WikiLeaks re-emerges with new address

WIKILEAKS is back with a new Swiss address – wikileaks.ch – six hours – after its previous domain name – wikileaks.org – was shut down.

Within hours of being killed by the US, the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, reemerged in the cyber space with  a new address, this time a Swiss one. The servers in the United States had ‘killed the site’s domain name on Friday following “mass attacks”. The new address is wikileaks.ch. t is available in the http://213.251.145.96/ address also.

The homepage of the new site quotes a comment by Time Magazine, which says, “Could become as important a journalistic tool as the Freedom of Information Act.” The new site, which says “courage is contagious”, also has a detailed description of the cables, the way to sort and see the cables, etc, apart from a fund request from its founder Julian Assange. Though WikiLeaks said it is moving to Switzerland, as declared on Twitter, an AFP report said that an Internet trace of the new domain name suggested the site itself is still hosted in Sweden and in France.

Those who access the wikileaks.ch address are redirected to a page under the URL http://213.251.145.96/, where the old site is visible with all the leaked US diplomatic cables uploaded in a systematic way. The documents released on Sunday had created a storm all around, as the leaked cables have the potential to impact US’ relation with many countries, including India and Pakistan.

“WikiLeaks moves to Switzerland,” the group declared on Twitter, although an Internet trace of the new domain name suggested that the site itself is still hosted in Sweden and in France. Webusers accessing the wikileaks.ch address are directed to a page under the URL http://213.251.145.96/ which gives them access to the former site, including a massive trove of leaked US diplomatic traffic.

The original wikileaks.org domain was taken offline today by its US domain name system provider, EveryDNS.net, following reports of massive cyber attacks on the site.

“The interference at issue arises from the fact that wikileaks.org has become the target of multiple distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks,” EveryDNS.net said in a statement. Classic DDoS attacks occur when legions of “zombie” computers, normally machines infected with viruses, are commanded to simultaneously visit a website, overwhelming servers or knocking them offline completely. The latest techological setback for the whistleblower site came after Amazon booted it from its computer servers on Wednesday following pressure from US politicians, prompting the site to move to a French server.

“Free speech the land of the free – fine, our dollars are now spent to employ people in Europe,” WikiLeaks said.

“If Amazon are so uncomfortable with the First Amendment, they should get out of the business of selling books.”

On Sunday, WikiLeaks began publishing the first batch of more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables, many of them classified as “secret”, that the website is believed to have obtained from a disaffected US soldier. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said last month that he was considering requesting asylum in Switzerland and basing the whistleblowing website in the fiercely neutral country. “That is a real possiblity,” Assange said when asked whether he and the website might relocate, adding that Switzerland, and perhaps Iceland, were the only Western countries that his outfit feels safe in. Assange told the TSR television that Wikileaks was examining the possibility of creating a foundation that would allow it operate out of Switzerland, and confirmed he might apply for asylum.