WikiLeaks

I find the whole WikiLeaks thing to be fascinating on many levels.

The site is suffering the biggest DOS attack in history. Pundits are saying hackers are doing it. But that is pretty stupid. Why would they do that? The biggest botnets are used for making money, or so we thought. This one is obviously done by one or more governments, almost certainly the feds. Previously we did not know the US cyberwarfare capabilities. It would be very interesting to find out which botnet is doing the most attacks. If it is a known botnet, that is cool. If it was unknown, that is even cooler. This can't be very hard to find out.

It is interesting how the government is targeting the WikiLeaks site but not the newspapers that are publishing exactly the same content. They want to kill the messenger, but the newspapers are enshrined in the public's conception of a free press.

Will we ever really know if Assange is a rapist? Or is that just another dirty trick. Putting him in jail will not slow the leaks, it will only make him more famous.

Individually, most of the leaks actually help the US, showing cooperation from surprising places. But overall it is rather devastating, as the mechanisms of diplomacy are seen as unsafe. Communicating with allies on the highest levels is fairly easy to re-secure. But on lower levels, it will be difficult for our allies to trust their everyday communications with us.

Interesting that the biggest critics of WikiLeaks are tea partiers. So much for restraining the federal government. Reminds me of flag burning. These people want to protect political speech, so long as it's not too offensive.