The WikiLeaks homepage is seen on Nov 28, 2010 – Photo: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images
NEW YORK (CBS/AP) – The WikiLeaks website said it came under a forceful Internet-based attack on Tuesday morning, making some of the content, including the controversial “Cablegate” documents, inaccessible for hours to users in the U.S. and Europe.
The site appears to have responded by switching its main hosting base from Sweden to the U.S., making it available again.
On Tuesday, traffic to the site went to Amazon.com Inc.’s server-for-rent service, based in the U.S.
The site, which distributed a trove of U.S. diplomatic documents on Sunday, said in a Twitter message on Tuesday morning that it was under a “distributed denial of service attack,” a method commonly used by hackers to slow down or bring down sites. WikiLeaks didn’t identify the attackers.
“We are currently under a DDOS attack,” according to one tweet early Tuesday. Shortly after 9 a.m., another tweet was sent, saying, “DDOS attack now exceeding 10 Gigabits a second.”
The site, which is devoted to releasing anonymously submitted documents, also came under attack Sunday, but Tuesday’s attack appeared to be more powerful.
Calls to Amazon.com were not immediately returned. Bahnhof, the Swedish Internet company that has been WikiLeaks’ main host, had no immediate comment on Tuesday.
In a typical denial-of-service attack, remote computers commandeered by rogue programs bombard a website with so many data packets that it becomes overwhelmed and unavailable to visitors. Pinpointing the culprits is difficult.
WikiLeaks said the malicious traffic was coming in at 10 gigabits per second on Tuesday, which would make it a relatively large effort. According to a study by Internet security company Arbor Networks, the average denial of service attack over the past year was 349 megabits per second, 28 times slower than the stream Wikileaks reported.
Sunday’s attack didn’t stop the publication of stories based on messages leaked from the U.S. State Department in several major newspapers. WikiLeaks had given the media outlets prior access to the diplomatic cables to publish in conjunction with their Sunday release on its site.
The cables, many of them classified, offer candid, sometimes unflattering assessments of foreign leaders, ranging from U.S. allies such as Germany and Italy to other nations like Libya, Iran and Afghanistan.
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217 Comments
The wiki-wussy looks like he eats Cream of Wheat for dinner and skim goat’s milk for breakfast.
November 30, 2010 at 11:46 am
the government does not have the right to stop any subversive, honest , and or transparacy in the unvieling of the govt reckless behavior in the lack of controll and the wrongful handling of all sections of government
November 30, 2010 at 11:43 am
Tell that to bradley manning as he waits for his firing aquad
November 30, 2010 at 11:48 am
I can not help but ask, how would our good friends the Chinese handle this situation.
November 30, 2010 at 11:43 am
The more leaks the better. The truth shall set us free!
Doug Soderstrom….. The Socialist!
November 30, 2010 at 11:42 am
Ahhhhhhhhh socialism –
Was it not the Iron Lady who once said “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money…”
Get a job, Doug…
November 30, 2010 at 1:11 pm
“Powerful cyber attack”? (Yawn). Wake me when they get serious. This is nothing that a well-aimed sniper bullet or cruse missile won’t fix in short order. In fact, I’ll pay for the bullet: Just send me the bill. I’d pay for the cruise missile, but it’s a bit out of my price range.
November 30, 2010 at 11:30 am
Mr. Breland – you’re obviously a paid informant, or a brainwashed sheep.
November 30, 2010 at 11:34 am
asdf
Informant for who? Your comment doesn’t make sense.
November 30, 2010 at 11:50 am
I believe Imam Obama is the culprit after Sarah Palin smashing attack on him as a moron and a fraud.
November 30, 2010 at 11:40 am
Think people. The information “released” is of no major importance. NOT ONE iota will lead to some undercover operation being blown. Yet for some reason your elected officials act as is the plans for world domination were leaked. Why? Why would your elected officials want you to think that the sky is falling when its not? What could they possibly want to come out of this? What possible freedom are they looking to limit this time? WAKE UP AND SMELL THE AGENDA!!!
November 30, 2010 at 11:27 am
It’s a way to get unbelievable information to be believed.
November 30, 2010 at 11:42 am
Whats unbelievable about the information? Its sounds like little kids in the school yard fighting over silly stuff.
November 30, 2010 at 11:53 am
Some of the info may not be important but some of it is of no value to anyone and just serves to hurt the US. No one needs to know what the US leaders think of other world leaders. All that information does is hurt diplomatic efforts around the world. Also you seem to keep attacking our elected officials or our government, and calling us sheep. Where are you from that your government isn’t exactly the same? Like your government doesn’t have an “agenda”. I have no problem with whistle blowers who leak info that the public needs to know but this is just some guy looking to get rich and hurt America. No good intentions in it at all.
November 30, 2010 at 11:52 am
You are right. Like all of the information we receive from the media this is nothing more than information the government decided we should have. For what purpose? Only time will tell.
November 30, 2010 at 1:57 pm
If the gov could shut the site down within days of the leaks, why couldn’t it shut it down before the leaks? The gov knew what was going to b leaked and when. How come the press isn’t asking that question?
BTW the Russians said that if Wiki attacks them, they would not act wimpy like us – they would stifle them in a bad way.
November 30, 2010 at 11:27 am
I think I have Wikileaks in my underpants.
November 30, 2010 at 11:15 am
I just wish Wiki would “out” other countries as much as it does the US. Although, the US is the only nation that rides around on it’s high horse of “personal freedom” and “Christian Morals”. This SHOULD be a wake up call for Americans as to who the people are we elect to lead us (they are A-sh-l-s). The worst part is, the US gov. will use this as an excuse to regulate the WEB and take even more rights away from us (national security my as-). Most of it shouldn’t have been classified, it just shouldn’t have been even done/said.
Vermin hate the light. Let’s bring a lot of light in.
November 30, 2010 at 11:11 am
THIS IS NOTHING BUT A PLOY TO REGULATE THE INTERNET. WHAT BETTER REASON THAN “NATIONAL SECURITY”. IF THEY WANTED THE SITE GONE, IT WOULD BE. THE REGULATION THAT RESULTS FROM THIS WILL PUT FEC CONTROL OVER EVERYTHING FROM YOUR EMAILS TO GOOGLE SEARCHES IN TH3E FUTURE,
November 30, 2010 at 11:09 am
Your tin foil hat has a wikileak.
November 30, 2010 at 11:30 am
You don’t know anything about the internet, please stop.
November 30, 2010 at 11:31 am
The idea is to LIMIT what you can access on the internet. The Gov doesn’t want you knowing how your taxes are spent – they’ll just block it. This info leaked amounts to nothing. This is just the test case. In a couple of days, you will see the roaches in the House and Senate breaking their backs to introduce bills that “will keep us safe” from the evil internet villains and some of you people will sallow the kool aid. I for one want to know EVERYTHING my government is doing ALL THE TIME. What right have they to hide ANYTHING from the people they REPRESENT. THEY belong to US. Not the other way around
November 30, 2010 at 11:42 am
Where’s John Wayne when you need him?
November 30, 2010 at 11:09 am
You said it, Pilgrim!
November 30, 2010 at 11:53 am
Uh, oh, watch out, Barack Hussein al-Obama will get “outraged” again.
November 30, 2010 at 11:08 am
Idiot! Wake up and realize that the President of the United States is nothing more than a puppet – no matter who the president is. Obama, Bush, Clinton, Reagan – all puppets of the puppet master who pulls the strings. It is not your president that rules the nest but the Corporations and banking industry, Sit there and refuse to see if you wish sheep boy.
Wake up and smell the agenda!!!
November 30, 2010 at 11:21 am
Watch out, there’s monsters under your bed!
November 30, 2010 at 11:29 am
Kill the messenger? Should we then prosecute the major network and cable news outlets, newspapers, etc. for publishing leaked classified information; something they do often? About CIA interrogations? About Abu Ghraib? Should the Soviets have been able to prosecute our publishers for having published the Penkovsky papers.
Opening the door to this would seem to be a mistake. The focus should be on the government for making that much classified material available to a soldier overseas; a private no less, that had no “need to know”. The focus should be on the person who leaked the information primarily, and then the system itself that made access to the information so simple. Just sayin’.
November 30, 2010 at 11:04 am
The person that runs WikiLeaks is the child of 2 anti-American hippies from Australia. He hates the US and will whatever he can to hurt this country. The person that supplied the info should be tried for treason and all connected with WikiLeaks should be charged with espionage.
November 30, 2010 at 11:03 am
Another sheeple with eyes too short to see. Thanks for you comment.
November 30, 2010 at 11:22 am
AMEN….
November 30, 2010 at 11:31 am
You’re nothing but a dumb sheep. Too ignorant to realize that the MESSAGE is what matters here, not the messenger. Moreover, WikiLeaks is a entire organization of people who are trying to blow the lid off the corruption and evil perpetrated by your leaders. But you are much too stupid to realize either of these points, which makes you a dumb sheep.
November 30, 2010 at 11:53 am
Somewhere in the bowels of the pentagon, Hitlary Rotten Clinton is caneing young computer hackers.
November 30, 2010 at 11:03 am
This site is showing Americans how their government thinks. Why would stopping access to it be a good thing?
November 30, 2010 at 10:55 am
b/c the general population is/are idiots. we can handle the intel. most cannot.
November 30, 2010 at 11:00 am
Yes, at long last, we have now had the wool pulled back…what a shock indeed! And we have one little hero to worship now for his brave revelation that governments lie, cheat and steal…honestly I had no idea any of that was going on! What a truly big eye-opener this is! Thankfully, all the other governments of the world are 100% honest, just and morally righteous (especially your government, they are the most righteous of course).
To you and all the other naive anti-American haters: Good luck when we’re gone!
November 30, 2010 at 11:30 am
Wikileaks is a propaganda tool. People are wising up to the mainstream BS so they fling it at us under the guise of leaks. The message is the same, don’t fall for it.
November 30, 2010 at 11:32 am
Allen Daile is 100% right. I don’t expect the sheep to understand-some people are just too far gone to understand that exposing corruption is a good thing. Saudi Arabia is exposed for what it is-a terrorist helping country that is ally with the US because of MONEY aka oil. I’ts a dirty world out there and some people simply can’t handle the truth!!!!!
November 30, 2010 at 10:55 am
Big Sis shuts down file sharing sites so we can’t download music, but they can’t keep their own file servers secure.
The entire 0bama administration is in WAY over their heads.
November 30, 2010 at 10:55 am
Works fine here in the NW US. Another BS lame stream tedia attack. The US Government will put Top Secret on embassy lunch and dinner orders fer crying out loud.
The government says that we have no reasonable expectation of privacy in our electronic communications. I say fine, then it should be the same for the government as well. If you want to keep something really secret then don’t put it where it can be accessed by 600,000 people. The State Department has no one to blame but Hillary Clinton.
Go Jules!
November 30, 2010 at 10:47 am
Where is the Mossad tennis team when you need them?
November 30, 2010 at 10:46 am
on the way back from Iran atm
November 30, 2010 at 11:05 am
Cablegate area IS shutdown. Been trying to access it for an hour.
November 30, 2010 at 10:45 am
Hillary asked American Embassy officials to find out about Argentina’s President’s mental health and drug use.
Argentina should expel those officials and break off diplomatic relations with the US.
Hopey,changee huh Obama!
November 30, 2010 at 10:44 am
She’s monitoring it because it’s true. Duh!
November 30, 2010 at 11:33 am
I really doubt the US is doing a DDOS attack. If the US wanted to take it down they would take down the nameservers hosted in the US which would be far more effective (so you couldn’t go to wikileaks.org, you’d have to go to their IP address instead which most people don’t know). You could also take steps to reroute the traffic based on IP which is what I think Iran did to their people. Anyway I doubt the US would embarrass itself by doing a DDOS attack that failed so badly.
November 30, 2010 at 10:43 am
Why would the US take down the site anyway. Most people are seeing this stuff through other sources that were fed by WikiLeaks. You can’t put the &$^$ back in the horse.
November 30, 2010 at 11:34 am
H.E. Vincent , i’m looking at the cablegate portion now, you just have to find an alternate route to it.
November 30, 2010 at 10:42 am
It’s a wee bit late; should have shut it down months ago…..
November 30, 2010 at 10:41 am
You can still get to the site from the U.S., you just have to use the back door.
November 30, 2010 at 10:40 am
Europeans and stateists love the backdoor don’t they
November 30, 2010 at 10:44 am
Please tell me how!!
November 30, 2010 at 11:02 am
All things done in secret shall one day be shouted from the rooftops.
November 30, 2010 at 10:40 am
nomoregovernment- You are wrong!The “cablegate” portion is not accessible.
November 30, 2010 at 10:40 am
No problem accessing now. Too bad the DDOS attacks are over. Did they give up? The leaker has been arrested and will likely be charged with espionage. Shouldn’t those who own and run the WikiLeaks website also face espionage charges for being complicit? Just sayin’.
November 30, 2010 at 10:39 am
No. At first, last summer, I was against the leaks. Now what we see coming forward paints a picture of our rulers as being corrupt individuals. It is good to shine the light on these people.
November 30, 2010 at 10:42 am
Afraid to publish the URL?
November 30, 2010 at 10:39 am
Not true. No access problems here either. And also wish it were true. The site should be shutdown, let them take it to court about thier First Admendment rights…. wait a minute…. it isn’t a U.S. based organization!!
November 30, 2010 at 10:37 am
Y;all may be accessing the old site. The new site with the new info has been taken down.
November 30, 2010 at 10:37 am
Yes. DHS should roll right into Sweden and shut down the site just because they don’t like it.
November 30, 2010 at 10:37 am
I just accessed the website, no problem getting on.
November 30, 2010 at 10:36 am
Love all the so-called “patriots” here ranting about taking Julian out and being “happy” about the site being attacked by the US. The US must love the fact that its population are comprised mostly of sheeple. Go back to sleep morons and keep bending over and paying those taxes…
November 30, 2010 at 10:36 am
Unfortunately not true – or at least no longer true. But hopefully whomever is doing this will regroup and get it going again. How do I sign up?!?!?
November 30, 2010 at 10:36 am
…and the sheeple speak.
November 30, 2010 at 11:01 am
God bless Wikileaks and its founder. I don’t think any one man on earth right now has had more impact on promoting freedom and peace.
For those “conservatives” that believe this guy is an enemy, you are a big government tool.
November 30, 2010 at 10:36 am
Wikileaks is evil, the people giving the information should be tried for treason and Hanged and it’s founder considered a terrorist and taken out.
November 30, 2010 at 10:40 am
The people who wrote the emails – our government – should be tried for treason and hanged.
November 30, 2010 at 11:03 am
Let me see MRVICCHIO if I have this correct. A guy that shows the corruption, the anti-freedom aspects of politicians is a threat. A threat to who. Sure isn’t a threat to freedom but it may be a threat to those politicians that are willing to make us a serf.
November 30, 2010 at 12:58 pm
So RG – now that you have this information what are you going to do about it? How does having this information affected you personally or anyone you know? Why do you feel that YOU needed to know all of this information?
You think wikileaks is promoting peace?!?!? How? By letting Iran know that Saudia Arabia and the Middle East are against the having nuclear weapons? By letting North Korea know that China has no idea what they are actually up to? THIS is promoting peace?!?!
November 30, 2010 at 10:44 am
yea brother! And all stuff you just said most people already knew before wikileaks
November 30, 2010 at 10:54 am
@pen_nyc: Are you so blind to think that this information wasn’t already known? I just for you keeping your head in the sand is a good thing? Not knowing what your government is doing is a good thing? Are you daf?
WAKE UP AND SMELL THE AGENDA!!!
November 30, 2010 at 11:31 am
Agreed. It’s the Bush and now Obama administrations that are the villians.
Wiki is exposing all those injustices. Wake up American people.
DORIS
November 30, 2010 at 2:19 pm
If we had a real POTUS instead of Obama we wouldn’t have this problem. A small hit squad would have already but three into the little blond freak and put the fear of got into any of his little followers.
November 30, 2010 at 10:36 am
@Blowfish – What are you 12? Does your mommy know you are on the computer and not doing your homework? No milk and cookies for you!
…and your Christmas is cancelled. Now go sit in the corner and think about what a bad boy you’ve been trying to join in grown-up conversations…
And what the hell is “the fear of got”?
November 30, 2010 at 11:47 am
Not true………..access is just fine…………..
Why couldn’t the author validate this false claim himself?
November 30, 2010 at 10:34 am
Yep, not working I can access the site.
November 30, 2010 at 10:33 am
Those boys at CIA and NSA know how to provide the files and cover their tracks. Good job.
November 30, 2010 at 10:33 am
GOOD! Shut the naive, dangerously idealistic egotist down once and for all! Maybe it will give him some time to learn about how the world works. He’s no different than any of the power-hungry officials he takes to task.
November 30, 2010 at 10:33 am
Ha Ha
November 30, 2010 at 10:32 am
Well, I can access it from the USA right now.
November 30, 2010 at 10:31 am
Good!! Those A-holes.
November 30, 2010 at 10:31 am
Great! Now only our enemies can see it!
November 30, 2010 at 10:31 am
Since we MADE them our enemies they should be able to see us.
November 30, 2010 at 11:36 am
About time. Can we get something more permanent, like the take out their servers too?
November 30, 2010 at 10:31 am
Now that’s good news.. Lets Roll !
November 30, 2010 at 10:29 am
Good.
November 30, 2010 at 10:27 am
Not true. No access problems here. Wish it were true. This site should be shutdown now by DHS.
November 30, 2010 at 10:27 am
DHS can’t shut it down; the site is hosted in Sweden.
November 30, 2010 at 10:34 am
The issue is not WikiLeaks – it is the Government’s inability to secure its classified materials. You are planning right into the hands of those who want the Government to control all information exchange that they dud o not like or agree. This so-called crisis is being over-blown in order to create a situation where people such as yourself calls for Government intervention. Once that chorus is heard loud enough the Congress and the Executive branches will gladly comply and then that power will be used to stifle information that you want to share but will not be able to. Besides, nearly all of the information being reveals was already known and most of the rest is humorous and silly. Be careful of what you wish for – you are very likely to get it!
November 30, 2010 at 10:40 am
PLUS 1000!!!!
November 30, 2010 at 11:17 am