email from my DNS provider this AM regarding Wikileaks

[DemocratAholic]

The following is an email I received from my DNS provider this morning (the company that gives "DNS address" for my websites). As my luck would have it, it happens to be the same company that is now providing DNS service for the new Wikileaks website.

While there is nothing secret about it's name, I have deleted all mentions of the name from this post and any URLs they provided in the email. I am not a journalist, and I do not feel it it may place to re-report this or add any fuel to the fire by broadcasting the name of this company. If you are really interested in the name, you can easily figure it out by going to the news outlets they referenced in the email. Anything I have deleted has been replaced with "(deleted)."

I am only posting this to provide a little insight into what is going on behind the scenes, and how it may affect people like me (who have no relation to Wikileaks), with the suggestion that a government would attempt to shut down an entire DNS provider that provides service to Wikileaks. I would also add that after I pasted this, my spell checker picked out spelling errors in their email, which I left as is.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
This notice is being sent to all active domain holders on the system.

(deleted)

In this email:
1. The WikiLeaks Situation

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1. The WikiLeaks Situation
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It is not very often we send out an all-member email blast, so when
we do, it's usually pretty important.

First and foremost, everything is ok. Please read the information that
follows carefully but understand that we would never do anything that
we thought put our members at risk.

The Basic Background:
=====================

On Friday, Dec 6th, (deleted) was mistakenly identified in various online
channels as the DNS provider who revoked DNS Services for the controversial
website Wikileaks, and a large internet backlash ensued against us.

In fact, the Wikileaks DNS provider was a free DNS provider in New Hampshire
called "(deleted)". At some point this was mistakenly reported as
"(deleted)", and it gathered momentum from there. The problem was compounded
on Saturday, Dec 7th when the New York Times picked up the story, also
incorrectly identifying us as the party who "unplugged" Wikileaks. The
U.K based Guardian did the same thing again on Tuesday, December 7th.

A timeline of events has been posted here:

(deleted)

And our original rebuttal to the misinformation was posted here:

(deleted)


(deleted) Added To WikiLeaks.ch DNS
==================================

On Sunday, Dec 5th, we were approached by a group acting on behalf of
Wikileaks and asked to provide DNS for their fallback domain WikiLeaks.ch.

We agreed to this on several conditions.

(deleted)

We did not take this decision lightly, and whichever side of the fence you
fall regarding what Wikileaks is doing, after being falsley accused of
unplugging Wikileaks and taking an enormous amount of backlash for doing
so, we felt we did not have much choice in the matter but to forge ahead and
take on this challenge.

(deleted)

We actually consider this part of the situation to be well in hand.

Tonight the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail ran a story about
this bizarre sequence of events and we expect it to run in the print
edition (possibly as the cover story) on Thursday, Dec 10.

That story is here: (deleted)

However, and this is large part of the motivation for this email, the Globe
story concluded with the following quotation, which we feel sends the wrong
message, as I mispoke when I said the following:

"Our lawyers have basically told us that if they want to shut us down
they'll show up with an injunction and we'll have to follow it and then
try and have it overturned later,"

This may connote that we think we, as a company, may be shut down. We do NOT
think this is going to happen at all.

What I meant to convey in the quote is:

"If they want US ((deleted)) to shut THEM (WikiLeaks) down, they'll show up
with an injunction, and we'll have to follow it, etc etc".

And if that happened, we would be terminating service to wikileaks alone.

Further information about this clarification is here:

(deleted)

We wanted to let you know as an (deleted) member, that we are taking every
measure to ensure that this situation does not disrupt the continuity of your
domain services at all.

In conclusion, we believe we have taken the course of action that fits
who we are as a company.

If you've been dealing with us for any amount of time then hopefully you know
what kind of company that is. I also hope you agree that, regardless of
your opinion of Wikileaks itself, we are playing the hand we've been dealt
in accordance with who we are as a company.

In short, we think this is the right thing to do, and that is why we're
doing it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you are not already subscribed to our blog feed in your favorite RSS
reader, I suggest doing so via (deleted), or making a habit
of checking the blog for updates.

We also put out info as it happens on Twitter, (deleted)
------------------------------------------------------------------------

As always, if anyone has any questions or concerns regarding any of
these issues, feel free to email me or call me voice.

Thank you,
(deleted)

[KharmaTrain]

1. Those DOS Attacks Could Backfire

I know there were those who were cheering it on and thought that by shutting down Visa or Ebay or whomever for an hour that this was sending some kind of message. It may be a message you wish wasn't sent. Besides these actions being illegal...yes...hacking a private website, no matter how "oppressive" or for whatever "motivation" is illegal and surely if it was your business that was being attacked you wouldn't find it quite so fun. You think this is "cyberwar"? A bunch of kids in mom's basement? Do you really think this is going to do anything other than piss off people with a lot more money and power? Think again.

As a big proponent of Net Neutrality, these actions could give cause for those who want to restrict use and access..."security". These attacks do show the vulnerability and that's gotta have a lot of IT managers scrambling. It's like poking the stick in a monster's eye. Great laughs now but when they get up, watch out.

[Pholus]

2. They already did. "Cyberwar" has been the MSM word of the day.

[KharmaTrain]

3. It's Not Even A Fair Fight...

A bunch of kids with laptops aren't a match for the psy-ops and other divisions not only within this government but others around the world that do have the capabilities to shut down internet sites and really mess things up. And to what end? Most people won't make the connection between Wikileaks and Visa nor care to, they'll just know their purchases didn't go through and some punks screwed it up. But, I guess it was fun for a short while to think one was master of the universe.

I've been avoiding the corporate media so far this morning...makes my life a lot simpler that way...but I'm sure the spin will be brutal.

[Pholus]

4. I expect that this will be used for some new proposed laws. Ones that make online tracking easier.

[nc4bo]

5. Or confirms that there needs to be more control over the internet.

Of course I don't agree but there are quite a few Congresspeople who oppose a free internet.