WikiLeaks

                  I want to do a short writeup about WikiLeaks. I seem to have missed all of the media buzz about it but I believe that it is still a great example of how technology has affected culture and society. WikiLeaks, in my opinion, is an example of how the internet can be used as a medium to equalize information and make it accessible to everyone. Wikipedia has been doing a great job of this by providing huge amounts of information from science to information about television shows to anyone with internet access. WikiLeaks, however, has taken a more controversial role of releasing private government documents to everyone.

                  This has obviously created a huge outpouring of various opinions about whether or not WikiLeaks is doing a good or bad thing. Some will argue that governments are created by the people so the people should be aware of what their government is doing for them. Others would say that it is expected for governments to make “tough decisions” and that the information is private. They would further argue that releasing sensitive information could put lives (such as spies or government officials) at risk. In my opinion, I think that WikiLeaks is a good thing. I feel like in a Democratic government the people have the right to see what the Government that they elected is doing. I can understand, however, why the United States Government would be working so hard to shut down WikiLeaks. If certain documents were released relationships with foreign countries could begin to deteriorate.

Too much emphasis in the media has been placed on Julian Assange instead of WikiLeaks itself. If WikiLeaks were to only leak documents about other governments such as North Korea, China, or Egypt and not the United States Julian Assange would be would be considered a revolutionary instead of a criminal. Assange is not the most important thing about WikiLeaks. If Assange were to be unable to speak for WikiLeaks anymore, a new spokesman would step up and carry on the job. In this way I feel like WikiLeaks represents the culture of the internet. Once something has been created or uploaded to the internet it is almost impossible to contain. If the initial source of information was to be shut down, several more websites would be created in its place, similar to the Hydra. WikiLeaks itself went through this process. Once the United States government became extremely interested in WikiLeaks companies began to try to not associate themselves with the company. Amazon, who was the host of WikiLeaks initially, pulled the website. WikiLeaks then had to find a way to host the website themselves. Until this time, however, you could find copies of the leaked documents on places such as Usenet and Bittorrent. The supporters of WikiLeaks banded together to voice their support in several ways. Some would simply make monetary donations to WikiLeaks for server fees. Others such as the 4chan group “Anonymous” would attack the websites of those who were outspoken against WikiLeaks or the Anonymous operations. They would perform denial of service attacks among other things in attempt to ensure WikiLeaks would remain on the internet for everyone to access.