Amazon to stop hosting WikiLeaks

Amazon.com pulled the plug today on the WikiLeaks Web site it had been hosting, reports CNBC.com.

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, (I-Conn.), said the move came as reports surfaced that WikiLeaks had asked Amazon to host its website on its servers after the WikiLeaks site was attacked, according to CNBC.

WikiLeaks will now be hosted in other countries across Europe, writes Sky News.

WikiLeaks, whose purpose is to reveal classified information, had recently released hundreds of thousands of intercepted cables when it was hit by two distributed denial of service attacks, one of which succeeded in knocking the site hosting the cables offline for a few hours.

The cables contain secrets that reveal technology’s role in U.S. diplomacy. Of the 250,000 diplomatic cables acquired by WikiLeaks, there are more than 10,000 leaks on technology, Internet policies, cyber security practices, and the IT systems of the U.S. countries and other countries, reports InformationWeek.

In particular, the WikiLeak cables finger China as the culprit in the cyberattack on Google’s computer network in January. It is believed a top Chinese official ordered the hack after Googling himself, notes Information Week. Among the cables, is a dispatch describing a Chinese contact informing the U.S. Embassy in Beijing that China’s Politburo sanctioned the attack on Google, according to USA Today.

The New York Times reports that the attack was part of “a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government.” 

The WikiLeaks cable makes it clear, notes the Daily Beast blog, that Beijing directed hacks into not only Google, but also U.S. and Western allies’ computers, the Gmail accounts of Chinese dissidents, and even the Dalai Lama’s computer.

Some other examples, according to InformationWeek:

• A Brazilian general asks for American assistance in the form of “courses” and “visits” after being concerned that the country’s computer systems, including classified networks, lack appropriate protection.
• A statement from a supporter of failed Iranian presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi claims the IT director for the nation’s election office was executed after the vote tabulation showed President Mahmound Ahmsinejad coming in third in the 2009 Presidential election.
• A suggestion to implant microchips in Guantanamo Bay detainees as a way of tracking their movements. White House Counterterrorism adviser John Brennan responds by saying “horses don’t have good lawyers.”

The White House responded to the reports by saying the cables often include “candid and often incomplete information,” writes the New York Times.