A world after Wikileaks
Found on BBC News on Saturday, 12 February 2011
The reverberations of Wikileaks publication of so many confidential and secret documents will be felt for many years, and he has attracted a large band of supporters, but the support for Assange is as much about his personal situation as it is an expression of support for what Wikileaks does or proposes to do.
Napster was neutered by court action in the US, but its failure inspired peer-to-peer services that were far harder to control. The sharing of music is now unstoppable, and Wikileaks and the organisations that come after it will ensure that the same is now true of secrets.
Perhaps now politicians and big industries will be a little more honest about the things they do. Or maybe not, because they learn only slowly.