About WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrested in Britain (Reuters)

I can't imagine that wikileaks will survive this. How true are the allegations? On both sides? Who is trying to pull the wool over whose eyes?...

Wikileaks is likely to continue. He was just the face of it. It's very much like capturing a terrorist leader. Doesn't change a whole lot.

The rape case seems only to constitute a post-factual dispute over whether it was voluntary, unprotected sex several days after the event. Both women said they had consensual sex with Assange and that they continued to have friendly relations after it occurred. It was only after the women were aware of each others' relative to Assange that they came with their accusations against him.

The case seems very weak and I'm not sure he will be extradited to Sweden.

Karma is a bitch.....

There will be pressure applied by several countries to make sure Assange cops it in the neck one way or the other, innocence or guilt will have little to do with it. It will be pure revenge for having made a fool of "the system" and having shown politicians and public servants to be nothing more than grubby little self important liars who will do anything to save their political careers.

Brunners "The Shockwave Rider" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shockwave_Rider ) apart from being a terrific read, still amazes me 35 years later with its clear premonition of what is to come, WikiLeaks just being one part and Assange just one character of the picture painted that includes future shock and reactive strong patterns of human behaviour like the tribalism that is taking over nowadays.

Looking forward to discover how this first "information war" ( http://www.technollama.co.uk/wikilea...war-looks-like ) will end and whether it will be an end like in the novel with a literal Deus ex machina coming out, the all-knowing data-net being endowed with the power to right all wrongs simply by spilling *all* secrets?

I would not bet my money on a winner yet, though I think it quite probable USA will face yet another debacle, this time for trying to govern the internet through a combination of DOS attacks and economic pressure. This wont be enough.

With JPBarlowe:

First collateral casualities so far: PayPal (more down than up), Amazon (down all yesterday, now up again but for how long?) and EveryDNS... More to come for sure.

Ratler