WIKILEAKS RETURNS ONLINE

The whistle-blowing website, WikiLeaks, has returned online, alleging a “sophisticated and sustained cyber attack” from a “large organisation” over the last nine days. Although its spokesman, Kristinn Hrafnsson, came short of directly accusing the United States government of being behind the attacks, which made the website unreachable, he was quoted, by the London-based Financial Times, of implying that “a link was possible.” The Financial Times, in an electronic mail, yesterday quoted Hrafnsson as saying, “it is pretty obvious this attack is more than a few individuals. We are talking about someone with access to tens of thousands of computer systems. This started just a few days after we got credit card payments open again for donations, and who has a vested interest in stopping money flowing to WikiLeaks? This is an ongoing battle with someone with huge access to power.” It would be recalled that WikiLeaks had to grapple with criminal investigation, which was opened by the U.S. against it, after it published leaked U.S. diplomatic cables about two years ago. The leaked information touched on several countries including Nigeria.