WikiLeaks dropped by domain name provider

Dec. 3, 2010

STOCKHOLM (AP)– WikiLeaks' American domain name system provider, EveryDNS, has withdrawn service to the wikileaks.org name after the secret-spilling website once again became the target of hacker attacks.

EveryDNS said in a statement that it dropped the website late Thursday because the attacks threatened the rest of its network.

"Wikileaks.org has become the target of multiple distributed denial of service attacks. These attacks have, and future attacks would, threaten the stability of the EveryDNS.net infrastructure," it said in a statement. EveryDNS provides access to some 500,000 websites.

WikiLeaks confirmed the drop on its Twitter account, saying "WikiLeaks.org domain killed by US everydns.net after claimed mass attacks."

WikiLeaks has angered the U.S. and other governments by publishing almost half a million secret documents about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The latest batch contains thousands of classified U.S. diplomatic cables.

On Wednesday, Amazon.com Inc. — who had provided WikiLeaks with use of its servers to distribute embarrassing State Department communications and other documents — evicted it. The site remains on servers of a Swedish host, Bahnhof.

The ouster from Amazon came after congressional staff questioned the company about its relationship with WikiLeaks. Sen. Joe Lieberman praised Amazon's action and said it should "set the standard" for companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute "illegally seized material"