Can Wikileaks cause the end of the Internet as we know it?

> The internet being used for cyber-terrorism and cyber-extortion.

That it is news to you does not mean it is news. This has been going on for many years now.

> This is dangerous, very dangerous and it can potentially lead to a, perhaps justifiable, hammer coming down hard in the form of legislation, controls and regulation that none of us want.

Good luck with that. The only country in the world that has a chance of effecting such is China and if we change to become China then I think we can safely conclude that we were wrong all along about censorship and such.

What I would hope for (and here I am probably hopelessly naive again) is that the governments the world over will learn that the days of secrets that will never come out or will only come out after you're safely dead is definitely over.

There is a chance that this will lead to a backlash but I think the value of the internet as it is right now vastly exceeds the value of the internet as it might become under those circumstances and I would expect a large enough number of people to recognize the 'bureau of censorship' when such appears.

> Maybe this marks the end of an "innocent" era on the internet.

The innocent era of the internet ended with the establishment of the .com top level domain, since then it's been a long and steady slide towards a more hostile environment, and it will take a while before protocols and infrastructure have been hardened to the point where this kind of thing can be dealt with.

I would not over-react based on this occurrence, though no doubt, like any other fear it will be played for maximum effect.

> it is hard to argue that this has the potential to cause a lot of damage to the internet community.

I think you meant the opposite, but as you wrote it I agree with you ;)

> Is this a time for internet power-players to join forces to, effectively, find a way to extinguish the wikileaks fire? I don't know.

And how would you propose they do that ?

> What is true is that their continued actions are tantamount to messing with the bull.

It is ? I think they've done not too much worse than what the court jester used to be able to do with impunity: show the powers that be that there are limits to their power.

This too shall pass.

> I don't know about you, but I have zero interest in the internet becoming highly controlled and regulated. That's one of the risks here.

Are you planning on moving to China ? If so you can find out first hand how highly controlled and regulated the internet could be. But if wikileaks could bring that about in the 'free' (I use the term lightly) West then we all deserve what we get.

For the Internet, squeezing it down now would be both impossible and unacceptable. Cyber-threats have existed as long as electronic communications, but what makes them more troubling now is the every-where, always-on nature of global communications networks. The real threat is when a coordinated, well planned attack is launched--because nobody is quite sure either how to stop one, or how (or against whom) to retaliate. I wrote THE CHINESE CONSPIRACY as a fictional "thriller" to illustrate how it could be done, using only "known" technologies in a well organized, multi-year plan. I hope it doesn't happen.

I believe WikiLeaks has highlighted two important weaknesses of the Internet.

1) The DNS situation. It shows how fragile internet navigation is, and the recent discussion (and growing success) of a distributed DNS protocol is trying to fix it.

2) DDoS attacks. Less than one thousand people (figures in another article on HN) should not be able to take down the websites of multi-billion dollar companies, regardless of the botnet and continued hammering.

The solution to #1 is trying to quell such fears as you described.

I agree with the possibility of increased control, and that it could be a very bad thing. I disagree with the notion that we should choose to not support Wikileaks based on that chance.

If the politicians are acting like children throwing tantrums, we need to curtly explain to them that this is not appropriate behavior. Giving them lollipops will appease them and shut them up for now, but will only encourage their bad habits and make things worse farther down the road when they've come to expect such treatment.

I think freedom (as in speech) is deeply embedded in the very fabric of the Internet.

I believe that regulation is inevitable, but I applaud any force that encourages law makers to abide by the laws they create.

EDIT: FWIF I don't think the DDoS is helpful; that should be illegal if it isn't already.