WikiLeaks founder Assange’s Internet “intentionally severed by state party”

WikiLeaks announced via its Twitter account that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's Internet connection had been cut off, blaming a "state party" for the outage. Assange, who has been ensconced in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since he sought asylum there over four years ago to avoid extradition, has been "detained in absentia" by the Swedish government for questioning on allegations of rape. Other lesser allegations have been dropped because they have passed the time allowed by Sweden's statute of limitations. The announcement comes after the postponement of an interview of Assange by Swedish authorities at the Ecuadorian embassy by Ecuador's Attorney General's office. The interview was pushed back by Ecuador until November 17 "to make it possible for Assange's lawyer to attend." WikiLeaks also announced that it had "activated the appropriate contingency plans" in response to the communication outage.

That plan may be related to other posts made from the WikiLeaks account overnight referring to three "precommitments"—one regarding the UK's Foreign & Commonwealth Office (UK FOS), one labeled "John Kerry," and one labeled "Ecuador." The posts included long alphanumeric strings that may have been encryption keys for files already prepositioned on the Internet. "Precommitment" is a term often associated with the concept of a "dead man's switch"—an automated response to an attack that would otherwise leave the target unable to respond, usually intended as a deterrent. It's possible that Assange made arrangements for a "dead man's switch" release of content about the UK Foreign Office, Ecuador and Secretary of State John Kerry that were intended to prevent them from taking action against him at the embassy. If the code associated with the three "precommitments" are in fact cryptographic keys, then that "dead man's switch" has been activated by Wikileaks.