WikiLeaks Emerging as Hydra-Like Web Entity That`s Hard to Kill - eWeek

WikiLeaks Emerging as Hydra-Like Web Entity That`s Hard to Kill
( Page 1 of 2 ) WikiLeaks keeps finding ways to stay online even as it gets hit with repeated denial-of-service attacks aimed at keeping people from accessing the site and despite decisions by technology and financial companies to terminate essential services. 

With each passing day it?s getting harder to shut WeakiLeaks down, according to technology experts. ?The harder you hit them, the bigger they get,? wrote James Cowie, CTO at Internet monitoring firm Renesys. 

In the past ten days since WikiLeaks began publishing thousands of leaked U.S diplomatic messages, Amazon has cancelled its hosting service, everyDNS terminated its domain name server services, and PayPal, PostFinance, MasterCard and Visa Europe have frozen its accounts.  

WikiLeaks continues to be hit by DOS attacks to shut down the site with the first attack hitting hours before it published the first batch of diplomatic messages. Instead of relying on just one domain name service provider, the site currently has 14 name servers from 11 different providers in eight different countries, including Switzerland, Germany, Canada, and Malaysia, listed in its WHOIS information.  

WikiLeaks has a number of other top-level domains in case WikiLeaks.ch gets knocked off line, including France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Iceland. The geo-diversification makes it very hard to take WikiLeaks down, wrote Cowie. 

Shortly after US-based DNS provider everyDNS terminated service, easyDNS CEO said the company would be willing to work with WikiLeaks provided certain conditions were met. As the company was based in Toronto, easyDNS would not be subject to U.S. laws ?with respect to takedown requests,? said Mark Jeftovic.

As of Dec. 8, WikiLeaks.ch listed two easyDNS name servers. EasyDNS is also serving other WikiLeaks domains, according to Jeftovic. Last week, WikiLeaks.nl listed Nevada-based Rollernut for DNS, which has been replaced by EasyDNS. 

The DNS for WikiLeaks is ?confined? to the Prolexic anycast nameserver, said Jeftovic. The four servers, deployed in ?London, Hong Kong and on the east and west coasts of North America,? were selected because Prolexic specializes in ?soaking up DOS attacks? and they do that ?very well,? he wrote. Even anticipating that WikiLeaks will be attacked, everyDNS is ?confident? that there will be ?little effect? on other customer domains or even on WikiLeaks, Jeftovic said. 

Now that WikiLeaks is ?spreading in a multi-mirrored fashion, it?s really gone hydra now,? he wrote. ?There?s no center of gravity? for attackers to take out, he said. 

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In political gamble, Reid holds Senate votes he knows he'll lose - Washington Post

On Wednesday afternoon, the most powerful man in the U.S. Senate did something that sounds odd: He set himself up to lose an important vote.

Then he did it again, on another key issue.

And Thursday he'll do it two more times.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) planned votes where his favored bills were expected to fail. For Reid, failure is actually the point. He wants to put Republicans on record as blocking all four.

On Wednesday, he took up seniors' benefits and collective- bargaining rights for police and firefighters' unions, and on Thursday he will call votes on an immigration bill that would assist people who were brought to the United States illegally as children, and legislation that would provide health-care benefits for responders to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

These "test votes" are a sign of the sclerotic state of Congress, clogged by filibuster threats. Usually, it is the people out of power who resort to grand, futile gestures.

Now - in a political gamble - it's the guys in charge.

"Just because the party of 'Just say no' has been blocking all these initiatives, it doesn't mean we're not going to try," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid. "At some point, you've got to take a stand, and let the chips fall where they may."

Senate Democrats, who hold a majority in the chamber, held their last "test vote" on Saturday - two, actually. The first proposal called for an end to tax cuts, passed under President George W. Bush, on income greater than $250,000 for a family.

Democrats needed 60 senators to agree. They got just 53.

Then Democratic leaders staged a vote to let the tax cuts expire only for income of more than $1 million per year for a family. That failed, too.

In theory, these votes were supposed to demonstrate that Republicans were favoring the rich at the expense of the middle class.

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China must do more to restrain N. Korea, Mullen says - Washington Post

TOKYO - As North Korea on Wednesday startled Seoul by firing artillery off the peninsula's west coast, the top U.S. military official directed sharp criticism at China for its "tacit approval" of North Korea's recent behavior.

In Seoul to meet with South Korea's top defense officials, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described China's "unique influence" and "unique responsibility" to restrain North Korea, which in recent weeks has shelled a South Korean island and revealed an advanced uranium-enrichment facility.

"The Chinese have enormous influence over the North, influence that no other nation on Earth enjoys," Mullen said. "And yet, despite a shared interest in reducing tensions, they appear unwilling to use it. Even tacit approval of Pyongyang's brazenness leaves all their neighbors asking, 'What will be next?' "

Mullen's message for Beijing exposed the fault line separating the Obama administration and the Chinese. China - North Korea's lone ally and primary benefactor - is pushing for a resumption of six-party talks, the process designed to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. But the United States, South Korea and Japan don't feel ready, doubting North Korea's willingness to roll back its nuclear arms ambitions.

On Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met in Washington with South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan and Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara for a show of hand-holding and condemnation of North Korea's provocations.

Two South Korean marines and two civilians were killed Nov. 23 when North Korea launched artillery at Yeonpyeong Island, triggering the latest crisis on the often-tense peninsula. Days earlier, North Korea had revealed to a U.S. nuclear specialist a new facility filled with roughly 2,000 centrifuges. North Korea says the uranium program will be used for energy purposes, but it has the capacity to produce highly enriched uranium and expand Pyongyang's nuclear weapons stock.

The lingering anxiety in the South was reflected Wednesday morning, when its military reported hearing North Korean artillery fire near the maritime border. Though the shells landed in North Korean waters, South Korean financial markets were briefly rattled by the news, recovering only when local television stations attributed the fire to military drills, not an attack.

South Korea has held its own live-fire exercises this week, continuing a show of military readiness that North Korea says threatens a "full-scale war." The United States and South Korea last week conducted joint military drills, with more to come. The Yeonpyeong attack - which prompted the resignation of South Korea's defense minister - caused Seoul to reassess its restrained response to the shelling, with new Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin vowing airstrikes against North Korea if the South is attacked again.

Still, Mullen on Wednesday called for caution.

"Rather than meet belligerence in kind, you chose to meet it with restraint and resolve and with readiness," Mullen said of South Korea. "The North should not mistake this restraint as a lack of resolve, nor should they interpret it as willingness to accept continued attacks to go unchallenged."

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