“In his editorial [of today], Assange wrote that democracies require strong media to keep governments honest and that WikiLeaks helps fulfill that role. “WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, and broken stories about corporate corruption.”

Even as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is battling a Swedish extradition order on an obscure charge of rape, there is another battle being waged and the scene is on the virtual battleground of the Internet. Despite attempts by the ‘quote unquote’ authorities to shutdown WikiLeaks, empathizers of Julian Assange on the Internet are bragging that the WikiLeaks website has been duplicated in 500 locations so far. BU did a check before posting this blog and the WikiLeaks website is indeed up and running.

What is interesting about the WikiLeaks saga has been the debate suggesting that the authorities may seek to regulate the Internet. What is evident if we are to judge by the denial-of-service strikes on MasterCard International, PayPal, the Swiss Bank which has frozen the assets of Assange and others is the power which techno savvy individuals have to fight back from their bedrooms using the  Internet. The proliferation of proxy servers which sit in onion networks makes searching for some of these guys like that of looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack.

The other dimension to the story is to observe the groundswell of support by those who believe freedom of expression is being threatened by the action of governments to shutdown WikiLeaks. At the risk of being accused of being idealistic, some people in the world continue to live with the belief that the clandestine behaviour which countries now engage is not required for humankind to exist. It is difficult to convince many who accept the current state of play as ‘normal’ but shouldn’t we aspire to live in a world of peace and harmony which would mean the current practices engaged by the MOSSAD, CIA, KGB, MI5 and the like must* be dismantled?

Also emerging from the WikiLeaks saga is the role of the Internet in our lifes; at every sphere (individual, corporate, country). Scary is the thought that technology is now responsible for moulding behaviours, a case of a cart before the horse. The technology industry represents billions of dollars, those who doubt the extent to which those with vested interest will go to protect it should recall the Y2K Project. We have developed an army of techno-literate citizens who if mobilized behind a cause which they believe is just can be responsible for ‘destabilizing’ the establishment. Did we write destabilizing or should we have commented on the possibility that arising from the WikiLeaks saga is an opportunity to achieve Internet Transparency. Whatever happens when the dust is settled on this battle which has morphed to control the information highway, surfing for many will never be the same.

Sources on the Internet are reporting WikiLeaks is sitting on explosive information about BP, Bank of America and Guantanamo Bay – “According to the Daily Mail, an encrypted file sent out to various fellow hackers contains the information, and can be disseminated all across the internet if he decides to give them the key — an uncrackable password consisting of 256 digits”