Some n00b claims credit for wikileaks DoS attack

[tyme]

http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/hosted/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228400244&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_All

"www.wikileaks.org--TANGO DOWN--for attempting to endanger the lives of our troops, 'other assets' & foreign relations" (from Twitter)
"PS for me personally WL is a sideshow target. I am more interested in the big jihad recruiting and training sites" (quoted by ABCNews)

http://twitter.com/#!/th3j35t3r
http://th3j35t3r.wordpress.com/

If you were on a jury, would you convict this guy of whatever computer-related felonies he may be charged with?  Explain.

IMO, "hell yes."  It's pathetic that Amazon stopped hosting wikileaks because Lieberman started whining about it.  There is a process for things like this: if you think wikileaks is a terrorist organization, you encourage the Feds to charge them and let the judiciary decide what to do about wikileaks' being hosted by Amazon.

This kid is a criminal and the right or wrong of wikileaks has nothing to do with it.  He's obviously trying to tap into sentiment that he's a patriot for dealing with the scourge of terrorist websites.  Nonsense.  If the wikileaks site were clearly in violation of the law, the Feebs could go to a judge, get a restraining order, and have the site shut down at Amazon within hours.  No illegal DoS attack needed.

[Jocassee]

http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/hosted/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228400244&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_All

http://twitter.com/#!/th3j35t3r
http://th3j35t3r.wordpress.com/

If you were on a jury, would you convict this guy of whatever computer-related felonies he'll be charged with?  Explain.

IMO, "hell yes."  It's pathetic that Amazon stopped hosting wikileaks because Leiberman started whining about it.  There is a process for things like this: if you think wikileaks is a terrorist organization, you encourage the Feds to charge them and let the judiciary decide what to do about wikileaks' being hosted by Amazon.

This kid is a criminal and the right or wrong of wikileaks has nothing to do with it.  He's obviously trying to tap into sentiment that he's a patriot for dealing with the scourge of terrorist websites.  Nonsense.  If the wikileaks site were clearly in violation of the law, the Feebs could go to a judge, get a restraining order, and have the site shut down at Amazon within hours.  No illegal DoS attack needed.

Where's the article that talked about him being arrested? Haven't seen that anywhere.

[tyme]

bah, the part about the arrest was a hoax, editing OP title.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

so  lets recap

if he was doing this fighting "the man" he would be a hero of the revolution
doing this in support of the us makes him a criminal/statist/lackey

did i miss something?

[Fitz]

In case you haven't been paying attention, tyme, the Feds ARE going to go after wikileaks. They recently said so. They're building a case.

[Zardozimo Oprah Bannedalas]

I don't care about him. I just want to know how Xerxes works.

[Brad Johnson]

IMO, "hell yes."  It's pathetic that Amazon stopped hosting wikileaks because Lieberman started whining about it. 

They stopped hosting it because most of their sales are in North America.  Their customer base is rightly incensed about Wikileaks lack of concern for the health and safety of our men and women in uniform and Amazon could see the writing on the wall.  They terminated service to be rid of the association, an association which could, and probably would, have had a massive negative impact on their business.

Brad

[Fitz]

Also, why do people keep screaming about "First amendment" regarding this...

private company doesn't want this *expletive deleted*it on their servers, kicks it off.


What's the problem?

[tyme]

They stopped hosting it because most of their sales are in North America.  Their customer base is rightly incensed about Wikileaks lack of concern for the health and safety of our men and women in uniform...

Really?  Amazon had hosted the war diary[3] pages over a month ago, with little fanfare.[1]

Let me just offer some perspective as somebody who’s been at this a long time. Every other government in the world knows the United States government leaks like a sieve, and it has for a long time. And I dragged this up the other day when I was looking at some of these prospective releases. And this is a quote from John Adams: “How can a government go on, publishing all of their negotiations with foreign nations, I know not. To me, it appears as dangerous and pernicious as it is novel.”

When we went to real congressional oversight of intelligence in the mid-’70s, there was a broad view that no other foreign intelligence service would ever share information with us again if we were going to share it all with the Congress. Those fears all proved unfounded.

Now, I’ve heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on. I think – I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought. The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it’s in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets.

Many governments – some governments deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us. We are still essentially, as has been said before, the indispensable nation. So other nations will continue to deal with us. They will continue to work with us. We will continue to share sensitive information with one another. Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest.[4]

Timeline:

Oct 22 - Amazon is noticed hosting wikileaks' war logs on U.S. EC2 servers[1]

Nov 30 - Staff of the Senate Homeland Security Committee become aware of news reports stating that Cablegate is hosted on U.S. Amazon EC2 servers.[2]
Dec 1 - Lieberman issues a statement that he's pleased that Amazon has cut off wikileaks.[2]

So, is the claim that Amazon cut off wikileaks this week, acting of its own free will?  Doubtful.  It appears it was nudged, pushed, perhaps even threatened.

And let's not forget the Lieberman- and King-endorsed newspeak definition of terrorism...
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/130879-sen-lieberman-doubts-wikileaks-is-a-terrorist-organization

More with Lieberman talking about about lives and safety: http://www.wtnh.com/dpp/news/politics/lieberman-wikileaks

[1] http://boxbinary.com/2010/10/why-wikileaks-warlogs-site-servers-hosted-in-the-us-amazon-ec2-not-sweden/ (Amazon U.S. EC2 hosting warlogs)
[2] http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/12/how_lieberman_got_amazon_to_drop_wikileaks.php
[3] http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2010/10/no_intel_compromise.html
[4] http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2010/11/quotable-secretary-gates-on-wi/

[Brad Johnson]

So, is the claim that Amazon cut off wikileaks this week, acting of its own free will?  Doubtful.  It appears it was nudged, pushed, perhaps even threatened.

Like I said, they could see the handwriting on the wall and decided to pull it proactively instead of waiting until it was too late.  How hard is that to understand?

Brad