By now almost everyone has heard about how Wikileaks illegally obtained and now published secret and in some cases classified information, by way of over 250,000 embassy cables showing private diplomatic communications between countries fighting the war on terror. (More on the original release here)I say illegally obtained because the cables were stolen from the military and given to Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, to which the Obama administration knew months ago and still could not stop the publishing of the information by Wikileaks.
After the release, the Wikileaks site suffered massive Denial of service attacks which rendered their site unavailable and they transferred the illegally obtained information to other servers, first Amazon for-rent servers, which has since removed the information and now others.
When it was first announced that Amazon was hosting the Wikileaks site, Senator Joe Lieberman, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman, took a stand.
Amazon soon removed the Wikileaks site.
Liberman's statement below:
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., Wednesday issued the following statement after Amazon.com decided to terminate its relationship with Wikileaks. After reading press reports that Amazon was hosting the Wikileaks website, Committee staff contacted Amazon Tuesday for an explanation.
“This morning Amazon informed my staff that it has ceased to host the Wikileaks website. I wish that Amazon had taken this action earlier based on Wikileaks' previous publication of classified material. The company’s decision to cut off Wikileaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies Wikileaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material. I call on any other company or organization that is hosting Wikileaks to immediately terminate its relationship with them. Wikileaks’ illegal, outrageous, and reckless acts have compromised our national security and put lives at risk around the world. No responsible company – whether American or foreign – should assist Wikileaks in its efforts to disseminate these stolen materials. I will be asking Amazon about the extent of its relationship with Wikileaks and what it and other web service providers will do in the future to ensure that their services are not used to distribute stolen, classified information.”
Amazon refutes reports that the government inquiry was their reason for removing Wikileaks, explaining that when they determined Julian Assange's Wikileaks site was in violation of their Terms of Service (TOS), they severed the relationship.
Amazon's release below:
There have been reports that a government inquiry prompted us not to serve WikiLeaks any longer. That is inaccurate.
There have also been reports that it was prompted by massive DDOS attacks. That too is inaccurate. There were indeed large-scale DDOS attacks, but they were successfully defended against.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) rents computer infrastructure on a self-service basis. AWS does not pre-screen its customers, but it does have terms of service that must be followed. WikiLeaks was not following them. There were several parts they were violating. For example, our terms of service state that “you represent and warrant that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to the content… that use of the content you supply does not violate this policy and will not cause injury to any person or entity.” It’s clear that WikiLeaks doesn’t own or otherwise control all the rights to this classified content. Further, it is not credible that the extraordinary volume of 250,000 classified documents that WikiLeaks is publishing could have been carefully redacted in such a way as to ensure that they weren’t putting innocent people in jeopardy. Human rights organizations have in fact written to WikiLeaks asking them to exercise caution and not release the names or identities of human rights defenders who might be persecuted by their governments.
We’ve been running AWS for over four years and have hundreds of thousands of customers storing all kinds of data on AWS. Some of this data is controversial, and that’s perfectly fine. But, when companies or people go about securing and storing large quantities of data that isn’t rightfully theirs, and publishing this data without ensuring it won’t injure others, it’s a violation of our terms of service, and folks need to go operate elsewhere.
We look forward to continuing to serve our AWS customers and are excited about several new things we have coming your way in the next few months.
— Amazon Web Services
Soon after, Tableau Software followed suit and removed the Wikileaks visualizations that they were hosting, issuing this statement:
Wednesday afternoon, Tableau Software removed data visualizations published by WikiLeaks to Tableau Public. We understand this is a sensitive issue and want to assure the public and our users that this was not an easy decision, nor one that we took lightly.
We created Tableau Public—a free service that enables anyone to make interactive graphs from their data and share them online—because we recognized the need for strong analytics tools in a data-driven world. Given the controversy around the WikiLeaks data, we’ve closely followed the debate about who actually has the rights to the leaked data.
Our terms of service require that people using Tableau Public do not upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any content that they do not have the right to make available. Furthermore, if we receive a complaint about a particular set of data, we retain the right to investigate the situation and remove any offending data, if necessary.
Our decision to remove the data from our servers came in response to a public request by Senator Joe Lieberman, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, when he called for organizations hosting WikiLeaks to terminate their relationship with the website.
This will inevitably be met with mixed reaction. However, our terms of service were created to ensure responsible use of data.
Of course Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, is making accusations of "censorship" but it bears noting to him and his "fawners" that nobody has the obligation to continue hosting his leaks, his site, nor his illegally obtained information.
Sites such as Amazon and Tableau Software, as clear in their terms of service has the last word on what they do or do not host.
Amazon Terms of Use here and Tableau's Terms of Service here.
It is easy to predict which American bloggers, which part of the liberal left, will always side with those trying to hurt us, our enemies, and of course they do not disappoint as they mimic Julian Assanges accusations of censorship, in this case using Joe Lieberman as their target.
The release of these cables had one specific purpose, to embarrass America and diplomats from other countries, many of whom are involved in gathering intelligence and/or sharing intelligence to protect their countries as well as our. The release has endangered our allies as well as our military personnel, endangered our ability to gather intelligence and the damage done by these releases will be felt for decades.
What is it about the liberal left that makes them side with our enemies time and time again? Makes them worry more about our enemies freedom to hurt us than than they do about our countries survival and ability to protect itself?
Freedom of Speech does not mean freedom to publish stolen information. Julian Assange is free to say anything he wants, just as web hosts are free to deny him a format on their severs.
[Update] EveryDNS has also terminated it's relationship with Wikileaks, stating DOS attacks as their reason.
All systems are functioning normally.
EveryDNS.net provided domain name system (DNS) services to the wikileaks.org domain name until 10PM EST, December 2, 2010, when such services were terminated. As with other users of the EveryDNS.net network, this service was provided for free. The termination of services was effected pursuant to, and in accordance with, the EveryDNS.net Acceptable Use Policy.
See more.
More specifically, the services were terminated for violation of the provision which states that "Member shall not interfere with another Member's use and enjoyment of the Service or another entity's use and enjoyment of similar services." The interference at issues arises from the fact that wikileaks.org has become the target of multiple distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks. These attacks have, and future attacks would, threaten the stability of the EveryDNS.net infrastructure, which enables access to almost 500,000 other websites.
Thus, last night, at approximately 10PM EST, December 1, 2010 a 24 hour termination notification email was sent to the email address associated with the wikileaks.org account. In addition to this email, notices were sent to Wikileaks via Twitter and the chat function available through the wikileaks.org website. Any downtime of the wikileaks.org website has resulted from its failure to use another hosted DNS service provider.
Wikileaks has been forced to move to a Swiss domain, wikileaks.ch, which is hosted by two companies, one in France and one in Sweden.
Via AP:
The American company that directed traffic to the website wikileaks.org stopped late Thursday after cyber attacks threatened the rest of its network. WikiLeaks responded by moving to a Swiss domain name, wikileaks.ch — and calling on activists for support. Two companies host the Swiss domain name, one of which is in France. The other is in Sweden.
On Friday, France moved to ban WikiLeaks from French servers. The French government has been one of numerous administrations embarrassed by the frank assessments of U.S. diplomats and their sources in a flood of cables released by Wikileaks in cooperation with major newspapers in several countries.
Industry Minister Eric Besson says it's "unacceptable" for French servers to host the site, which "violates the secret of diplomatic relations and puts people protected by diplomatic secret in danger."
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is also under pressure as Sweden seeks his extradition in an investigation of sex-crimes allegations against him.
Assange is in Britain, Jennifer Robinson, one of his lawyers, confirmed Friday. She declined to elaborate.
Robinson said that her client was in no way evading arrest, noting that Assange left Sweden with the accord of authorities there and has repeatedly offered himself up for questioning. She also disputed media descriptions of Assange as a fugitive — saying that he was in hiding out of fear for his safety, not to dodge official attention.
Assange faces an arrest and deportation over allegations of sexual misconduct committed during his stay in Sweden back in August.
Sexual misconduct, what a tactful description by the AP of the charges which are a rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion.
Previous:
Wikileaks Releases Largest Classified Military Leaks In History
Examples Of Progressive Liberal Wikileak 'Fawners'
The Obama Administrations Utter Failure To Stop Wikileaks
Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange Wanted By Interpol For 'Sex Crimes'
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