Wikileaks' DNS pulls plug, citing collateral DDoS damage

Domain name provider EveryDNS has pulled the plug on Wikileaks after giving the site 24 hours' notice that it could not put up with the denial of service attacks the site was attracting. The DNS provider said that it had sent messages by email and via Twitter and through the chat function of its website to warn Wikileaks that …

[James Le Cuirot]

Put this in context

It's worth putting this in context, in that EveryDNS is not the small outfit it used to be and is now owned by Dyn Inc, best known for DynDNS. On the one hand, the old EveryDNS might have been more tolerent but on the other hand, DynDNS should have the resources to deal with this. Maybe they're only willing to go so far for non-paying customers, which is understandable.

[Patrick O'Reilly]

Still Up!

The Wikileaks site is still up at http://213.251.145.96

[m1x]

Wikileaks reachable via ip adress at http://46.59.1.2/

Wikileaks.org is also still reachable at http://46.59.1.2/ .

(DNS information was still cached by Robtex, http://www.robtex.com/dns/wikileaks.org.html#records )

[Cameron Colley]

Being DDoS's breaks the Ts & Cs?

Remind me never to use a firm which stops providing a paid service because someone else is causing them problems. If they can't handle a DDoS attack without their entire service going down then perhaps they should look to another line of business, rather than blaming someone for being the victim of the attack?

[Destroy All Monsters]

More like a letter from "unnamed officials" amirite?

You know Big Brother just wants to help you keep your service up.

Furthermore, there is no point in reading anything leaked, because it's all old news. Move along now.

[Pen-y-gors]

T & Cs

How does being the target of DDoS attacks from the US military mean that wikileaks has violated the T&Cs? It says that MEMBERS must not interfere etc... and in this case wikileaks haven't done anything, they have been done to.

They may well have very good reason to ask wikileaks to move their DNS somewhere more robust - EveryDNS is a free service, and obviously the service to everyone was being compromised, but dodgy references to breaching the t&cs is not the way to go.

[Robert Carnegie]

"AOL"

It wasn't WikiLeaks DOSing the name service.

I now have the difficult decision of whether to (1) morally agree with any continued DOS action against WikiLeaks' former DNS provider - by a different hacker, I would suppose - and (2) to say so. I do not approve of computer misuse and abusive hacking, but retributive justice is seductive.

[Bilgepipe]

They seek him here...

According to his lawyer, Assanges whereabouts are known to the UK Police and Interpol, and the Swedish and US Governments all know how to contact him. Perhaps they could just drop him an email?

[Thomas 4]

I find myself puzzled

Interpol and various police agencies are going to great lengths in order to track down one alleged rapist. Shurely there must be others closer to home with a greater chance of conviction...

[Anonymous Coward]

May I be the first

to welcome our site snuffing, for'ner dissin' 'merkin overlords.

[asdf]

not our fault

The British speak their own language wrong. Seriously though not every one of the 350 million people are redneck retards, it just seems the ones we do have often be in charge.

[Anonymous Coward]

letters, digits

Have look at http://www.fsilaw.com/Global/In%20the%20media/Media%20coverage/22,-d-,11,-d-,2010%20-%20Mark%20Stephens%20-%20The%20Financial%20Times.aspx for the status of the so called arrest warrant. It's baloney.

[Andy 66]

They've moved to Switzerland

wikileaks.ch

"AFP - 03/12/2010 à 10:43

WikiLeaks en ligne à une nouvelle adresse après 6 heures d'interruption

e site WikiLeaks, qui publie depuis dimanche des télégrammes diplomatiques américains, était à nouveau en ligne vendredi avec une nouvelle adresse suisse (wikileaks.ch) après six heures d'interruption, a constaté l'AFP à la suite d'une annonce du site sur Twitter.

"

Sorry, but got that from the French, basically they upped their servers hosting the .org domain that were hosted in Paris and Sweden and moved to wikileaks.ch

Presumably the .org will follow eventually

[Tim Brown 1]

Someone please explain to the Daily Telegraph...

... the difference between a 'hosting provider', a 'domain name lookup service', a DNS address and an IP address

Their reporter should really have prefaced his story with 'I don't really understand anything about computers or this thing called the internet but apparently...'

[Tim Brown 1]

Woops...

should have put 'The Guardian' in the title of my comment, not Telegraph.

Which is even more ironic, since, as we all know, it's The Guardian that's been publicising all the leaked material!

(The Telegraph report is in fact reasonably comprehensible)

[Anonymous Coward]

You upset me, I am going to make you suffer

This shows what happens if you upset the US or Israel. If you dare show the truth behind the US government, they will do whatever it takes to destroy you. Just as the Taliban upset the Americans for not allowing oil to flow through at the American's price, they destroyed Afghanistan. Saddam Hussein upset the Americans for wanting more, they destroyed Iraq and had him executed under another puppet government. Now Wikileaks is upsetting the American government, it is now under constant attack. This is what they call the free world and democracy!

Anonymous for obvious reasons!

[Mr Larrington]

Eh?

"Destroyed Afghanistan"? AFAIK it's been fucked for as long as it's existed thanks to various foreign powers, local warlords and the Talibunnies.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all the great Satans fault

I know there are some people who like to blame the US for everything that's wrong with the world, and I'd agree that their foreign policy has, largely, been crap. But is that any different to the foreign policy of any other major power of, oh I don't know, forever???

I wonder what the wikileaks confidential documents from Russia, China, Iran or... oh, hang on there aren't any. I wonder why, perhaps the former Soviet Union didn't invade Afghanistan? All that shit didn't happen in Chechenya, the Chinese govt. doesn't fund brutal and oppressive regimes all over the world.

Seems to me that the US is an easy target. Not less guilty, just safer to shout at. Bet if Wikileaks starts picking on Russia, Assange will be carrying a Geiger counter...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It's all the great Satans fault

Those other nations you mention don't hold themselves up as the bastions of democracy and free speech, they don't rampage around the planet oppressing any nation who upsets them all in the name of freedom.

It's the utter hypocrisy of America that makes it stand head and shoulders above other global bullies.

Big Brother because America also invents threats of war to get it's way.

[Steve Crook]

So it's their Attitude???

America are hypocrites and that makes them worse than anyone else? That was a troll right?

The govt in Burmah are not as bad as the US? But if you asked them, they'd say that their people had just voted in a free and fair election. The USSR happily promoted itself as a workers paradise just as their eastern European colonies did, and they'd have been just as happy to see you live the same way, Gulags and all.

I'm sure, if asked, the Russian govt. would describe their society as free and fair, yet Russian journalists are routinely murdered and beaten up, and the crimes are not investigated.

Given a choice between Russia, China and America as top dog, at the moment I'd pick the Americans every time. You might like to say that there should be no top dog, but that's not the way the world works. The Americans are a bit like democracy, they may be rubbish, but at the moment, they're the least worst alternative.

Even the Swiss who have a reputation for peace and harmony used to supply mercenaries to the highest bidder.

[ArmanX]

As a Russian commedian said...

The US and Soviet Russia aren't much different; in the US, you can stand on the steps of the White House and yell, "I hate the president of the United States!" and never get in trouble. You can do that in Soviet Russia, too; you can stand on the steps of the Kremlin and shout, "I hate the President of the United States!" and never get in trouble.

[PsychicMonkey]

I'm not

saying that the US don't screw over anyone they feel like, but Saddam Hussein ran a brutal dictatorship, hardly an innocent pawn.

Flames cause it's cold in here!

[Black Betty]

Sadam Hussein was, like Al Quaida, a US creation.

When he signalled a certain independent ambition, he was deliberately set up for the Kuwait fiasco.

No one is calling him innocent. However, he WAS, if not a pawn, then a minor gamepiece sacrificed for a perceived advantage.

Fail because I'm getting cheesed off at people using diversion to cloud main issues,

[Chronigan]

WTF?

What does the Taliban or Afghanistan have to do with Oil? The only export from Afghanistan that I know of is Opium. Just to remind you of the flow of recent history, September 11 Attacks -> Osama, AQ claim responsibility -> Taliban will not hand Osama over to the U.S. -> CIA and local tribes overthrow Taliban -> Now we play Where's Osama..

I honestly don't know why I read these comments. If you have an opinion that's fine, but for gods sake base it on the facts of the matter and not pure hate, vitriol, fear, and speculation. I swear this place is worse then FOX news.

[Black Betty]

A pipeline ACROSS Afghanistan to bypass certain neighbours.

The recent "rediscovery" of certain strategic minerals may also have had something to do with that mess.

IIRC, Taliban actually offered to hand the US Osama's head on a platter and were rebuffed, because they were refusing to play ball on that pipeline and Osama gave the US a convenient excuse to try "diplomacy by other means".

You might want to note the "CIA working with locals" meme pops up a lot, often serially and usually with a lot of "nothing to see here" bloodshed involved.

Whether or not the handover offer was genuine, the pipleine is documented fact. Oil had plenty (if not everything) to do with it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: You upset me, I am going to make you suffer

> This shows what happens if you upset the US or Israel.

Or Israel? What has Israel got to do with this? Are you reading this through an internet filter that blames everything on the sins of Israel and unduly dressed ladies?

[Cunningly Linguistic]

Shouldn't that be...

_alleged_ sex offences?

[Anonymous Coward]

no title req'd

Far be it for things like facts to find their way into The Reg's articles on Wikileaks. It's about as balanced as reading stories in the Daily Mail and asylum seekers.

What they should do with all these opinion pieces is re-label them as a blog, then at least the obvious bias can be understood.

[Anonymous Coward]

So now we know...

...(if we were in any doubt) that if you post anything on the Net that any government, or other powerful organisation dislikes you will not only be shouted down, but you will also lose your own access to the Net. So we should all go along to get along.

On a slightly different topic, does anyone else find it odd that the previously spotless Julian Assange should pick the days immediately following his release of US government information to start attacking young women? The guy is 39, so he has presumably been sexually capable for 25 years or so. According to Wikipedia:

"On 28 November 2010, WikiLeaks and its five media partners began publishing the United States diplomatic cables leak.

"On 30 November 2010, Interpol placed Assange on its red notice list of wanted persons; concomitantly, a European Arrest Warrant was issued for him. He is wanted for questioning on suspicion of "sex crimes", but he has not been formally charged with any crime".

TWO DAYS after he releases the data, a warrant goes out for his arrest on charges of alleged sex crimes? Even Stalin would have blushed at that.

[Robert Carnegie]

I don't know about the near-arrest warrant in detail, but

I rather gathered that it was a somewhat previous that as far as evidence went, was, at most, her word against his, and difficult to prosecute. But now they seem to be taking more of an interest in it.

In the beginning of TV science fiction [Blake's 7], I think I recall that the resistance hero Roj Blake was publicly accused and convicted - by a bent justice computer - of something similar and/or worse, such as being named Roj. And shipped off to a space penal colony but luckily found an abandoned giant alien spaceship on the way which he was able to use to escape, t!and then have lots of adventures.

[Paul 129]

No... Now I need to wash my mind.

Julian Blake... Now thats a disturbing comparison. Who's Servalan? Palin?

Sigh, wheres a good villan when you need one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Monitoring

"(if we were in any doubt) that if you post anything on the Net that any government, or other powerful organisation dislikes you will not only be shouted down, but you will also lose your own access to the Net."

-----------

Just think how much fun Governments will be able to have when systems like IMP (or similar) are in place, allowing them to monitor citizens (purely for their own good and safety, of course).

[Turbojerry]

and what is the alleged "sex crime"?

Not wearing a condom, a kid you not, and the woman who complained to the authorities was so distraught at Julian not wearing a condom she got him breakfast afterward.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wondered about this too.....

....and found an English language report in a Swedish newspaper that explained that both women engaged in consensual sex with Assange, but were then both "molested" further with one of the two deciding that this was in fact rape. The two met up subsequent to these separate incidents, compared notes, and then the less upset woman decided to provide support to the other when she made her statement to the police.

As usual in these sort of sexual grey areas it's not really certain what happened exactly, but it doesn't appear to only be the use, or not, of a condom that is at issue.

[Sam Farrell]

www.everydns.com is down

... presumably due to the volume of traffic looking for that statement on taking the Wikileaks site down?

[Will Godfrey]

Let's not forget

The real function of all this harassment of Wikileaks and it's founder is to dissuade anyone else from daring to expose various authorites' immoral and probably illegal behavior.

I don't for one moment think that some individual got up one morning and thought 'What shall I do today - Oh I know, I'll DDOS Wikileaks'

Claiming DDOS is a breach of TOS is a pathetic cover for 'someone big leaned on us and we have no balls'.

I understand that Sweden is furiously rewriting it's laws so that sex without a condom is redefined as rape.

Very soon, on the back of all of this, expect a raft of measures being formulated across the world aimed at 'making the Internet a safe place for honest citizens' (tm).

Damn. where's that sheep icon when you need it?

[John G Imrie]

Re: Let's not forget

I understand that Sweden is furiously rewriting it's laws so that sex without a condom is redefined as rape.

So in about 30 years time there will be no more Swedes. I love the law of unintended consequences.

[Christoph]

Major business opportunity for the Japanese

The Japanese businesses that run those sex hotels will be able to make a fortune by setting up just over the border in Norway for Swedes who want to have children without getting imprisoned.

It looks like the Swedish legal system is bork-bork-borked!

[tardigrade]

Time to stop using EveryDNS then?

I don't use EveryDNS but some of my clients do. So say one of my clients gets DDoS'ed by Obamas "BlackCyberOps team" are EveryDNS going to give them 24hrs notice as well before pulling the plug?

Considering that DNS propagation can't be said to be fully complete for 48hrs or more (sometimes a lot more in my experience), they are not giving you enough time to move anyway. There is no way I'm going to risk that. I know it's a free service but that's a bit self defeating.

On top of that, all because you are breaking their t's and c's by being a victim!?

Ouch.

[Rogerborg]

Saw Assange on the telly last night

Talking at length about his favourite subject - Assange vs The World.

Would have been more impressed if he'd answered every question with "Phil the Greek - what a dick, eh?"

[m1x]

try www.wikileaks.nl

Try http://www.wikileaks.nl/

[JaitcH]

So the U.S. government knobbled EveryDNS?

So let me understand this.

Either agents of, or for, the U.S. Government are believed to be behind the attacks on Wikileaks - certainly they are not attacking themselves.

So the DNS provider terminates service on the grounds Wikileaks breached the clause tha reads: "Member shall not interfere with another Member's use and enjoyment of the Service or another entity's use and enjoyment of similar services".

I don't see how WL breached the terms since it is the victim of the attack.

Sounds like the makings of a court action.

[bexley]

why are the US getting away with this?

This is so obviously a state attempt to destroy wikileaks illieagally.

Ddos'ing and now a warrant out for his arrest for 'sex crimes'.

Come on, 'sex crimes' ?

A smear campagin in full swing. Why are they not just using the law to deal with this?

I cant believe that nobody is reporting it the way it is.

[Destroy All Monsters]

The law cannot be applied...

...because there is nothing to apply it to.

But we all know that "law" is an old and antiquated concept. "Taking off the shackles", remember?

[Tom 13]

Not obviously a state attempt at all

despite your prejudices, Tea Partiers are pretty smart people. I know I wouldn't trust The Big 0 or Czar Hillary to be able to order a DDOS attack on Wikileaks.

[David Simpson]

and the guardian?

which isn't working at the moment

[Matt Bryant]

I feel sorry for EveryDNS

The Ts'n'Cs angle is just an excuse, they're really pulling the plug because he DDoS attack is threatening their business.

As to whom is suddenly pulling the DDoS attacks, that's a bit more interesting. In classic Poirot manner, let's look at whom has the means, the motive and the willinness to accomplish the act.

Sorry to all the anti-Gubbermint conspiracy theorists posting, but The Obumbler doesn't make the cut. Sure, I bet the NSA could scrape together a zombie net at short notice (if it already hasn't got one), but the Whitehouse is a bit weak on the motive and the willingness. For a start, the US has had Bradley Manning locked up for months so they've had plenty of time to go back and check what he could have been leaking. If any of it had posed a real threat to the US then they would already know about it and would have had months to DDoS Wikileaks before they actually dumped the leak. The material dumped is of nebulous value and The Obumbler always has his well-used excuse that anything in the leaks happened before he his election so it can all be blamed on the Evil Bushitler, etc, etc. So that means The Obumbler has little motive. He would also have little willingness to risk the bigger embarassment of being caught running a DDoS, which would be a career-ending action that would make Watergate look trivial.

So, if not the Big Bad Brother, whom else has Assange p*ssed off recently? Well, in amongst the other leaks is the info that just about proves the Russian Mafia are running the Kremlin, or the other way round, or that they are one and the same. The Russian Mafia do have the means and the willingness to mount a DDos attack, but I'm not so sure they'd be willing to. I could be wrong. After all, they'd have to take one of their zombie nets off pushing penis pills for a while, and that would hurt profits. And teh "bad" publicity is actually good for them - who's gonna mess with the Russian Mafia when they effectively control the FSB?

Which brings us round to my likeliest choice - script kiddies. Some "patriotic" teenager, miffed that Assange is leaking US secrets, has taken his zombie net off Google bombing his fave game site and turned it on Wikileaks and all associated with it. Script kiddies have the means, the motive (there's nothing good on the TV), and the willingness ('cos they're just too stupid to think of the consequences) to take half-an-hour to code a zombie load to whack EveryDNS. And, seeing as script kiddies are also notoriously unlikely to back down when they can see the results of their actions reported on TV ("man, I'm a faaaaaamous hax0r now!"), it is probable that Wikileaks' next DNS provider will also be hit, even if they are abroad.

[Destroy All Monsters]

That sums it up.

Meanwhile, on these "rape" charges;

http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/12/02/when-it-comes-to-assange-r-pe-case-the-swedes-are-making-it-up-as-they-go-along/

[Anonymous Coward]

One more possibility...

There's one more possibility that's been completely overlooked. Who has the most to gain from publicity? From the noise of the DDoS attack? From the percieverd persecution? Yep.. Assange and Wikileaks. He likes the martyr roll way too much and given what's been released in this round.... need some more drama. Wouldn't be the first nor the last time someone or some group attacked itself for headlines.

[Alan Lewis 1]

Maybe not the USA,

There is another nation state that not only has the capability and the political will to do so, but has also demonstrated it's national cyberspace capabilities; China.

Both China and Russia could launch such an assault, for any number of reasons, none of which are to do with the leaks per-se. For example, to test capability, to test resolve, to probe other nation's ability to track the attack source (and whether that would be resolved). And the fact that teh USA would be 'guessed' as behind the attack would be a not unwelcome bonus.

The benefit is not always obvious...

[Anonymous Coward]

TTL

I can't see the big deal ,

Your name servers shouldn't be with a single host or a single provider in case they have problems or kick you.

wikileaks.org. 12501 IN NS ns3.everydns.net.

wikileaks.org. 12501 IN NS ns4.everydns.net.

wikileaks.org. 12501 IN NS ns1.everydns.net.

wikileaks.org. 12501 IN NS ns2.everydns.net

The usual TTL will be 24 hours/86400 although it's better to have 48 hours so you can drop it to 60 and hit whatever minimum any server with a cached record allows when it checks after TTL expiry. Like just before you move hosts.

All their previous provider wants to know is who is the new name server which could be any of the paid providers or their own BIND for instance. I bet their mail was going to a single repeated host with no failsafe as well.

[tardigrade]

< TTL != Panacea

That's fine if you are planning to move host, but if you are simply given 24hrs notice it doesn't work in this instance. Dropping the TTL down will make no difference as it's already too late, you only have 24 hrs and if your current TTL is 48 any servers that have already checked in aren't going to do so until the next 48hr period is up. That could be 47hrs after your notice is served, by which time you are screwed.

The second point is that; Yes Geographically Diverse DNS hosting, on separate platforms is a must for business. But consider what EveryDNS does. It's a free platform, the people who use it don't want to pay for multiple geographically diverse redundant DNS. So they use EveryDNS, ignorantly happy that they have several DNS server record for their domain, so that must be good.

EveryDNS know who their customers are and why they use them. As such 24hrs notice is akin to a summary disconnection.

You do have to wonder why given the circumstances Wikileaks decided to have all it's eggs in one DNS basket though.

[Anonymous Coward]

single provider fail

personally I try to wherever possible stick at least 1 server of my own in there along side whichever other provider(s) i use for the domain - means that when everything is working i still get the robustness of their DNS infrastructure, but if there is a problem with them it doesn't cause an outage (at worst a slight delay on initial lookup)

also means if they do go down and i change provider it goes quicker as my server will (hopefully) still be answering, and its reply will also send the new NS records in its answer replacing any cached entries (although even if it doesn't, they'll still have 1 reachable server in the old set so will continue to work)

surely wikileaks have enough servers with different providers to just run their own DNS? could also have the different servers give different results for a basic load balancing/automatic fail-over type setup (for example each web server also a DNS server delivering its own IP as the A record with a low TTL, if a server goes down it's A record automatically gets removed from the DNS set, although browser caches make that a less than optimal setup it's simple and still better than a single A record to a single server)

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous for obvious reasons!

"Anonymous for obvious reasons!". So said one of the respondents above.

Yeah, right. So that ickle checkbox means you can't be traced then? Coo, I never realised it was that powerful! I'll make use of it then. I should advise the respondent to watch out for a guy wearing a dirty mac coming up behind them in a busy street and accidentally jabbing their buttock with an umbrolly.

I guess I have a bit less respect for the leaders of the free world because of this Wikileaks situation. Not because of the content of what was reported (Gordon Brown was an idiot? Sounds like a remarkably sensible web site to me!), but because of attempts to shut it down because the leaders of the free nations feel threatened by the exposure of what they are doing. In exactly the same way that MP's don't like the general public scrutinising their expense claims to make sure they aren't defrauding the public - freedom has its limits.

Paris because I mentioned buttocks and jabbing from behind.

[Anonymous Coward]

An interesting issue arises

A while back the perpetrators of DDOS attacks against the scientologists where prosecuted, according to US law its a serious crime.

So given the public admission of the individual who claims to have done the same to wikileaks will we be seeing a prosecution spring forth?

Dont hold your breath.