Huge interest brings Wikileaks offline

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The Wikileaks website, which publishes sensitive and censored material submitted by anonymous contributors, has experienced unprecedented levels of Internet traffic today through public interest. This interest has caused the website's servers to be unable to meet the enormous demand of over 164 gigabytes of download traffic within twenty-four hours, leading the site to be temporarily inaccessible.

The film Fitna, directed and produced by Dutch politician Geert Wilders, has caused controversy for its presentation of Wilders' negative view of Islam as being committed to world domination and acts of terrorism. A trailer for the film was widely uploaded to many video sharing sites, including YouTube and Google Video; this met with anger from Islamic nations, the debacle culminating in Pakistan's government ordering the nation's internet service providers to block the YouTube site. This caused YouTube to be inaccessible to residents of other countries whose Internet access involved routing through Pakistan. Ultimately, YouTube acquiesced to the demands made by Pakistan and other organisations, in exchange for access being restored. The site LiveLeak originally hosted a copy of the trailer, which has now been replaced with a video message stating that the lives of their staff have been put at risk due to hosting it.

As a consequence of this censorship, Wikileaks mirrored the trailer, receiving heavy access traffic through hosting one of the few copies remaining on the Internet. Wikinews has obtained an exclusive statement from a representative of Wikileaks, affirming that the site has not been taken off-line due to external pressure, and is instead suffering technical problems due to this high demand.

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Ask your question to Drupal founder Dries Buytaert

Dries Buytaert, the creator of Drupal, the freely licensed and open source content managing system, agreed to an interview with Wikinews.

Buytaert just finished his doctoral thesis and has founded the startup company Acquia.

If you have any questions about Drupal, free and open software or what's happening for him in the near future, you can post your questions on the interview preparation page or e-mail them to User:Stevenfruitsmaak .

You ask the questions: Roger McNamee, co-founder of Elevation Partners

Wikinews is preparing for another big interview and again, we want you to be involved by asking the questions.

We are going to interview Roger McNamee, internet and technology inverstor and a co-founder of Elevation Partners.

The interview is scheduled for Monday, 14 Jan. 2008, at 4:30 pm PST (-8). It will be a phone conversation, but we need some good questions to ask Mr. McNamee.

Please click the link below and ask your questions by clicking "edit" (or just click here).

Wikinews:Story preparation/Wikinews Interviews: Roger McNamee

Wikimedia Foundation among World Economic Forum's 2008 Technology Pioneers

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Out of a record number of applications and 273 nominees, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has chosen the Wikimedia Foundation as one of the 2008 Pioneers of Technology. 38 other organisations or companies have also been selected for the list of pioneers.

"Technology Pioneers are companies that have been identified as developing and applying highly transformational and innovative technologies in the areas of energy, biotechnology and health, and information technology," said a press release issued by the Forum.

The Wikimedia Foundation was chosen in part because of the ability to provide free, collaborative knowledge which is distributed by people all over the world and its involvement in "the development of life changing technology innovation" with the "potential for long-term impact on business and society, demonstrating visionary leadership and having a proven technology," referring to Wikipedia, Wikinews, Wikiversity and Commons.

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