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Wikileaks' Domain Name Crisis and How You Can Help
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I saw the keynote speech by one of the key technologists and organizers of Wikileaks at the last Hackers on Planet Earth conference. Although the talk was mostly political, there was enough techie talk about encryption and anonymity that I assumed Wikileaks web infrastructure was ready for any kind of attack.
Apparently not. All the encryption in the world doesn't help you if you are hosted in the Amazon Cloud or, for that matter, with any host who doesn't care for your politics.
To their credit, Wikileaks moved to Amazon because a technical denial of service attack took down their previous Swedish host (I don't imagine that they moved without a good reason). However, essentially they traded one form of denial of service for another one.
Today Wikileaks encountered a new form of censorship that should make all of us shudder. Rather than being shutdown at the web hosting level, EveryDNS shutdown the wikleaks.org domain name.
Unlike most aspects of the Internet, the domain name system is hierarchical. There is pyramid - with a limited number of Domain name registrars (just "over 500" according to Wikipedia) that control all the domain names in the world. When you type a domain name, like wikileaks.org, into your web browser, that domain name must be translated into an IP address that is used to route your request to the correct server. The 500 or so registrars control this process.
So what can you do?
Wikleaks responed by registering wikileaks.ch (woops! shutdown as well), wikileaks.de, wikileaks.fi, and wikileaks.nl.
That's a good start. But what if there were more? Here's an idea. What if everyone who controlled a domain name volunteered a subdomain for wikileaks? For example: wikileaks.mayfirst.org. Just create an A record that points to the IP address 88.80.13.160.
If wikileaks has to change providers (and therefor their IP address again), our subdomain won't work until we update it. On the other hand, seems like a good way for us all to really pitch in and share the risk that the folks at Wikileaks are taking all by themselves. And, if the IP address changes, wikileaks only needs to leave behind a simple page on the old IP with a redirect to the new one.
Any takers?
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Black hoodies: Order one. Order them by the dozen and donate them to occupations!
I don't have any means for trying to help with hosting Wikileaks or any other Web site, but will wish everyone who tries success, and if they still fail, then don't worry. The wars needed to be stopped long ago and this was obvious long ago. It has also been obvious for decades that the government of the US, and many other governments, are extremely corrupt. We never needed Wikileaks or any leakers for knowing these things. But if Wikileaks can be successfully hosted, then I guess this will be a good thing even if there might be some negative consequences, as some people say there'll surely or likely be and might be right about this. I prefer for the information to be provided so that I can make my own decisions. Politicians can not be trusted!
"Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg calls for boycott of Amazon.com"
By Stephen C. Webster, RawStory.com, Dec. 3, 2010
www.uruknet.info/?p=m72486
I'd join the boycott, except for one problem; not being able to afford to buy any books anyway.
It's interesting to learn that antiwar.com and other Web sites have already ended their customer relations with Amazon; for purchases, anyway. And according to another Raw Story article linked in the Uruknet copy of the above piece, the "US Library of Congress" has now blocked staff and "visitors from accessing WikiLeaks, citing 'potential malicious content'".
I thought libraries were supposed to be about open education. That must've been in one of my dreams.