WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange visited Gawker (or at least, its Web site) on Mondayto answer reader questions about his new book, When Google Met WikiLeaks.

. And while a lot has changed for Gawkers masthead and for Assange himself since he first rose to prominence, it would be remiss not to note Gawkersawkward history with Assange.

At least one Gawker commenter agreed with us:

The link leads here, to a post about Assanges television show.

Especially in the earlier days, there wasa tension for many sites in covering Assange and by extension, WikiLeaks and it was very much visible in the way Gawker chose to approach the subject.

On the one hand, WikiLeaks became famous because it facilitatedthe publication of several important, consequential stories about the security state by providing leaked classified documents to journalists.

On the other hand, WikiLeaks, the organization, has more and more existed as a support structure for the career of the man who founded it a man who is currently holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, avoiding extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges.

WikiLeaks and its supporters have argued that such criticism is a distraction from its mission.

In the past, Gawker (specifically, former Gawker writer Adrian Chen) has gone hard on the criticism against Assange for those reasons. But that tone has softened a little as his immediate newsworthiness waned.

Below is a recap:

Go here to read the rest:
A brief history of Gawker’s awkward relationship with Gawker guest Julian Assange

Whistleblowing website Wikileaks has released part 4 of its Spyfiles, shedding light on German weaponised malware vendor FinFisher and its suite of products of the same name.

FinFisher used to be part of the UKs Gamma group. As part of the leaks, Wikileaks has released copies of the vendor's invoices and support tickets with many client names unmasked to show the extent of spying.

Mongolia, the recently elected chair of the Freedom Online Coalition, is one of FinFishers larger customers with 16. Its predecessor in the coalition, Estonia, was also one of the largest customers with 37 FinFisher licences.

Many of the clients names remains masked. In many cases the code name is unmasked when the client raises a tech support ticket complete with a description and screenshot of the problem.

For instance, customer 559458B5 was unmasked as Mongolia easily from its support tickets. Indeed one ticket complained to FinFisher that an infected payload aimed at future-mongolia.com was getting blocked. In what may make some breathe a sigh of relief for its show of incompetence, the attacker used his Gmail account, which was of the same name as his FinFisher login name and his real name. Gmail blocks executable payloads from being sent.

On the other hand, customer B206FF8C Singapore, was much more professional - and even raised a support ticket in the wake of the SSL Heartbleed bug to ensure that the FinFisher software and laptops themselves were updated to avoid leaking any information.

Other countries in the region that were identified include Vietnam, Pakistan and Australias New South Wales police.

Wikileaks also released copies of the actual FinFisher software in the hope that security analysts can challenge the secrecy and unaccountability of the company by analysing its internals to come up with detection techniques. New product brochures were also made available for download.

Julian Assange, WikiLeaks Editor in Chief said, "FinFisher continues to operate brazenly from Germany selling weaponized surveillance malware to some of the most abusive regimes in the world.

The Merkel government pretends to be concerned about privacy, but its actions speak otherwise. Why does the Merkel government continue to protect FinFisher? This full data release will help the technical community build tools to protect people from FinFisher including by tracking down its command and control centers.

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Wikileaks unmasks German duplicity with new leak

It would be too much to say that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange feels optimistic. He's been holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London for more than two years now, withcameras and police"a 3 million surveillance operation," he calls itjust meters away.

"There's a sense of inevitability now," Assange saidwhen we asked if his situation mightchange.

Assange: "Thesituation is clarifying politically and legally."

Ars: "I just want to be clear on this pointare you saying you're hopeful you'll be free soon?"

Assange: "I wouldn't say hopeful. I would say it's inevitable. It's inevitable that we will win the diplomatic standoff we're in now."

It's getting late in London, where Assange is doing a barrage of press interviews on the eve his new book, When Google Met Wikileaks(it goes on sale in the US later this week). We called at the agreed upon time, and a man who didn't identify himself answered the number, which was for a Londoncell phone. He saidcall back in five minutes, and onlythen was the phone finally handedto Assange.

We're supposed to focus on thebook.But first, we want to know whatlife trapped in the embassy involveswhere doeshe eat, sleep, do laundry?What isthe roomhe's was in now like?

"For security reasons, I can't tell you which sections of the embassy I utilize," he said. "As to the rest, in a way, it's a perfectly normal situation. In another way, it's one of the most abnormal, unusual situationsthat someone can find themselves in."

Assange usheredWikiLeaks through severalmassive leaks of secret US government reports and a tumultuous relationship with some prominent newspapers. First came the disclosure of hundreds of thousands of military reportsonthe Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, thena leak of more than 250,000 diplomatic cables from the State Department.

Hesought asylum from Ecuador when he was on theverge of being extraditedto Sweden to face sexual-assault charges in that nation. If he leaves the embassy, he'll be arrested, although it isn't clear where he'll be sent first. It'swidely assumed the US has an ongoing investigation intoAssange over the leaks.

Read more:
Julian Assange on Snowden, disliking Google, and his “inevitable” freedom

Providing a secure and efficient Helpdesk

WikiLeaks is making the controversial FinFisher commercial spyware tool available for download as part of the latest in a series of leaks that have put the operations of the controversial business under the microscope.

FinFisher, which was part of UK-based Gamma Group International until late 2013 before relocating to Germany, develops and sells computer intrusion systems, software exploits and remote monitoring systems that can be used to spy on people using desktops and smartphones.

Multiple platforms (Windows, Mac and Linux) and smartphone OSes (Android, BlackBerry and, yes, iOS) are supported by malware used by police and intelligence agencies around the world to spy on political dissidents, journalists and others.

FinFisher Relay and FinSpy Proxy are the components of the FinFisher suite designed to collect data from infected victims and deliver it to surveillance operators, respectively. WikiLeaks has published both alongside previously unreleased copies of the FinFisher FinSpy PC spyware for Windows. This software is designed to be surreptitiously installed on a Windows computer before being used to silently intercept files and communications, such as Skype calls, emails, video and audio.

A copy of the code for FinSpy Master, which is used to control data collection, has also been published by Julian Assange's whistleblowing site.

WikiLeaks argues that publishing the code will help security researchers to track down more FinFisher control nodes.

Assange, WikiLeaker in chief, said: "FinFisher continues to operate brazenly from Germany selling weaponised surveillance malware to some of the most abusive regimes in the world. The Merkel government pretends to be concerned about privacy, but its actions speak otherwise. Why does the Merkel government continue to protect FinFisher? This full data release will help the technical community build tools to protect people from FinFisher including by tracking down its command and control centers."

Privacy and human rights activists, including WikiLeaks and Citizen Lab, have been documenting FinFisher's business and technology since 2011.

WikiLeaks latest leaks include copies of the vendor's invoices and support tickets, which unmask the names of many of its clients and how much they've paid for the controversial technology. Among the largest customers is Mongolia, which has been recently selected as new chair of the Freedom Online Coalition.

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Yawn, Wikileaks, we already knew about FinFisher. But these software binaries...