WikiLeaks

I’m fascinated by this whole story. I can’t say that I’m a supporter of WikiLeaks. There’s something altruistic about saying that everything should be open and transparent, but in the real world some aspects of diplomacy, like sausage-making, should not be exposed to the world. I want to still enjoy eating that bratwurst.

But this story is a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream. He is widely reported as being wanted for rape in Sweden, yet the real charge is apparently for sex without a condom, which is apparently a crime in Sweden with a fine of around $700. For this Interpol wants him. Hmm.

Amazon gets pressured to yank his web site. Of course they claim that there was no pressure and that they just yanked him for violating the terms and conditions. And that’s actually decent cover. Amazon has terms and conditions to prevent illegal file sharing type sites that basically state you have to be able to prove ownership of whatever you post. WikiLeaks clearly can’t do that, so Amazon has a legit argument. And the phone call from Senator Lieberman had nothing to do with it.

Their DNS provider was clearly pressured. They tried to claim that WikiLeaks violated some terms but ultimately they said that they dumped WikiLeaks because the DoS attack threatened them. So in this case they are punishing a web site that is the victim of an attack. Senator Lieberman clearly got to them.

And then there’s the Denial of Service attack itself. It’s strong, it’s been going on for days, and no one is taking credit for it. WikiLeaks has been handling it pretty well (the founder is a former hacker after all), but the question of who is behind it is fascinating. There are plenty of candidates. Pretty much any major government including our own is a candidate, along with rival hackers.

Meanwhile Julian Assange is getting boatloads of the thing he probably appreciates the most, free publicity.

It will be fun to see how this one turns out. Personally, I think Scientologists are behind the whole thing…