We are currently under a mass distributed denial of service attack.—
WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) November 28, 2010
A lot of people, including many governments, have problems with WikiLeaks, the site dedicated to publishing sensitive and often classified documents. (Read more background on the controversial organization). The site is currently under a distributed denial of service attack, according to a Tweet from the WikiLeaks account. The site seems to be withstanding the attack so far. It is up right now.
The DDOS attack comes just as WikiLeaks is preparing to release another set of U.S. government documents—this time diplomatic cables which may prove so embarrassing that the State Department decided to warn foreign governments ahead of their release.
But WikiLeaks reports via Twitter that even if the site goes down, newspapers around the world will publish excerpts from the cables:
El Pais, Le Monde, Speigel, Guardian & NYT will publish many US embassy cables tonight, even if WikiLeaks goes down—
WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) November 28, 2010
So who is behind the DDOS attack—government spy agencies, the Russians, 4chan? It is obviously a conspiracy. Different people will have different theories, including that WikiLeaks itself is behind the “attack” to draw attention (and sympathy) on the eve of its latest big leak. But let’s give them the benefit of the doubt for now, until proven otherwise.
Update: The New York Times published its first series of articles on the leaked documents along with selected cables.
WikiLeaks is a not-for-profit media organization. Their goal is to bring important news and information to the public. They provide an innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to our journalists (our electronic drop box). WikiLeaks has sustained and triumphed against legal and political attacks designed to silence their publishing organisation, journalists and anonymous sources. The broader principles on which their work is based are the defence of freedom of speech and media publishing, the improvement...
Twitter, founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006 (launched publicly in July 2006), is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to post updates 140 characters long. Twitter “is a real-time information network that connects [users] to the latest stories, ideas, opinions, and news.” The service can be accessed through a variety of methods, including Twitter’s website; text messaging; instant messaging; and third-party desktop, mobile, and web applications. Twitter is currently available in...
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