The WikiLeakS.org servers seem to have come back online after the maintenance upgrade at their hosting provider in Sweden.
It is worth re-stating from the previous blog comment
Hopefully none of the SSL or Tor private cryptographic keys on the server hardware will be copied, and no sneaky software patches will be secretly installed, during the possible window of vulnerability presented by this physical re-location of the server hardware.
Some people seem to panic whenever WikiLeakS.org is offline or unreachable, for even a few minutes or hours.
We have experienced the occasional "overloaded by readers" message today. Over the months since WikiLeakS.org started generating media interest, there have been several times when similar messages have been displayed.
Perhaps this time it was as as a result of extra web traffic, due to the current media hype about the Geert Wilders video "Fitna" about Islamic extremism which has now been now pulled from LiveLeak.com (YouTube etc. never wanted it either). Videos are much , much, larger files than .doc or .pdf documents, and so they impose much more strain on the infrastructure.
Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, and some ill informed reports from certain corners of the British media that could directly lead to the harm of some of our staff, Liveleak.com has been left with no other choice but to remove Fitna from our servers.
This illustrates one of the the risks which WikiLeakS.org staff and volunteers also face, and why, perhaps, they try to remain anonymous.
Or perhaps this is all due to some more Scientology web traffic malarkey,
N.B. we keep telling people not to bother searching for any "leaked" content here on this WikiLeak.org blog, but that does not seem to deter some Google search engine users, who are perhaps non-native English speakers, and others, from repeatedly trying our simple blog search form over and over again .
Remember that every time you do this, you leave some electronic clues in our web server log files - it is surprising how many people from rival Swiss Banks and other international financial institutions were hunting for clues about Bank Julius Baer, for example.
Whatever the reason for extra traffic peaks, or perhaps for temporary reduced capacity of the WikiLeakS.org servers, there is a small clue to the sort of infrastructure which WikiLeakS.org is running on i.e. there seems to some very common reverse proxy cache load management going on, resulting, sometimes in a message page :
Wikileaks is overloaded by readersWikileaks servers are currently overloaded by extreme popularity. Why not consider supporting Wikileaks so we can deploy more servers and keep fighting the good fight! See HERE for more information.
[... PayPal donations form]
Try again in a minute by pressing "return" on the website address in your browser address bar (do not press reload -- this will take longer).
[... email contact details]
N.B. the original "HERE" link to PledgeBank.org is currently missing a crucial "e"
Interestingly, at the bottom of the page is what looks like a Squid reverse proxy message says that it was generated "by cache.freedomhouse.org (squid)"
Interestingly "cache.freedomhouse.org" does not seem to resolve to have an external internet DNS entry.
"freedomhouse.org" is Freedom House which is a long established US based human rights lobbying group, who publish an annual report on the state of the world's tyrannies. The fact that they are large enough to have attracted US and other Government grants over the years, also attracts praise or criticism, depending on your own politics.
Whether or not Freedom House is officially actively supporting WikiLeakS.org is not at all clear. Whether or not such support would be a good thing, is also unclear.
Freedom House's web infrastructure seems to be confined to the USA, and it seems unlikely that they would be sharing internet infrastructure in Sweden, so perhaps this squid cache page is simply due to the some content or technical expertise being shared by the activists working for the core WikiLeakS.org group..
There is certainly some WikiLeakS.org style rhetoric text commented out in this web page source code reproduced below:
The first ingredient of democracy is a people's right to know, because without such understanding no human being can meaningfully choose to support anything, including a vote for a political party. Knowledge is the driver of every political process, every constitution,every law and every regulation. The communication of knowledge is without analogue. It is not a piece of furniture and it is not a man throwing a ball. It is unique and demands its own place at the summit of society. Since knowledge is the creator and regulator of all law, it must be placed beyond law.
That the world will change if there is ever truly free speech is not something to be afraid of, rather it is a way for the basic organizing principle of society, the communication of knowledge, to flourish. When knowledge is restricted, each man becomes an atom, unaware of his own destiny or of those around him.
Mankind has successfully adapted to electricity and the engine. It can also adapt to a world where state sponsored violence against the communications of consenting adults is not only unlawful, but physically impossible. It is time, as conversation flows accross international jurisdictions, to sum the great freedoms of every nation and not substract them. It is time for the world to come of age and say 'here I am!'.
Does anyone know if there is any financial or organisational connection between Freedom House and Wikileaks, or do they just share some individual activists and volunteers in common ?
