• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • My Social Media
  • About
    • About Mark Draughn
    • Testimonials
    • Other Authors
      • About Gary Olson
      • About Ken Gibson
      • About Joel Rosenberg
    • Disclosures
    • Terms and Conditions

Windypundit

Classical liberalism, criminal laws, the war on drugs, economics, free speech, technology, photography, sex work, cats, and whatever else comes to mind.

Trying to Stop Wikileaks

February 23, 2008 By Mark Draughn Leave a Comment

Yesterday, I mentioned that Federal Judge Jeffrey S. White issued an order shutting down the Wikileaks site. He did this by ordering the domain registrar to disable the wikileaks.org domain. This only disables the name lookup feature, not the underlying website, which is still available via its IP address:

http://88.80.13.160

In a comment to my last post, Scott Greenfield asks,

[D]o you think it’s critical that the Judge White’s order was ineffective because of a technology error? If they figure out how to do it effectively next time, then what?

I’ve been giving this a little thought. I’m not an expert at Internet security, but I think I may have been unfair to Judge White. The IP address above traces to a server in Stockholm, Sweden, so he may very well have done all that it was in his power to do by ordering the American registrar to disable the name.

I suppose the aggrieved party could ask him to order the big American internet backbones to stop carrying traffic from that address. I think it would be analogous to ordering a phone company not to put through certain calls, or ordering the post office not to deliver certain mail. It would probably be a serious performance and administrative burden, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not legally possible.

Besides, the Wikileaks site could get a new IP address in a few minutes. Within a day or two, all the usual web sites would be linked to it again.

In addition, Wikileaks has many other domain names, some of which are obvious—wikileaks.cx, wikileaks.cn, wikileaks.in, wikileaks.org.uk, wikileaks.org.nz—and some of which aren’t, e.g. sunshinepress.org. There are also independent mirror sites that serve all the same content to the web from locations in several different countries.

The folks who built Wikileaks make some pretty grandiose claims about it being “uncensorable.” Technically speaking, there’s no such thing, but as a practical matter, they can probably put up a pretty good fight. Wikileaks was originally designed to support dissident activities by people in repressive countries, and it makes use of some advanced security technologies.

It’s not as farfetched as it sounds. Consider that the Chinese government has been trying to censor Wikileaks without success. Here in the United States, our government has only been able to stop online poker sites by attacking the flow of money, not the web sites themselves.

Maybe some intelligence agencies have the resources to stop Wikileaks—especially if they’re willing to commit illegal and/or violent acts—but I don’t think a lawsuit or an overzealous judge is much of a threat.

Related

Share This Post

Filed Under: World Wide Web

Reader Interactions

Leave a ReplyCancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Search

Recent Posts

  • Yes, It’s a Bribe
  • Talking to my fellow libertarians about DOGE
  • Late night thoughts on the current crisis
  • Joining The Cult
  • Trump’s dumb attempt to define sex
  • Some advice for my transgender readers in the new year
  • Decoding Economics: Happiness and Taste
  • Decoding Economics: The Real Economy

Where else to find me

  • Twitter
  • Post
  • Mastodon

Follow

  • Twitter
  • Mastodon

Bloggy Goodness

  • Agitator
  • DrugWar Rant
  • Duly Noted
  • Dynamist
  • Hit & Run
  • Honest Courtesan
  • Nobody's Business
  • Popehat
  • Ravings of a Feral Genius

Blawgs

  • a Public Defender
  • appellatesquawk
  • Blonde Justice
  • Chasing Truth. Catching Hell.
  • Crime & Federalism
  • Crime and Consequences Blog
  • Criminal Defense
  • CrimLaw
  • D.A. Confidential
  • Defending Dandelions
  • Defending People
  • DUI Blog
  • ECIL Crime
  • Gamso For the Defense
  • Graham Lawyer Blog
  • Hercules and the Umpire
  • Indefensible
  • Koehler Law Blog
  • Legal Satyricon
  • New York Personal Injury Law Blog
  • Norm Pattis
  • not for the monosyllabic
  • Not Guilty
  • Probable Cause
  • Seeking Justice
  • Simple Justice
  • Tempe Criminal Defense
  • The Clements Firm
  • The Trial Warrior Blog
  • The Volokh Conspiracy
  • Underdog Blog
  • Unwashed Advocate
  • West Virginia Criminal Law Blog

Bloggers

  • Booker Rising
  • Eric Zorn
  • ExCop-LawStudent
  • InstaPundit
  • Last One Speaks
  • Leslie's Omnibus
  • Marathon Pundit
  • Miss Manners
  • Preaching to the Choir
  • Roger Ebert's Journal
  • Speakeasy Blog
  • SWOP Chicago

Geek Stuff

  • Charlie's Diary
  • Google Blogoscoped
  • Schneier on Security
  • The Altruist
  • The Ancient Gaming Noob
  • The Daily WTF
  • xkcd

Resources

  • CIA World Factbook
  • Current Impact Risks
  • EFF: Bloggers
  • Institute for Justice
  • Jennifer Abel
  • StrategyPage
  • W3 EDGE, Optimization Products for WordPress
  • W3 EDGE, Optimization Products for WordPress
  • W3 EDGE, Optimization Products for WordPress
  • Wikipedia
  • WolframAlpha

Gone But Not Forgotten

  • Peter McWilliams

Copyright © 2025 Mark Draughn · Magazine Pro On Genesis Framework · WordPress

Go to mobile version