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WikiLeaks To Its Supporters: 'Stop Taking Down the US Internet, You Proved Your Point' (hothardware.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the come-to-the-rescue dept.

MojoKid writes: The Internet took a turn for the worst this morning, when large parts of the DNS network were brought down by a massive distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) targeting DNS provider Dyn. If you couldn't access Amazon, Twitter, and a host of other large sites and online services earlier today, this was why. Now, if a couple of additional tweets are to be believed, it appears supporters of WikiLeaks are responsible for this large scale DDoS attack on Dynamic Network Services Inc's Dyn DNS service. WikiLeaks is alleging that a group of its supporters launched today's DDoS attack in retaliation for the Obama administration using its influence to push the Ecuadorian government to limit Assange's internet access. Another earlier tweet reassures supporters that Mr. Assange is still alive, which -- along with a photo of heavily armed police posted this morning -- implies that he may have been (or may still be) in danger, and directly asks said supporters to stop the attack. WikiLeaks published this tweet a little after 5PM: "Mr. Assange is still alive and WikiLeaks is still publishing. We ask supporters to stop taking down the US internet. You proved your point." It was followed by: "The Obama administration should not have attempted to misuse its instruments of state to stop criticism of its ruling party candidate."

15 of 338 comments (clear)

  1. Ruling Party by Black+Parrot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    LoL. Someone doesn't have the most basic understanding of how the USA works.

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    1. Re:Ruling Party by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And that someone is the previous repliers. We do have a ruling party - the rich.

  2. Wikileaks is a toxic organisation. by fufufang · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wikileaks hadn't been pushing Trump leaks as hard as Clinton leaks. Now its supports are trying to take down US infrastructure. I used to think that Wikileaks is a neutral organisation promoting government transparency, but not any more. I kind of feel that they are up to no good.

    1. Re: Wikileaks is a toxic organisation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Wikileaks publishes information they are given, FYI. They're not a hacking group.

    2. Re: Wikileaks is a toxic organisation. by Rei · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Um, have you seen their Twitter feed lately? It's a nonstop feed of anti-Clinton propaganda, half of it retweets, a lot of the claims so bad that even Wikileaks supporters on the Wikileaks Reddit sub have been calling them out on it. It's morphed into Breitbart.

      They're even repeating Trump's "rigged election" lines:

      There is no US election. There is power consolidation. Rigged primary, rigged media and rigged 'pied piper' candidate drive consolidation.

      --
      "99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
    3. Re:Wikileaks is a toxic organisation. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What would Wikileaks have to publish on Trump that the media hasn't already published? The Hillary stuff is the only stuff worth publishing.

    4. Re: Wikileaks is a toxic organisation. by Shane_Optima · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Pardon him for what? He's a non-citizen of the USA who never signed any non-disclosure agreement with the NSA, who reported information given to him by a source. (He didn't do it in an objective way, but throughout history most newspapers have never claimed to be entirely objective.) The fact that you can casually admit that we're after the man in clear disregard for our first amendment (but we're not after any of the perjurers he exposed) and then say that somehow means he's "lost every shred of credibility" is staggering.

      Credibility for what, pray tell? I don't give a shit about the man's opinions, that's not even relevant, so are you actually asserting he's putting out false information now?

      I don't care if the information about Hillary's lies are part of some Russian plot or not. If the truth is "destabilizing" well then fuck stability. Hillary admitting to having "public" and "private" positions is a piece of information that I, as a citizen, want to have. I especially want that information to be out there if she wins, as seems likely enough. And if you think we shouldn't have that information, just because Wikileaks didn't tit for tat release something on Trump as well... well, to hell with you.

      Anyone who thinks shooting the messenger is more important than examining the message is highly suspect in my book.

    5. Re: Wikileaks is a toxic organisation. by nanoflower · · Score: 4, Insightful

      As far as I know they've had no such releases on Trump. Then you add in the staggered release at the end of the campaign when it seems like they had this data months ago so it definitely looks to me like they are trying to hurt Clinton's campaign at the end of the race when the release can do the most damage. If they were just interested in exposing the information why not release it months ago when they got the data?

    6. Re: Wikileaks is a toxic organisation. by TellarHK · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There's been absolutely nothing in the actual stolen data that's been released, which has shown any evidence of actually rising to corruption or anything criminal or destabilizing. What's destabilizing is the manner in which Wikileaks has been promoting and releasing the information, calculated to cause maximum disruption in the American press in the leadup to the election. If Wikileaks were operating simply as a neutral information broker, they'd have dumped it all at once.

      A fundamental problem here is that these hacks actually fail the basic qualification for Wikileaks, that's right in the name of the organization. "leaks".

      These aren't leaks, these are hacks. A leak is when someone on the inside of something puts information out there for public consumption, which actually has a completely different set of possible motivations. Hacks on the other hand, are frequently committed by people who have a real stake in hurting the target of the hacking, and the motivations involved mean that any reasonable person needs to be more careful about giving the results any actual weight because of the likelihood of modification.

      --
      My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
    7. Re: Wikileaks is a toxic organisation. by c · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ... as of October 6th the number of endorsements for Donald Trump among major American newspapers sat at a big fat zero.

      That's a bit of a no-brainer, really.

      One thing Trump has said (and stuck with) is that he wants to open up libel laws. No news organization anywhere on the political spectrum wants their job to get harder or more expensive.

      --
      Log in or piss off.
  3. If the point was ... by quax · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... that they are a bunch of jerks. Point taken.

    1. Re:If the point was ... by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's no proof that it has anything to do with Wikileaks, but in a world of IoT devices with no thought toward security, anyone who cares to do so can mount DDOS with the power of a national entity.

      What's the point of doing what Assange and Wikileaks have been doing without any moral position? He isn't helping his own case.

      --
      Bruce Perens.
  4. Doesn't really matter who fired the shot by Mal-2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It doesn't really matter who was firing the shot, so much as all those loaded, pwn3d weapons remaining in the wild that can be pressed into service again and again. This is not the first such event, it's at least the third. It won't be the last either, and the only way I can see to stop it is to permanently dismantle the IoT until it can be rebuilt from the ground up with security in mind. If security is too hard for the poor vendors and end users, then don't rebuild it. The health of the network as a whole is far more important than any single purpose for which it is used -- besides which, the devices can't be trusted to do their jobs anyhow once they've been pwn3d.

    Make the vendors take them back in a recall -- could be a service recall in which they are made field-upgradable, or if they're hard-coded then they get the Galaxy Note 7 treatment as the hazards they are. Those who won't take them back should be cited under FCC Part 15 rules and have their certifications revoked and fines levied. It is easily provable that the devices are "causing harmful interference". It's time to get them off the network. Like yesterday.

    --
    How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
  5. Equal amounts? by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wikileaks hadn't been pushing Trump leaks as hard as Clinton leaks. Now its supports are trying to take down US infrastructure. I used to think that Wikileaks is a neutral organisation promoting government transparency, but not any more. I kind of feel that they are up to no good.

    What do you propose? Should Wikileaks hold off on Clinton until they have an equal amount on Trump?

    Is that your definition of neutral? That they must expose corruption in equal amounts for both sides?

  6. Collateral murder by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let's take a trip down memory lane.

    Wikileaks published the diplomatic leaks in three large chunks, which included the "collateral murder" video.

    At the time, Julian was surprised at how little impact the releases caused. He thought at the time that a huge drop would cause a huge response, but that turned out not to be the case(*). The news cycle quickly moved on to other issues.

    He realized then that to get maximum effect you have to play the media a little.

    So now he announces ahead of time that he has the data, then releases the data. He releases the data in smaller chunks, to spread the effect out, to keep the news cycle interested..

    People see the "I have an interesting drop coming up" announcements as feeding his ego, but what he's *really* doing is getting everyone's attention.

    And of course, a single monolithic drop is easy to counter with a juicy counter article. We saw that with the Trump "locker room" clip, which completely eclipsed the first of the recent Podesta E-mail drops. If Julian had released the entire tranch at that time, it would have been lost in the noise.

    If Wikileaks had simply released everything at once after getting it, and not let Assange make his statements obviously made to be clear attacks on Clinton's campaign, you might have a point. But they didn't.

    You're completely wrong on this point. Portioning out the drops gives the data maximum exposure, and helps to ensure that people notice and comment.

    Julian is doing a good job, let's not lose sight of the sheer volume of corruption he's brought to light.

    (*) From my memory of an interview he gave.