WikiLeaks mirrors multiply as main funding source gets cut off

[Joanne98]

The Internet may be working to take WikiLeaks offline, but the site's contents aren't going to disappear, thanks to hundreds of mirrors that popped up over the weekend. But even though more than 200 sites around the world now host the controversial leaked documents, WikiLeaks may face an all-too-familiar funding problem if it wants to continue publishing new leaks.

WikiLeaks has been server hopping lately thanks to a combination of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and pressure from politicians. A DDoS attack had originally pushed WikiLeaks to move some of its operations to Amazon, but then Amazon booted the site from its servers after Sen. Joe Liberman (I-CT) pressured the company to stop associating itself with WikiLeaks. That move was quickly followed by WikiLeaks' DNS provider EveryDNS pulling the plug, claiming that the continued DDoS attacks would threaten the stability of EveryDNS's other sites.

This prompted WikiLeaks to put up a plea on its website for a mass mirroring so that it would become "impossible to ever fully remove WikiLeaks from the Internet." The page has detailed instructions on how to set up a virtual host and upload the relevant content. Those who do so can then add their sites to the list of mirrors; the number of sites on the list has fluctuated between 200 and 400 in the last few days, and currently sits at 208 (as of publication). There may actually be even more mirrors that haven't been added to the list, though.

Indeed, it certainly looks as if it will be all but impossible to eliminate WikiLeaks from the Web with so many places to find the current documents, though WikiLeaks has other challenges. On Friday, PayPal permanently yanked the site's account that was being used to collect donations, citing violations of PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy. "ur payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity," PayPal said in a statement posted to its blog.

Meanwhile, Swiss bank Post Finance announced on Monday that it had frozen WikiLeaks' frontman Julian Assange's defense fund and personal assets. "The Australian citizen provided false information regarding his place of residence during the account opening process," the bank said in a statement, noting that Assange had allegedly given an address in Geneva as his place of residence.

According to a WikiLeaks statement on the matter, Assange had used his lawyer's address, the fund had housed about €31,000 (about $41,000), and he and WikiLeaks had collectively lost €100,000 in the last week.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/12/wikileaks-mirrors-multiply-as-funding-source-gets-cut-off.ars

[gateley]

1. They're trying to shut him up. It's horrifying to watch. Regardless

of your personal take on what Wikileaks is doing, this is indicative of what the Powers That Be do when their secrets get out. They shut us up. This happens to us every day on every level.

I'm heartened that so many have sprung into action to keep the information flowing.

I STILL vacillate about whether or not I think this information could harm people, but I'm committed to the principle of transparency.