STOCKHOLM (AP) -- Wikileaks was forced Friday to switch over to
a Swiss domain name, wikileaks.ch, after a new round of hacker
attacks on its system prompted its American domain name provider
to withdraw service.
WikiLeaks' U.S. domain name system
provider, EveryDNS, withdrew service to the wikileaks.org name
late Thursday, saying it took the action because the new hacker
attacks threatened the rest of its network.
"Wikileaks.org has become the target of
multiple distributed denial of service attacks. These attacks
have, and future attacks would, threaten the stability of the
EveryDNS.net infrastructure," EveryDNS said in a statement.
EveryDNS provides access to some 500,000
websites.
In a tweet on Friday, the owner of
EveryDNS, Dynamic Network Services Inc., wrote that "trust is
paramount: Our users and customers are our most important
asset." It did not specify whether it was referring to WikiLeaks,
however.
WikiLeaks confirmed the move in a separate
tweet, saying "WikiLeaks.org domain killed by US everydns.net
after claimed mass attacks." It was not clear where the alleged
attacks were coming from.
WikiLeaks has previously claimed that
intelligence agencies from the U.S. and elsewhere have been
targeting its site, which has spilled thousands of embarrassing
U.S. diplomatic cables as well as classified U.S. military
documents.
Earlier this week, WikiLeaks' Swedish
server host, Bahnhof, confirmed that the website had been hit by
a cyber attack just before it leaked thousands of classified
U.S. diplomatic cables.
In addition to the latest batch of
sensitive documents, WikiLeaks has angered the U.S. and other
governments by publishing almost half a million secret documents
about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is not clear how
WikiLeaks obtained the diplomatic documents, but the U.S.
government's prime suspect is an Army private, Bradley Manning,
who is in custody on charges of leaking other classified
documents to WikiLeaks.
On Wednesday, Amazon.com Inc. - which had
provided WikiLeaks with use of its servers to distribute
embarrassing State Department communications and other documents
- evicted it. The site remains on the servers of its Swedish
provider.
The ouster from Amazon came after
congressional staff questioned the company about its
relationship with WikiLeaks. Sen. Joe Lieberman praised Amazon's
action and said it should "set the standard" for companies
WikiLeaks is using to distribute "illegally seized material"
In its decision to terminate the service
for Wikileaks, EveryDNS cited what it called a violation of the
provision stating that a member should "not interfere with
another member's use and enjoyment of the service."
Andre Rickardsson, an expert on
file-sharing and information technology security at Sweden's
Bitsec Consulting, said domain name providers normally don't
drop their clients unless the clients themselves have breached
their user contract. "WikiLeaks is not behind the disturbance
here, but individuals trying to disturb WikiLeaks' operations,"
he said.
Rickardsson said he had never experienced
a user being shut off under similar circumstances.
"I don't believe for a second that this
has been done by EveryDNS themselves. I think they've been under
pressure," he said referring to U.S. authorities.
Mark Stephens, the London-based lawyer for
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, also speculated that outside
pressure had forced EveryDNS to pull the plug on WikiLeaks.
"Pressure appears to have been applied to
close the WikiLeaks domain name," he wrote on the micro-blogging
website.
Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, has
been out of public sight for nearly a month. Sweden has issued
an Europe-wide arrest warrant for him over allegations of rape,
sexual molestation and unlawful coercion, but the exact nature
of the allegations are still unclear.
Assange's Swedish and British lawyers
claim their client has attempted to assist in the questioning
but so far Sweden has turned down his offers. According to his
lawyers, he has also yet to receive formal notice of the
allegations.
An American defense official has also
indicated that U.S. government lawyers are investigating whether
Assange can be prosecuted for spying. He is also risks legal
action in his homeland, where Australia's Attorney General
Robert McClelland has said Australia would detain Assange if
possible in response to the warrant filed in the Swedish case by
Interpol.
Assange has spoken publicly lately only
through online interviews
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