US and WikiLeaks wage Cyber wars

WASHINGTON: They seek it here, they seek it there, the Americans seek it everywhere, wanting to finish off the website that's put the diplomatic world in a scare. But like the damned, elusive Scarlet Pimpernel, the whistleblower website keeps surfacing in a new place every few hours after it is ousted from a host, a transparent heaven to some, a ratting hell to others.

While much of the world's political and diplomatic community is being tortured by the drip-drip-drip of cable leaks from the website, the US is haring after the site in a cat-and-mouse game even as the leaks claimed its first prominent victim on Friday. An aide to the German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle was sacked after it transpired he was the source of some information contained in a leaked cable.

US principals have argued that the WikiLeaks' "reckless" action could even result in death of people mentioned in the cables, but the website, wedded to its idea of government transparency, has scoffed at the idea. An enraged Washington seems determined to kill the website even as some wingnuts in America have called for the head of its founder Julian Assange, not including a radio jock who announced a $ 50,000 bounty.

Assange is still in hiding but he has been busy migrating the website all over the world with the Americans hot on his/its heels. Booted out from Amazon servers reportedly under political pressure , WikiLeaks went on the blink for several hours on Thursday, was briefly hosted by a California-based internet hosting provider called Everydns, and became briefly accessible through a string of digits known as a DNS address. But Everydns also dumped it saying it could not afford its other 500,000 customers being affected by the intense cyber attacks targeted at Wikileaks.

Wikileaks meanwhile mocked Amazon's explanation that did not conform to rules, saying in a Twitter message, "It is one thing to be cowardly. Another to lie about it." The scuttlebutt in the cyberworld was that Amazon buckled under scrutiny from Uncle Sam, represented by Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security .

Wikileaks rubbed it in with tweets taunting both America and Amazon. "Wikileaks servers at Amazon ousted. Free speech the land of the free — fine our $ are now spent to employ people in Europe," read one of its tweets. Another said: "If Amazon are so uncomfortable with the first amendment, they should get out of the business of selling books."

WikiLeaks later re-emerged on Friday with a Swiss domain, WikiLeaks.ch. The number of cables it released ticked over to 667 at the time of writing, continuing its slash and burn of the diplomatic world. Among those who have been embarrassed are the ruling elite of Pakistan, some Gulf countries, and European and Russian leaders not to speak of the American establishment.

India still remains unscathed, and in fact, a cable on exchanges between US special envoy Richard Holbrooke and Indian foreign secretary Nirupama Rao that was posted on the WikiLeaks site on Friday showed just how principled the Indian stand on various issues, including Af-Pak , is.