Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks has been suffering a massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack since August, as the British media speculate that the Australian has been granted political asylum in Ecuador.The Ecuador Government is expected to announce its decision on his application within the next few days.
Meanwhile WikiLeaks says it is being flooded with 10 gigabits of requests every second.
The attack came after WikiLeaks published the latest of its Global Intelligence Files (GIFs), discussing the alleged widespread implementation of surveillance system TrapWire in public spaces in the US, apparently in a bid to identify terrorists planning attacks.
TrapWire uses real-time facial profiling to search databases of red-flagged individuals. Wikileaks’ stand against the system appears to have outraged a group calling itself AntiLeaks which claims to have been behind the DDoS attacks.
The Guardian newspaper claims that President Rafael Correa will grant asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
“We see Assange’s request as a humanitarian issue,” an unnamed official told the newspaper.
“It is clear that when Julian entered the embassy there was already some sort of deal,” the official said.
“We see in his work a parallel with our struggle for national sovereignty and the democratisation of international relations.”
Mr Assange, 41, took refuge at the London embassy on June 19 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faces police questioning over sexual assault allegations.
