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Richard Stiennon
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California court order effectively erases Wikileaks

By | February 18, 2008, 1:11pm PST

Summary: In the rapidly escalating story of Wikileaks.org, (here) a California court has ordered the domain registrar, Dynadot, to erase all DNS entries for the domain, effectively erasing a website that hosts millions of documents purportedly “leaked” to the wiki-style site in the name of whistle-blowing on malfeasance. If you click on the above [...]

In the rapidly escalating story of Wikileaks.org, (here) a California court has ordered the domain registrar, Dynadot, to erase all DNS entries for the domain, effectively erasing a website that hosts millions of documents purportedly “leaked” to the wiki-style site in the name of whistle-blowing on malfeasance. If you click on the above link you will note, however, that the site is not down of course.

And, in the meantime Cryptonome has made available a complete download of the documents that started all of this. Thoughts of Pandora’s box and cats escaping from bags leap to mind.

This is an outrageous move by a US court. They have attempted to destroy a website because of a complaint about a particular set of files. I wonder how they justify that? Luckily the Internet is made of a series of tubes and the DNS is only a small part of the plumbing.

Rumors abound of DDoS attacks against Wikileaks.org as well as a fire at their ISP. I am sure we have not heard the last of this.

Update:  Cringely is outraged as well.

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Topics

DNS, California, Web Site, Domain Names, Web Site Development, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Web Technology, Networking, Internet, Richard Stiennon

Disclosure

Richard

http://blogs.zdnet.com/threatchaos/?page_id=455

Biography

Richard

A former ZDNet blogger, Richard Stiennon is an industry consultant. Most recently he was Chief Marketing Officer for Fortinet, Inc., the largest privately held security vendor. prior to that he was Chief Research Analyst at IT-Harvest. And before creating IT-Harvest, he was VP of threat research for Webroot Software, Inc. the leading commercial anti-spyware solution.

Previously, Richard was VP Research at Gartner, Inc. where he covered security topics including firewalls, intrusion detection, intrusion prevention, security consulting and managed security services for the Security and Privacy group. He is a holder of Gartner's Thought Leadership award for 2003 and was named "One of the 50 most powerful people in Networking" by NetworkWorld magazine. His speaking engagements have included conferences and meetings throughout North and South America, Hawaii, Tokyo, Tel Aviv, Istanbul, Milan, Munich, Hannover, Madrid, London, and Cannes.

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Judge activism; it started with the Democrats.
jpratchios@... 25th Feb 2008
Judge activism started with the Democrat party when they discovered liberal judges and "legislation from the bench" was ever more successful in expanding "rights" at the expense of "responsibility" and getting enacted radical society experiments that could never be passed around conservative and moderate legislators of either party. It worked beyond their fondest dreams and now that Republicans have discovered that the Courts can be bent toward their pursuasion, you complain. Strict Constitutional interpretation impeded a few agendas and was declared quaint and pasee. Pandora is out of the box and nobody is safe, both parties now use it and will continue to.
View in thread
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International
Rick_R 18th Feb 2008
They need to register the site with a non-U.S. registrar not subject to the jurisdiction of U.S. courts.
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Aren't judges wonderful?
MGP2 18th Feb 2008
I think everyone should have one or two in their pocket (like many large organizations obviously do.)
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Oh yes! Judges are so wonderful! *sweet*
Grayson Peddie 18th Feb 2008
LOL!

Judges are so wonderful who are so illiterate in computer technology and the Internet... grin devil
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RE: California court order effectively erases Wikileaks
Vesicant 19th Feb 2008
Yeah, activist "Constitution? You mean that 'living document' I can interpret any way I want?" judges are great -- until they step into *your* sandbox.
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Whatever happened to "the land of the free" ??!?
Scrat 19th Feb 2008
Could America BE anymore corrupt???
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It was lost in the Bush
jonnjonnzdnet 19th Feb 2008
America, "Land of the Free", went away in 2001 when GW Bush and his administration used the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to declare that the U.S. Constitution was merely a "suggested guideline", not a document containing actual laws protecting the rights of U.S. citizens. The U.S. is now run by an amalgamation of wealthy politicians/dictators and corporations that believe that a more Fascist-style of government would better suit them. If you are not one of the wealthy elite, then I am afraid that you, your so-called Constitutional rights and freedoms, and your well-being simply no longer matter to those running the government. I, too, no longer matter.
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Earlier than that
rpmyers1 19th Feb 2008
That was just the next in a series of steps. Government has been in corporation pockets for a long, long time.
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It's been lost a lot longer
damitche@... 19th Feb 2008
jonnyjonnzdnet, you are absolutely right. However, the puppet dictator GW Bush is not the first to trample the Constitution. We've been in a downhill slide toward fascism ever since the people let the government enact the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. The people of this country have been lax in their duty of protecting the Constitution from domestic threats even before the ink dried on the Bill of Rights. The main difference between now and then is that the enemies of the Constitution have a lot more power now and the defenders of the Constitution are a lot more pacified with their superbowls and decedent TV series. We've allowed the "...private banks to control the issue of [our] money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that [have grown] up around [us], [have deprived] the people of [our] property until [now our] children [have] [awoke] homeless on the continent [our] fathers conquered." - Thomas Jefferson

There are no laws in America today, only the will of our masters, the money men. It's a sad thing, the people ARE slowly waking up, but I fear it will be too late.

http://www.needGod.com
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Gee Dumberthanyou Bosh
MGP2 19th Feb 2008
(My way of pronouncing G W Bush).

However, the puppet dictator GW Bush is not the first to trample the Constitution.

You're right. He's not the first, but he's probably the worst offender. His philogphy? Who needs toilet tissue when you've got this here Bill O' Rights?
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Judge activism; it started with the Democrats.
jpratchios@... 25th Feb 2008
Judge activism started with the Democrat party when they discovered liberal judges and "legislation from the bench" was ever more successful in expanding "rights" at the expense of "responsibility" and getting enacted radical society experiments that could never be passed around conservative and moderate legislators of either party. It worked beyond their fondest dreams and now that Republicans have discovered that the Courts can be bent toward their pursuasion, you complain. Strict Constitutional interpretation impeded a few agendas and was declared quaint and pasee. Pandora is out of the box and nobody is safe, both parties now use it and will continue to.

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