

Bashar Assad emails leaked by Anonymous - wslh
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/bashar-assad-emails-leaked-tips-for-abc-interview-revealed-1.411445

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mike-cardwell
These sort of mass email leaks _can_ be prevented by deploying PGP, and
configuring the incoming mail server to encrypt all incoming email with the
recipients public key, ala
[https://grepular.com/Automatically_Encrypting_all_Incoming_E...](https://grepular.com/Automatically_Encrypting_all_Incoming_Email)

Of course, they can also be prevented by people just deleting their email
after they're read it, instead of compulsively hoarding it.

~~~
mseebach
They can also be prevented by not using passwords such as "12345".

~~~
mikecaron
Yeah, that's the kind of password people use on their luggage!

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K95SXe3pZoY>

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Karunamon
Silly mikecaron, you know HN doesn't appreciate any kind of humor...

~~~
mikecaron
Guess I should have made that comment on Reddit!

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stfu
Finally! And I thought intelligence services would never grab that opportunity
to paint their activities on Anonymous. Got to give them kudos for coming up
with that password thingy as the "convincer".

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bilbo0s
You don't get points in intel by giving information away. This is the critical
juncture of a realignment in a critical region of the world. Not a made for tv
movie. I suspect no one is playing fast and loose with this particular
situation.

Highly likely it was actually Anon that did this.

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mladenkovacevic
I'm looking at some of the images in that slideshow in the middle of the
article. It's showing rebels with rocket launchers and AK-47s. Then it's also
showing destroyed armoured vehicles that I can only imagine belonged to the
government. I'm not denying that Syrian government is being very brutal in how
it's dealing with protests... but if the "Occupy" protests here in Canada and
in the States took up heavy arms, I would not be surprised at all if the
government's response was very swift and deadly.

~~~
msh
Yes, but did they take up arms before or after the brutal response and is the
Syrian government legitimate? (my understanding is after and no).

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mladenkovacevic
I mean either scenario is possible but yeah I don't know for sure.

I'm not sure how to think about the legitimacy of the Syrian government
though. Is any government legitimate? I know a lot of people don't like
Stephen Harper or Obama, but they deal with it until the next election.
Presumably the Syrian government was elected at some point too so they must
have some kind of support in the country. Indiscriminately killing peaceful
protesters would certainly destroy that legitimacy, but the images I mentioned
make me wonder if the army's response is totally unwarranted.

~~~
hnhg
It doesn't take long to look up that the Syrian government was formed as a
result of a coup decades ago, especially if you're going to make a comment
about it.

EDIT: Actually I think there is a good point in your post, but I still think
that familiarising yourself with the history of the country is necessary to
understand where they are now.

~~~
mladenkovacevic
I knew about the coup and I realize how ridiculous and meaningless a 1-party
regime can seem (I've lived under one myself) but that doesn't exclude
elections and political process from taking place. I did actually look up
"Elections in Syria" on Google and read through the Wikipedia entry here
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Syria> and also this article came
up where the opposition was apparently boycotting the elections (which is
understandable if you think the system is corrupt and don't want to
participate in the farce - hey it's how I feel about the Canadian elections
sometimes but I still go) <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-
east-16135298>

Also when I lived under said 1-party regime I have never seen people more
politically and socially engaged - and not just in a rebellious way. I live in
Canada now and most people are totally indifferent as to what happens in their
own community, let alone further afield.

I hope no one is reading my posts thinking "This guy is defending Hitler!
Stone him!" For all I know Syria could be far worse then anything I've ever
experienced. And in the end we kicked out our president too! (Although no
bazookas or AK-47s were involved) So this could just be a natural progression
of any authoritative regime.

~~~
CodeMage
_Also when I lived under said 1-party regime I have never seen people more
politically and socially engaged - and not just in a rebellious way. I live in
Canada now and most people are totally indifferent as to what happens in their
own community, let alone further afield.

I hope no one is reading my posts thinking "This guy is defending Hitler!
Stone him!" For all I know Syria could be far worse then anything I've ever
experienced. And in the end we kicked out our president too! (Although no
bazookas or AK-47s were involved) So this could just be a natural progression
of any authoritative regime._

Okay, I just don't get the reference. From your name, I'm guessing you
originally come from ex-Yugoslavia, just like me. Now, the only time I
remember the country was truly under 1-party regime was when the Communist
Party was in power. However, that didn't end in "kicking out our president".
If you're referring to Slobodan Milošević, by that time Yugoslavia (or what
was left of it) had multiple parties. True, Slobodan seized the power, but
there were other parties opposing him. And the only reason why "no bazookas or
AK-47s were involved" was because things didn't have the chance to get there,
because the army decided not to support him any more.

The whole point -- and I'm not the first one to point this out in this thread
-- is that resistance to dictatorship (or any deprivation of liberty)
gradually evolves from peaceful protests to violence.

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mladenkovacevic
Under Milosevic there were opposition parties but they had no real chance of
assuming power in elections (whether because of election fraud, or because
Milosevic had real support, or a little bit of both). All official media
channels were controlled by the government and the only choices for opposition
at that time had was to either get in bed with the Milosevic and reap some
benefits or to organize rallies and protests. Protests were largely peaceful
and lasted a long time. The main surge of protests that resulted in
Milosevic's downfall was in the fall of 2000 but I can assure you we were in
the streets for YEARS leading up to that. It wasn't swift by any means.

~~~
CodeMage
That's precisely the point I was making. Resistance starts with peaceful
protests and gets gradually more violent. The "main surge of protests" you're
talking about was a lot less peaceful than the initial peaceful protests. It
never got to the point of armed resistance, for two reasons: 1) Milošević
didn't go around killing ordinary people indiscriminately and 2) the army
decided to withdraw its support when he ordered them to disperse the
protesters.

What do you think would have happened if general populace started getting
slaughtered left and right? Sure, the vast majority of the people would've
shut up and bent down their heads, because shutting the hell up is a lot
better than having your kids shot or growing up as orphans. But some sort of
armed resistance would have surely sprung into existence.

I don't want to be unfair or rude here, but to me it seems that you are either
deliberately ignoring what people are trying to say in this thread or you're
having reading comprehension problems. It has been pointed out several times
that things in Syria started out as protests and turned into armed resistance
due to use of lethal force to suppress protests. By now it should be clear
what we're all trying to say. Using Milošević and his regime as a counter-
argument doesn't hold up, precisely because Milošević's dictatorship was quite
"benign" compared to extremes such as Syria.

~~~
mladenkovacevic
I am not arguing against anyone's opinion and concede that in Syria it is
perhaps too late for "peaceful protests".

But as an outsider I have to rely on "unconfirmed reports", "third party
accounts" and "anonymous youtube videos". Watch any newsreel and this is
exactly how every report from Syria is prefaced. I'm just trying to remain
objective.

Maybe my paranoia has reached unhealthy levels as result of propaganda in my
own life but I don't think it's unreasonable to consider exactly how the
conflict escalated to this point.

It's a little scary how people are quick to turn on you unless you blindly buy
into unconfirmed reports of government snipers indiscriminately taking out
civilians. Taking part in this kind of group think puts you on a fast moving
train towards a single resolution... when in fact there might be 2 or 3 forks
in the road that might result in less collateral damage.

And finally to re-iterate.. I am not arguing that Assad is not a bastard who
ordered the troops to shoot on civilians: so far he seems to most definitely
be that kind of bastard. I'd just like to retain my ability to keep an open
mind and consider all sides of the story. Ok now downvote away.

~~~
CodeMage
Now, _that_ I can completely understand and agree with. This is precisely the
source of... frustration, to use a mild term, a great part of the world feels
towards USA and, to a lesser degree, NATO.

From what I've seen over the years, it's _incredibly_ easy to get people
convinced that "we need to send our troops to fight for democracy and
freedom". Yes, the world has been peaceful compared to the World War 2, but
instead of a great world-wide war, we've been having lots of small wars all
over the place. The important thing is that it's "far from home", so everyone
can feel both safe and righteous.

And when it turns out that things weren't really the way media reported them,
people can have a round of "boo, shame on you government" and cheerfully move
on to the next target.

You call it "paranoia", I call it "a healthy dose of skepticism based on
empirical evidence", but I've been told it's merely "bitterness" :-P

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w43l
The leaked passwords <http://pastebin.com/uaYDfCz0>

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yread
It's not a single person or two who had a password 12345, it's like a half of
the office?!

~~~
pdkp
Wow, when you count 123456 too, it is a big chunk of the office. Not to
mention the others that had 12345 as part of their password.

I wonder if this is an IT policy gone bad. Perhaps the guy who set it up used
12345 as the default and, of course, nobody ever changed it.

I learned a long time ago to use a somewhat complex password when setting up
new accounts, because otherwise 3 years later, they will be using the insecure
temp password you gave them.

~~~
afterburner
Or force them to change the password on first logon? And disallow weak
passwords?

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rms25
I dont get it, they say hundreds of emails and they only link 2? I would like
to view some more, most news sites link back to Haaretz which again only 2
documents

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azth
The links to the pdf documents containing the emails are timing out. Does
anyone have a mirror?

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Andrew_Quentin
Where are the leaked e-mails, has someone translated them?

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RyanMcGreal
They're linked inside the article:

* [http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/images/galery/assad/mail2.pd...](http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/images/galery/assad/mail2.pdf)

* [http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/images/galery/assad/mail1.pd...](http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/images/galery/assad/mail1.pdf.pdf)

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runn1ng
They are not so shocking frankly.

They were addressing the common concerns Americans have on Syrian situation
and answers to those.

