While talking about using bitcoin for DNS management, Assange mentions a source told him VeriSign handed over CA keys to the US government:<p>ES > The average person does not understand that RSA was broken into an awful lot of private keys involving commerce were taken,<p>JA > Yes<p>ES > so...<p>JA > The public key structure is a tremendous problem, so in the same way that domain name structures are a tremendous problem. The browser based public key system that we have for authenticating what websites you are going to, it is awful. It is truly awful. The number of people that have been licensed to mint keys is so tremendous.. there's one got bankrupted and got bought up cheaply by Russian companies, you can assume, I have been told actually that VeriSign, by people who are in the know, although I am not yet willing to go on the public record, cause I only have one source, just between you and me, one source that says that VeriSign has actually given keys to the US government. Not all, but a particular key. That's a big problem with the way things are authenticated presently.<p><a href="http://www.wikileaks.org/Transcript-Meeting-Assange-Schmidt.html#750" rel="nofollow">http://www.wikileaks.org/Transcript-Meeting-Assange-Schmidt....</a>
They sure seem friendly but later Assange became disenchanted with Schmidt:<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/opinion/sunday/the-banality-of-googles-dont-be-evil.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/opinion/sunday/the-banalit...</a>
Very impressed with Assange's technical chops in this discussion. I only read about a third of the discussion, but I kept getting the feeling that he was trying to dumb the topic down to a level Schmidt would understand.
Pretty interesting meeting.<p>Seems to cover more than just bitcoin, and includes the reasoning behind Assange's drive.<p>Highly recommend listening to the actual audio file (its linked in the article):
<a href="http://wlstorage.net/file/cms/assange-schmidt.mp3" rel="nofollow">http://wlstorage.net/file/cms/assange-schmidt.mp3</a>
I found this conversation to be a really worthwhile read (when it came out). It's a refreshing demonstration of the 'empirical journalism' that Assange describes in this conversation.<p>As time goes on I find it even more interesting in contrast to the public images of both Assange and Schmidt. I'm much more interested in the raw, unedited dialogue between these people than the way they are reported on.
I was really happy to read what Assange had to say about the political education of the apolitical youth. What he says around #883 articulates some strong feelings I think about often.
This is my favorite Schmidt interview of all time thanks to this exchange:<p>ES: Can we start... I want to talk a little about Thor. Right. The sort of, the whole Navy network and...<p>JA: Tor or Thor?<p>ES: Yeah, actually I mean Tor. Uh...<p>JA: And Odin as well.
I haven't read the full conversation, but it shocks me that Eric Schmidt didn't know about bitcoin. Am I completely biased and bitcoin really isn't as big as I think it is, or has Mr. Schmidt been living under a rock?