WikiLeaks back online on new Swiss domain

The cat and mouse game continues for WikiLeaks as it moves its site to Switzerland – wikileaks.ch is the new domain on which the whistleblowing site can be reached.

The new domain is registered by the Swiss Pirate Party, and points to an IP address in Sweden that redirects the users to an IP address (http://213.251.145.96) in France – where the content is hosted. Actually, according to Netcraft, the French company that hosts the content has designated an entire block of IP addresses (213.251.145.96 – 213.251.145.111) that point to it.

In the meantime, US Senator Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, is trying to push a bill that would make publishing of the names of any U.S. intelligence source a federal crime and prevent – in theory – another “incident” like this one.

But Kevin Poulsen rightly asks – “Lieberman’s proposed solution to WikiLeaks could have implications for journalists reporting on some of the more unsavory practices of the intelligence community. For example, former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was once a paid CIA asset. Would reporting that now be a crime?”

Whether or not this bill might become law, its anyone’s guess. In the meantime, Lieberman may be heartened by his success in having a number of US companies drop any connection they might have with WikiLeaks – even if its only publishing a chart visualizing data regarding the leak (still not a crime, but considering these latest developments – who knows for how long?)