A screenshot showing a portion of the correspondence between Marc McCoy and his service provider
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — After weeks of news relating to the controversial whistleblower website WikiLeaks being cut off by service providers, ranging from web hosts to DNS providers and payment processors, the attention has turned to some of the many mirror sites distributing WikiLeaks content.
According to a report published over the holiday weekend by eWeek, web hosting provider SiteGround suspended the accounts of “at least two” mirror sites, saying the presence of the files put the host’s network at risk of a DDoS attack.
SiteGround suspended the sites for violating its Terms of Service, a decision in line with the opinion of almost half of the service providers who responded to a recent WHIR reader poll on the hosting of controversial websites like WikiLeaks.
A post by the Marcia Hoffman, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the sites were shut down by SiteGround in response to pressure from upstream provider SoftLayer, which first cited the TOS and Acceptible Use Policy violations.
One user whose mirror site was cut off, self-proclaimed anarchist Marc McCoy, posted his conversation with the SiteGround abuse department, apparently in its entirety.
Hoffman writes that a customer who had been shut down by SiteGround was told that SoftLayer had asked that the mirror be taken down because it was concerned about the potential for a distributed denial of service attack. The post points out that no attack had happened, and that the line of thinking enabled the company to “use hypothetical future events” to take down any site.
An important distinction here might be the fact that the potential for attack was probably not the TOS violation in question, but rather was the reason for enforcing the specific TOS violation, which more than likely had to do specifically with the legality of the confidential US government communications being published by the site.
The subject was discussed in some detail in a recent WHIR blog post made by Stacy Griggs.
The feeling among many web hosts (who unfortunately seem to be considered culpable in the hosting of the content by its opponents, and obliged to provide the service by supporters, who tend to consider the shut-downs a free-speech issue), as expressed by Griggs, is that sites like these are precisely why hosts have a TOS in the first place.
About Liam Eagle
Liam Eagle has worked as a contributor to the Web Host Industry Review since its inception in 2000, and as editor since 2003. He has been editor of the WHIR's print magazine since its launch. His daily involvement in the gathering and reporting of Web hosting news and his regular interaction with Web hosting leaders gives him an uncommonly broad appreciation of the issues and tends facing the business. Through his WHIR blog, Liam spots Web hosting trends and offers opinions on the industry-wide impacts of major developments and the motivation behind big announcements. Follow him on Twitter @liameagle
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