Category Archives: Wikileaks

Wikileaks’ Julian Assange turns up on stage in Nantucket – as a hologram

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Julian Assange turned up on a stage in Massachusetts on Sunday, even though hes still firmly holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.

So how did he do that?

Thanks to tech company Hologram USA, the Wikileaks founder was able have his image reconstructed live on stage at The Nantucket Project, an annual bash thatbrings together the worlds leading thinkers, visionaries, and performers for some informal chit-chat and social shenanigans.

If the name of the company rings a bell, that might be because it was also behind the famous reappearance of Tupacin 2012. Alegal spatconcerning theMichael Jacksonholographic performance in May also landed it in the news just the other day.

While Tupac and Jacksonare sadly no longer with us, Assange is most definitely still knocking around, albeit within an Ecuadorian-owned building in London. However, due to his self-imposed confinementat the embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden where he faces questioning over alleged sex assaults Assange doesnt get out much, or at all, to be exact.

Related:Your next smartphone could have a holographic projector inside it

While hes been able to do print interviews and appear online from the embassy via services like Skype, this is the first time since he turned up at the embassy two years ago that hes gone all 3D on us.

Interviewed by filmmaker Eugene Jarecki, the feat (excerpt below) involved a camera at the embassy, satellite trucks in London and Nantucket, and some very powerful projectors. The live interview saw a life-size Assange (well, it wouldve looked a bit silly if he was only 30 cmtall) appearing on stage alongside Jarecki.

Related:Hologram replaced human receptionist at London office

From what weve seen of it, the talk seemed to go smoothly enough, apart from the very end when an attempt at a high fivewas scuppered by the six-second satellite delay, leaving both interviewer and interviewee looking a little uncomfortable.

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Wikileaks’ Julian Assange turns up on stage in Nantucket – as a hologram

Julian Assange uses hologram to give an interview in the US

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The 43-year-old founder of WikiLeaks spoke at the Nantucket Project on Sunday via hologram He used the futuristic technology to talk about his new book, Google and defend his decision to publish the Chelsea Manning papers Assange has been living in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012, in an attempt to avoid extradition to Sweden on sex assault charges

By Ashley Collman for MailOnline

Published: 22:37 EST, 28 September 2014 | Updated: 07:22 EST, 29 September 2014

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Julian Assange has found a way to escape asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy, and preach his causes, without getting arrested by British authorities.

The infamous founder of WikiLeaks used hologram technology to appear on Sunday for a speech at The Nantucket Project, a Massachusetts conference similar to TED talks.

The 43-year-old Australian native has been able to speak at several events from his self-imposed house arrest thanks to Skype, but Sunday marked the first time he has appeared as a hologram.

The hologram event was organised from inside the Ecuadorian Embassy by London-based British billionaire Alki David, whose company Hologram USA owns the technology which made the transmission possible.

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Julian Assange uses hologram to give an interview in the US

Julian Assange Speaks in Nantucket—As a Hologram

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A ghostly Julian Assange appeared by hologram at the Nantucket Project on Sunday, beamed in from the Ecuadorian embassy where he has stayed under political asylum since 2012 (though he says he will soon leave).

Interviewed by the filmmaker Eugene Jarecki, Assange discussed digital analogues to the shops and services in the old town square: banks, stores, post offices and libraries.

I am in some ways, he said, just a simple librarian whos very good at saying no.

However, as his self-appointed WikiLeaks title of editor in chief suggests, hes also a publisher. And from inside the Ecuadorean embassy, hes found it very hard to carry out that role. I cant physically meet sources, he said, noting that this makes for a particular challenge when dealing with others who are also confined in some way, like Ai WeiWei, who cannot leave China.

Labels that Assange will not accept for himself include vigilante and martyr. He says he made his decision to leak the controversial Chelsea Manning papers with a level head, predicting that it would be a hard time for maybe five to seven years, but that there will be some benefits to his risk. Four years later, he stands by that decision.

He believes the Tim Berners-Lees recent call for a Magna Carta of the Internet probably should be done, but he is skeptical that we can actually reach international consensus. We will create norms as norms have always been created in the past, he says, not mainly by belief, not mainly be desire, but by action.

Assange discussed his new book, When Google Met WikiLeaks, and noted that Google executive chairman Eric Schmidts book, How Google Works, has also come out this week. If you see Eric Schmidts book, the cover of it is remarkably similar to the cover of this book, he said, brandishing a hologram version of his own. So similar that Im not sure the timing was a coincidence in publication. Both covers are inspired by Googles iconic homepage.

Google, Assange says, would pass itself off as a company of fluffy graduate students, or, not even a company at all, but something that gives free services.

Its not that, he says. Its a normal company, just like other normal companies in the U.S. It should be seen as a normal company.

However, Google differs from other normal companies, he says, in its project to collect as much information about the world as is possible, store it, index it, make predictive models about peoples interests, and use that to sell advertising. This, he says, is basically what the National Security Agency is doing.

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Julian Assange Speaks in Nantucket—As a Hologram

WikiLeaks’ Assange Talks Google, NSA & Granai Airstrike Video At NYC Book Launch

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Appearing from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where hes been holed up since seeking diplomatic asylum there on June 19, 2012, the thinly bearded 43-year-old spoke for roughly an hour and a half about his book, the man at the top of the worlds most popular search engine, and its revolving door with the U.S. government. He talked about Bitcointhe online-based currencythe Obama administrations ongoing war against whistleblowers and Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. Army private who supplied WikiLeaks with more than 750,000 diplomatic cables and Army reports regarding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with two cockpit videos documenting U.S. air strikes massacring civilians in those conflicts.

Assange repeatedly warned of the dangers posed by the mass surveillance of tech giants Google and Facebook, assailing Schmidt and the omnipresent search engine he oversees as worse than the National Security Agency (NSA) in terms of privacy concerns and the sheer, unregulated power it wields via the mass personal data voluntarily handed over by users.

Perhaps one of the most wanted men in the worldthere has been a longstanding European Union-wide warrant requested by Sweden in effect for his extradition to that country to face questioning for allegations he raped one woman and molested another during a 2010 visit to Stockholm, thus, his exile at the embassyAssange also shed light on the whereabouts of perhaps one of the United States most sensitive wartime footage to date: the Granai Airstrike Video, documenting the killing of up to 150 Afghan civilians, purportedly mostly children, by a US Air Force bomber in Farah Province in May 2009.

Projected on the second-floor wall of art space/collective/indie arcade Babycastles at 137 W. 14th Street via Skype and superimposed before the cover art of When Google Met WikiLeaksthe books title entered within the search box on Googles homepage with the added option Im feeling evil as opposed to its typical Im feeling luckyhe sat alongside singer/rapper Mathangi Maya Arulpragasam aka M.I.A., though she only popped into the broadcast briefly.

Daniel Stuckey of Motherboard moderated.

Assange, the hacker-turned-publisher of the worlds governments most damning secrets-turned-captive began the evening by reciting lyrics from M.I.A.s song The Message, which he also quoted in his book:

Headbone connected to the headphones / Headphones connected to the iPhone / iPhone connected to the Internet / Connected to the Google/ Connected to the government, he read, quoting a passage from his book.

Essentially, he explained throughout the course of the launchfirst during a discussion and then a brief Q&A with the public and media outletsthere is no difference or separation between Google or the United States government. Rather, they are, in fact, one in the same.

Google has become an invasive organization that wants to have a business model of formulating every single person it can on the Earth, collecting their private information, storing it, indexing it, and producing profiles of individuals so they can sell those profiles to better target ads on them and also sell its other services to the National Security Agency, and the US military, and enter into strategic relationships with the US state department, he told reporters from The Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News, New York Post (who sent several, organizers told the Press, among them its Page Six photographer, who snapped away as we all drank $5 bottles of warm beer and cups of wine, conversing among arcade games, paintings and stacks of other titles published by OR Books, the publisher of When Google Met WikiLeaks and Assanges Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet). Co-publisher Colin Robinson announced to everyone thered be a 20-percent discount for any Google employees in attendance.

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WikiLeaks’ Assange Talks Google, NSA & Granai Airstrike Video At NYC Book Launch

Assange dubs Google ‘privatized NSA,’ pillories Eric Schmidt

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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange doesn't let the walls of the Ecuadorian embassy in London stop him from criticizing on the Google exec for allegedly collaborating with the US.

During a New York City launch event for his new book, Wikileaks' Julian Assange spoke via video link to a small crowd. CNET/CBS Interactive

NEW YORK -- The first (and so far only) meeting between Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange turned out to be a bust when it occurred in 2011.

And given what Assange had to say about Schmidt on Wednesday at a Manhattan launch party to promote his new book, "When Google Met WikiLeaks," it's unlikely he'll be able to line up a second tte--tte.

Attending the event live by videoconference from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he's been granted sanctuary, Assange called Google a "privatized NSA." The reference is to the US National Security Agency, whose surveillance practices caused an uproar last year when classified information about them was disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Assange went on to claim that the search giant has links to other departments within the US government and US military.

"People who use Google are the product," Assange said, likening the search giant's collection of data for marketing purposes to what some have called the NSA's strategy of collecting as much information as it possibly can. Referring to Android, Google's mobile operating system, Assange said it's "constantly sending your location...streaming back your contacts, emails and everything you search for. It's all collected."

Despite his dislike of Google's business practices, Assange said he and Schmidt are actually "quite similar" to each other.

Schmidt, he said, was quick to grasp difficult concepts, such as how the anonymizing network Tor functions.

Schmidt's job, he said is "difficult" because he has to be "secretary of state" for Google. Assange said it was "sad" that Schmidt had to resort to insults in his interview with ABC News yesterday.

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Assange dubs Google 'privatized NSA,' pillories Eric Schmidt

Google’s Schmidt says Assange detainment is ‘luxury lodgings’

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On the eve of the release of the WikiLeaks founder's new book, titled "When Google Met WikiLeaks," the Google executive chairman goes on the offensive.

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt sits down for an interview at the 2013 All Things D mobile conference in New York. Marguerite Reardon/CNET

Eric Schmidt appears to be doing some damage control. The Google executive chairman appeared on ABC News on Tuesday and called WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange "very paranoid."

Assange, the notorious document leaker, is coming out with a book this week titled "When Google Met WikiLeaks." The book recalls an encounter when Assange met Schmidt in 2011. In the book, Assange aims to show that Google is tied to the US government when it comes to the openness of the Internet. In other news interviews, Assange has also said Google is basically a privatized National Security Agency.

Schmidt adamantly denied Assange's allegations in the ABC interview Tuesday.

"Julian is very paranoid about things. Google never collaborated with the NSA and in fact, we've fought very hard against what they did," Schmidt said. "We have taken all of our data, all of our exchanges, and we fully encrypted them so no one can get them, especially the government."

Assange has been huddled in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London for more than two years, as he waits for diplomatic asylum. He's avoiding extradition to Sweden over alleged sexual offenses, which he has denied. Assange also has said he fears extradition to the US, where he believes he could be tried for espionage crimes for his involvement in the release of classified documents.

The Ecuadorian embassy is made up of a series of converted apartments. Ecuador occupies only the ground floor of the building, and British police remain in the hallways and elevators where Ecuador's reach does not extend. If Assange leaves his apartment, he can be immediately arrested.

In the ABC interview, Schmidt also blasted Assange's living arrangement.

"He's of course writing from the, shall we say, luxury lodgings of the local embassy in London," Schmidt said.

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Google's Schmidt says Assange detainment is 'luxury lodgings'

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange extradition to US ‘far-fetched’: Swedish prosecutors

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STOCKHOLM: Swedish prosecutors said today it is "far-fetched" to think that fugitive Wikileaks founder Julian Assange could be extradited to the United States if he returned to Sweden.

It was the first time that Swedish prosecutors, who want to question the 43-year-old Australian on allegations of rape and sexual molestation, commented on the likelihood that he could be sent to the United States.

Assange refuses to return to Sweden and has been holed up since 2012 in London in the embassy of Ecuador, which granted him political asylum the same year.

The United States has not yet requested extradition of Assange since Sweden issued a European arrest warrant in November 2010, rendering the whole question hypothetical, the prosecutors said.

"It would seem to be a far-fetched idea that the United States would have waited since 2010 to initiate extradition proceedings with the intention of sending their request to Sweden rather than to Britain," they said.

"Even considering that this would be permitted under Swedish law, a decision to extradite him to the United States from Sweden would also require the agreement of Britain."

They made the statement in a written reply to arguments made by Assange's lawyers, who have appealed a decision by a Swedish court in July this year to uphold the arrest warrant against him.

The Court of Appeal in Stockholm is expected to announce its decision within the next week. If it scraps the European arrest warrant against Assange, it could mean that he would be able to leave the Ecuadoran embassy.

The arrest warrant was issued to enable Swedish prosecutors to question Assange about charges brought against him by two women in their 30s. Assange denies the accusations.

Assange has called on the prosecutors to travel to London to question him or, alternatively, to do so by video link, but they rejected both ideas again today.

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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange extradition to US 'far-fetched': Swedish prosecutors