And its awesome.You see, this is the first time anything like WikiLeaks has been attempted. Nor did they attract this kind of upset. But the company that hosts WikiLeaks DNS record – everyDNS.com – suddenly realised that WikiLeaks was in violation of its terms of service, and it too, cut WikiLeaks off. This was a more serious blow. WikiLeaks needs a distributed network of servers that are too broad and too diffuse to be attacked. For things to be as if WikiLeaks never was.Meanwhile, the diplomatic cables slowly dribble out, a feed that makes last years MP expenses scandal in the UK seem like amateur theatre, an unpractised warm-up before the main event. This did manage to bring WikiLeaks to its knees (surprising for an organisation believed to be rather paranoid about security), so WikiLeaks moved to a backup server, purchasing computing resources from Amazon, which runs a cloud of hundreds of thousands of computers available for rent. Its the legal cudgel that companies use to have their way with you. US Senator Joe Lieberman told Amazon to cut WikiLeaks off, and within a few hours Amazon had suddenly realised that WikiLeaks violated their Terms of Service, kicking them off Amazons systems.You know what Terms of Service are? They are the too-long agreements you always accept and click through on a website, or when you install some software, etc. And WikiLeaks needs a funding mechanism which can not be choked off by the actions of any other actor.Weve been here before. This is the final terminus of aristocracy; a process that began on July 14, 1789 came to a conclusive end on November 28, 2010. Its likely that the Americans will eventually get their hands on Assange – a compliant Australian Government has already made it clear that it will do nothing to thwart or even slow that request – and hell be charged with espionage, likely convicted, and sent to a US federal prison for many, many years. The mythology of power – that leaders are somehow more substantial, their concerns more elevated and lofty than us mere mortals, who not question their motives – that mythology has been definitively busted. You know, just in case.None of it is very pretty, all of it is embarrassing, and the embarrassment extends well beyond the state actors – who are, after all, paid to lie and dissemble, this being one of the primary functions of any government – to the complicit and compliant news media, think tanks and all the other camp followers deeply invested in the preservation of the status quo. Its a little bit harder to find WikiLeaks now – but not terrifically difficult. How could it be? Its untried, and untested. As PayPal never turns funds over immediately, theres an implication that PayPal is holding onto a considerable sum of WikiLeaks donations, while that shutdown makes it much more difficult to pass the hat and collect additional funds to keep the operation running. Were learning now, and to learn means to try and fail and try again.This failure comes with a high cost. We can choose to embrace this authenticity, and use it to construct a new system of relations, one which does not rely on secrets and lies. With every day, with every passing hour, the power of the state mobilises against WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, its titular leader.The inner processes of statecraft have never been so completely exposed as they have been in the last week. This is 1999, the company is Napster, and the angry party is the recording industry. The new aristocracies of democracy have been smashed, trundled off to the guillotine of the internet, and beheaded.Of course, the state isnt going to take its own destruction lying down. Once again, the fine folks at PayPal had a look at their Terms of Service (stop me if youve heard this one before) and – oh, look! Those bad awful folks at WikiLeaks are in violation of our terms! Lets cut them off from their money!WikiLeaks has undoubtedly received a lot of contributions over the last few days. Formerly quiet seas are now roiling, while everyone with any authority everywhere is doing everything they can to close the gaps in the smooth functioning of power. This is a new thing, and as well thought-out as WikiLeaks might be, it isnt perfect. A week ago that would have sounded utopian, now its just facing facts. But what hes done can not be undone; this tear in the body politic will never truly heal.Everything is different now. In the fine print of that agreement any service provider will always be able to find some reason, somewhere, for terminating the service, charging you a fee, or – well, pretty much whatever they like. Gnutella created the darknet for file-sharing which has permanently crippled the recording and film industries. Now I see the plan. WikiLeaks needs an alternative to the Domain Name Service. And so, over the last week weve been able to watch the systematic dismantling of WikiLeaks. Amazon, paranoid about customer reliability, easily fended off the DDoS attacks, but came under another kind of pressure. They want all of this to disappear and be forgotten. For the first time in my life I see the possibility for change on a scale beyond the personal. Nothing is ever that simple. Why would anyone taking on the state so directly become such a public figure? It made no sense to me. Score one for Assange, who – if the news media are to be believed – is just about to be taken into custody by the UK police, serving a Swedish arrest warrant.Finally, just a few hours ago, the masterstroke. Do you reckon that every other Amazon customer complies with its Terms of Service? If you do, I have a bridge you might be interested in.At that point, Assange & Co could have moved the server anywhere willing to host them – and Switzerland had offered. Within days after the death of Napster, Gnutella came around, and righted all the wrongs of Napster: decentralised where Napster was centralised; pervasive and increasingly invisible. She doesnt like him; he doesnt like them; they dont like any of us! Oh, and shes been scouting around for DNA samples and your credit card number. Everything feels more authentic. The nation state has been revealed as some sort of long-running and unintentionally-comic soap opera. DNS, or Domain Name Service, is the magic that translates a domain name like markpesce.com or nytimes.com into a number that represents a particular computer on the internet. Without someone handling that translation, no-one could find wikileaks.org. Assange knows that someone had to get out in front and fail, before others could come along and succeed. Checkmate.A few months ago I wrote about how confused I was by Julian Assanges actions. It took them a while to strangle the beast, but they did finally manage to choke all the life out of it – for all the good it did them. Assange must know this – a teenage hacker would understand the lesson of Napster. Im hopeful. Assange gets to be the scapegoat, the pinup boy for a new kind of anarchism. These contributions have been handled (principally) by the now-ubiquitous PayPal, the financial services arm of internet auction giant eBay. WikiLeaks is financed by contributions made by individuals and organisations (Disclosure: Im almost certain I donated $50 to WikiLeaks in 2008). Every politician everywhere – from Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton to Vladimir Putin to Julia Gillard has felt compelled to express their strong and almost visceral anger. Even the Afghan and Iraq war logs, released by WikiLeaks earlier this year, didnt hold this kind of fascination. First came the condemnation, then, hot on the heels of the shouts of off with his head for traitor Julian Assange, came the technical attacks, each one designed to amputate one part of the body of the organisation.First up, that old favourite, the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, which involves harnessing tens of thousands of hacked PCs (perhaps yours, or your moms, or your daughters) to broadcast tens of millions of faux requests for information to WikiLeaks computers. Yes, there have been leaks prior to this, but never before have hyperdistribution and cryptoanarchism come to the service of the whistleblower. Or was. You would be able to type the name into your web browser, but thats as far as youd get.So Wikileaks.org went down, but Wikileaks.ch (the Swiss version) came online moments later, and now there are hundreds of other sites which are all mirroring the content on the original WikiLeaks site. The failure of Napster was the blueprint for Gnutella.In exactly the same way – note for note -, and which will permanently leave the state and its actors neutered. Now that contact with the enemy has been made – the state with all its powers – it has become clear where WikiLeaks has been found wanting. But to what? Only some diplomatic gossip.Has Earth become a sort of amplified Facebook, where an in-crowd of Heathers, horrified, suddenly finds its bitchy secrets posted on a public forum? Is that what weve been reduced to? Or is that what weve been like all along? could be the source of the anger. Assange has brought out the radical hiding inside me, the one always afraid to show his face. I think Im not alone. We now know that power politics and statecraft reduce to a few pithy lines referring to how much Berlusconi sleeps in the company of nubile young women and speculations about whether Medvedev really enjoys wearing the Robin costume.Its this triviality which has angered those in power.
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Jan 20, 2011 by News Gatherer
