Wikileaks taunts Pentagon with server mirrors in USA

WikiLeaks is using US-based servers run by Amazon.com to mirror its controversial data stash, including the classified "Iraq War Logs" released on Friday afternoon, according to internet records. Since at least Friday night, the famous whistle-blowing site has been hosting data on Amazon's AWS infrastructure cloud, both in the …

[Chris Harden]

Kinda makes sense

Mirror up on servers in the countries that will be generating the most load, get them close to the downloaders to up the speed.

Even if Amazon do shut them down, they only need to last a few days for the bulk of the high traffic to pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the big deal?

So they have "non-bulletproof" mirrors. In terms of making sure they can keep publishing, they only need one site to be "bulletproof", and all of the mirrors can be as fragile as a house of cards.

[Alex Norcliffe]

It's that they are on US soil

It's not about whether or not the mirrors are flaky

[Anonymous Coward]

And they're ready for the US switch-off

Very low TTL times, if their US hosting gets pulled they can whinge to the press, people may get errors & timeouts for ten minutes, & lo & behold it's all working again.

So maybe some aspect of "look how little time they managed to take us down for" to add onto the aforementioned "Oh, look at the information the US doesn’t want you to know!" when Amazon bottles it & pulls the plug.

[Alex Norcliffe]

JA

He's currently giving a live interview at the Frontline Club streaming online http://www.ustream.tv/channel/frontline-club

[Anonymous Coward]

Multiple targets

Will keep the Government lawyers busy chasing the different providers around the world

[dssf]

Could it be to show that the US Military/DOD are...

Complaining about something being dangerous, but unwilling to preemptively take it down? If it's dangerous to US personnel and protected sources, then taking out the sites could show the DOD means business.

But, failure to hit ALL the hosts' outflowing of the Papers would show that the DOD is not as Web-War-Centric capable as it positions itself to be. Preemptively attacking the outflow might be illegal, in which case the DOD would be liable for damages, and not attacking the outflow means or could signal that the data is not ALL as dangerous asl it's cracked up to be.

Paradox? Conundrum? Other?

[skeptical i]

fleabitten

I'm still wrapping my wee brain around the name of the French ISP cited in the article, Octopuce, since "puce" means "flea" (so, eight fleas?). Unless they're referring to the color, in which case do we assume eight shades of aged red?

[Anonymous Coward]

fleas shmleas

It's another way of saying octopus dude. Especially if the octopus.com domain is taken ;)

[ratfox]

Another meaning of puce

In French, puce also means chip, as in chip card (carte à puce), mirochip, etc.

Because on their pins, they look like insects with legs.

[Mike Brown]

letters and/or digits.

maybe they are James Bond fans?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite clever

By the time anyone gets to the big established companies, the rush will be over anyway.

[MacroRodent]

bunkers

"some WikiLeaks servers are now inside a Cold War–era nuclear bunker that was carved out of a rock hill in downtown Stockholm."

Wow, they must be expecting a serious counterstrike from the Pentagon :-)

[Keith Doyle]

Counterstrike? Ya never know...

Acting irrationally may be an effective deterrent, but when it comes the US gov, often they're not just acting...

[James Pickett]

Panic

All the harrumphing by the Pentagon (and The Sun, natch) about security and ‘our brave boys’ (TM) merely draws attention to the nakedness of the Emperor. Such information is way too old to make much difference on the ground, and as for long-term strategy, it would be nice if we had one. This won’t affect the squaddies, but it might make people wonder how the spooks justify their existence in the information age.

[moonface]

endanger lives argument.

"The US government has long said that releasing such documents will endanger the lives of soldiers and civilians alike."

The irony is that if more people actually see these files and analyse them, it will actually save more lives of both soldiers and civilians a like. As military procedures are scrutinized and more pressure is put on the troops being brought home.

I would certainly recommend seeing last nights "Dispatches: Iraq's Secret War Files" for a quick overview and anylsis of the recent wikileak.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/

[Paul_Murphy]

I can't see..

How publishing the truth can be prosecuted without the prosecutors looking even worse.

The US and other military forces should be concentrating on doing a good job and maintaining the moral high-ground, rather than chasing people for leaking the truth.

ttfn

[Michael 82]

All this but ...

Nothing about our 'gray' friends JA??

NOW THATS A STORY WORTH BLOWING COVER ON :)

[envmod]

gags

surely there's a gag involving bulletproof mirrors and seven years' bad luck? i can't be bothered to work one out though.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that....

This is a some kind of ploy to bring Wikileaks within USA Jurisdiction for legal proceedings ??

That could be a possibility.

[highlyevolved]

Why is this news???

Why is this news??? I run the 'Flagfox' enxtension in Firefox which displays where the host server of a website is located. Admittedly it appears as a '?' for Wikileaks, but clicking on the icon this morning displays Dublin as the location and Amazon has the host. So maybe I landed on one of the mirrors in this instance.

I wonder how much NetCraft were paid for their report? Given that Joe Public can find out anyway!

Here's the link if anyone's interested http://geotool.flagfox.net/?ip=46.51.186.222&host=wikileaks.org