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WikiLeaks Under Fire

Posted by Soulskill on from the also-possibly-on-fire dept.

kan0r writes "The transparency group WikiLeaks.org currently seems to be under heavy fire. The main WikiLeaks.org DNS entry is unavailable, reportedly due to a restraining order relating to a series of articles and documents released by WikiLeaks about off-shore trust structures in the Cayman Islands. The WikiLeaks whistle blower, allegedly former vice president of the Cayman Islands branch of swiss bank Julius Baer, states in the WikiLeaks documents that the bank supported tax evasion and money laundering by its clients from around the world. WikiLeaks alternate names remained available until Saturday, when there seems to have been a heavy DDoS attack and a fire at the ISP. The documents in question are still available on other WikiLeaks sites, such as wikileaks.be, and are also mirrored on Cryptome. Details of the court documents have also been made available."

9 of 282 comments (clear)

  1. But why? by jrothwell97 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wikileaks is an interesting website, and I can see no reason why anyone would want to take a site hosting confidential leaked documents from governments and big business offline...

    Speaking seriously here, I wouldn't doubt it being a corporate or political DDoS attack, considering the confidentiality of the documents, and how damaging they could be to said companies/governments' reputations. Not a bad thing in my opinion, but they would think otherwise.

    --
    Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
    1. Re:But why? by utnapistim · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think it was a bad move on the part of whoever did the attack, if their intention was censorship: it only created more publicity for the documents.

      --
      Tie two birds together: although they have four wings, they cannot fly. (The blind man)
  2. To those behind the attacks... by Loibisch · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To those behind the attacks: It's too late!
    Remember: What's once on the internet stays on the internet...one way or another.

    Just deal with it.

    1. Re:To those behind the attacks... by petermgreen · · Score: 5, Insightful

      the /. effect is WAY overrated, if you are suffering from it you either have big file downloads, really shitty hosting (think home DSL/cable or similar) or a badly designed dynamic site (this last one is probablly the most common).

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
  3. Must be doing someting right... by TripMaster+Monkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When you're slapped with a restraining order, you get hit with a dDOS, and one of your UPS units "accidentally" ignites , you know you must be doing something right.

    --
    ____

    ~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey

  4. Winner: Counter-productive move of the year by MosesJones · · Score: 5, Insightful


    Could the people leaked about on WikiLeaks really be this dumb? Is there anything that will guarantee that this information will be more broadly distributed and read and more likely to come to the attention of the main stream media?

    Why don't they just go the whole hog and DDoS the BBC and CNN at the same time to close the loop.

    --
    An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
    1. Re:Winner: Counter-productive move of the year by TripMaster+Monkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Could the people leaked about on WikiLeaks really be this dumb?

      Fortunately, yes, they can, and it seems they are. Not 'dumb' per se, mind you, but operating without any idea of how things work in this day and age, when any information that finds its way onto the Internet is effectively immortal, and any attempts to suppress that information only succeed in calling even more attention to it.

      There's no way to silence the truth directly anymore in this new medium. Indirect methods, however, like repeating a lie loudly and often enough, can still be effective.

      --
      ____

      ~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey

    2. Re:Winner: Counter-productive move of the year by mOdQuArK! · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There's no way to silence the truth directly anymore in this new medium. Indirect methods, however, like repeating a lie loudly and often enough, can still be effective.

      Actually, the simplest way to "silence: the truth is to drown it in misinformation (one of the applications of the indirect methods you referred to). Once nobody can tell what the truth is, and what the lies are, then someone trying to hide the truth can breath a little easier.

      Modern-day PR hacks are really good at this kind of thing, Third World repressive regimes are still learning how to do it effectively.

  5. Re:This is What Freenet Was Made For by Corwn+of+Amber · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah, but there are problems with FreeNet :

    1/ It's slow
    2/ No one uses it
    3/ No one uses it because it's so slow
    4/ It's so slow because no one uses it
    5/ It's not preinstalled on all computers
    6/ Its installation is as much jumping through hoops as a first use of Windows Vista

    So yeah, backups on FreeNet is a good idea, but hosting the main site? Not if they want to be acessed sometimes.

    I'd rather d/l the full archive off The Pirate Bay or Mininova, though. A lifetime of reading about "why all the systems should all be completely transparent to any one in the general public".

    --
    Making laws based on opinions that stem up from false informations leads to witch hunts.