The War of Attrition: Wikileaks vs. USA

It's a real-time strategy game. The players have positioned themselves with maneuver units, secured control over critical quarters and both aim at destroying their opponents' assets. Like Guerillas taking cover in the shade of an intricate web, a group of men have been battling the marines, but a winner is unlikely to emerge out of the confrontation any time soon. This isn't Vietnam in the 1960s; neither side is keen on chemical warfare or lethal landmines.

In an unconventional war, the U.S. Administration is organizing all its forces to battle Wikileaks, while the whistle-blower is countering attacks with leaks upsetting the country's diplomatic relations. Washington is trying all means by its power to keep the website off the Internet, while Wikileaks having mastered the web world is dodging all attacks.

The first serious infowar is now engaged. The field of battle is WikiLeaks. You are the troops, Wikileaks stated in a Twitter message.

On Saturday, the whistleblower group announced three new URLs, registered individually in Germany, Finland and Netherlands. The announcement came just hours after US servers 'killed' the website blocking the domain name and forcing a worldwide shut down of the website. But in an unusual take of rebirth, the website sprung back into life mocking Washington's grasp of the World Wide Web.

But unfazed by a defeat, the US administration increased pressure on the associates of the whistle-blower. As a result, online money-transfer site PayPal has blocked transactions of the organization. The latest move could deny Wikileaks of donations worth thousands of dollars.

Paypal permanently restricted the account used by Wikileaks due to a violation of the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy, a statement on the online money transfer site said late Friday.

Our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity.

Reports suggested that the whistle-blower was contemplating on shifting its servers to France to evade American laws, but the US administration reached out to their French allies in no time. Local media reported that France Government was moving towards banning Wikileaks from using its servers. Industry Minister Eric Besson asked business and technology leaders to initiate action against the site and ensure that it is no longer hosted in France.

France cannot host an internet site that violates the secrecy of diplomatic relations and endangers people, he said in a letter addressed to the Industry.

However, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange on Friday, appeared online from an undisclosed location in an attempt to prevail over the adversary. He spoke of death threats, clarified his stand on the documents. The Australian also wooed those interested in extraterrestrial activities with a promise of releasing related documents.

Propaganda as it seems, is the only tool relatively obvious in any kind of warfare. If Assange can do it, so will the Government with directives that have now reached education institutes across the United States. At the onset they seem straightforward, with a message that whatever Wikileaks has been up to is unlawful. But then they foretell that anyone encouraging the group's activities would be deemed ineligible for federal jobs.

We received a call today from an xxx alumnus who is working at the State Department. He asked us to pass along the following information to anyone who will be applying for jobs in the federal government, since all would require a background investigation and in some instances a security clearance, a letter to the students at a top university in New York said on Friday. The university professors and students, over the past few days, have been blogging over the diplomatic cables.

The documents released during the past few months through Wikileaks are still considered classified documents. He recommends that you DO NOT post links to these documents nor make comments on social media sites such as Facebook or through Twitter. Engaging in these activities would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government, the management added.

The US Social Security Administration already warned its employees that even browsing Wikileaks could be a criminal offense.

Despite these documents being publicly accessible over the internet, the documents remain classified and SSA employees should not access, download, or transmit them. Individuals may be subject to applicable federal criminal statutes for unlawful access to or transmission of classified information, a circular to the employees read.

The end of this war is far from sight, as Wikileaks says, At one cable per hour, it will take WikiLeaks 28.6 years to release them all. These words really sum it up, even with propaganda, technology, and a tinge of intelligence, both sides can only be in the battle but not end it all overwhelming the other. This modern-day internet war is surely a war of attrition.