It's an interesting use of the cloud. Successful DoS attacks "typically force sites off the net unless they have enormous bandwidth at their disposal or highly effective countermeasures," The Guardian noted. "Wikileaks, being small and struggling for funds, is neither. But EC2 allows companies to pay for their usage as it mounts up, rather than upfront."
The diplomatic cables aren't being stored solely on Amazon; they're also mirrored at Octopuce, a French company, The Guardian reports.
WikiLeaks likewise used Amazon in October to host Iraq War Logs.
Elsewhere in the cloud:
- Rangaswami Goes Cloudy
- Ipanema Prepares for the Cloud
- CableLabs Pours Home Security Foundation
- Motorola Plays Host to Microsoft IPTV
- Docomo Links LTE to the Cloud
- Verizon to Manage Mobile Apps
- Vello Heads for the Clouds
- Salesforce.com Hires Ex-BT Guru
- NTT Com Trials Mobile Cloud Service
- Fujitsu Unveils New Private Cloud
- T-Systems Launches IaaS
- NBN Chooses Cisco Combo for Data Centers
- Verecloud Teams With GigaSpaces
And here's Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), from the recent TelcoTV show, getting cloudy about TV Everywhere services:
— Craig Matsumoto, West Coast Editor, Light Reading
Amazon says Wikileaks violates the terms of use:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703377504575651321402763304.html
These are the same terms that WikiLeaks would have been violating all along, including the last time they put stuff on Amazon, so it's pretty clear that Amazon was influenced by the massive outcry against this latest leak.