John Young provides us with a brief overview of the history, purpose and mission of his well-known website Cryptome.Org. He talks about the recent controversy involving Microsoft Corporation’s attempted legal action against Cryptome, and the temporary shutdown of the site by the ISP Network Solutions. He speaks to the importance of the free flow of information and challenging the governments’ self-serving secrecy as prerequisites for an informed citizenry and a functioning democracy, the importance of whistleblowers and anonymous disclosures, the existence of various trap websites, impostors and false flag operators to manipulate information, trick whistleblowers, and or plant specific propaganda, and more.
John Young is a New York based architect and online archivist who owns and operates Cryptome.Org, a website that functions as a repository for information about freedom of speech, cryptography, spying, and surveillance. In February 2010, the ISP Network Solutions shut down Mr. Young’s website after he posted a document summarizing Microsoft’s dealings with law enforcement agencies. Shortly after initiating legal action to suppress a document on how to subpoena online user data Microsoft withdrew the complaint, and the website was restored.
Here is our guest John Young unplugged!
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Thanks, Sibel and Peter, for a very interesting interview with Mr. Young. Too bad we can’t find this kind of quality interview in more places.
And thanks to Mr. Young for his efforts to get information to the public. I loved his common sense approach to ethics and his straightforward manner of speaking.
@ Zica Tanka: “I loved his common sense approach to ethics and his straightforward manner of speaking.” I’m with you. I wish we could multiply people like Mr. Young.
*waves to both of you* Keep up the good work.
@Aine:…thank you, and aslways, good to hear from you.
I see that PayPal froze Cryptome’s account, but has since restored it.
PayPal users close accounts after Cryptome attack
This isn’t the first time that PayPal has done something like this. They also froze Wikileaks’ account several times.
PayPal Freezes Wikileaks Assets
I canceled my PayPal account and left them a short note.
Sibel: I hope you get the donation I sent before I canceled PayPal.
Really great interview with Mr. Young. I too admired his common sense, or rather no-nonsense, approach and straightforwardness. I feel like I’ve gotten a real education from listening to Mr. Young here and in other interviews. This interview was definitely the most in depth though. In fact I think this is one of the best interviews you guys have done (which is not to say that there was anything wrong with the others).
Excellent comments on false flag operations, even here. The Good News came out about Wikileaks during their fundraiser: It concocts a plan to fatally marginalize the organization. Since WikiLeaks uses “trust as a center of gravity by protecting the anonymity and identity of the insiders, leakers or whisteblowers”, the report recommends “The identification, exposure, termination of employment, criminal prosecution, legal action against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers could potentially damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others considering similar actions from using the Wikileaks.org Web site”. [As two years have passed since the date of the report, with no WikiLeaks’ source exposed, it appears that this plan was ineffective].
@Simon
Please don’t so cryptic. What do you mean by “Good News”?
U.S. Intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks
@ mcthorogood Thank you for providing the link. I should have done so. It is good news that the story broke, but now I see in Sibel’s latest post that since that the government effort failed with Wikileaks, they are trying to get Congress to shut all of us up.
Hi there.
I’ll admit to be generally skeptical of conspiracy theories but I enjoy listening to them anyway.
A few weeks ago I listened to this podcast and (I think) Peter Collins mentioned that he spoke to someone who had a story about an extended period of secret service harassment but which was indistinguishable from paranoia.
This sounds very much like someone who has written some comments on mine and many other blogs about the same type of treatment.
Is this the same person?
http://angrysoba.blogspot.com/2010/04/them-adventures-with-extremists.html
Thank you for a wonderful show. The term “limited hang-out” has been echoing in my mind lately, so I was glad to hear someone talking about it.
Sibel, you mentioned your concern that people are getting desensitized to all the horrible information that is flooding in these days. I wonder if it will just take time for us to process it all through our brains and our hearts and then we will finally know what to do. I like John’s sage advice that everything good takes time, and not to give up, but to simply persevere.