxc18
Why do we care?

~~~
nodesocket
Agree, I'm not a big fan of Assange.

