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Wikileaks boss Julian Assange was awarded bail this week but not initially released. He had been taken into custody on a European arrest warrant for alleged rape and sexual assault in Sweden. His retention in jail was for an appeal by Sweden against the bail. It did not succeed, and Assange was freed this morning.

The response to the release of diplomatic cables, especially in the U.S., was closer to an overreaction than a reaction. Among the many actions taken were U.S. students warned off looking at the cables, U.S. federal workers and others warned not to read them, the cables being blocked by the U.S. Air Force, Wikileaks being blocked by various countries and the most witless, illegal and ill-considered slavering on the part of politicians since last week.

Wikileaks boss Julian Assange arrested in London. Assange was arrested on outstanding rape and sexual assault charges from Sweden. Should Assange prove guilty of assaulting a woman in that country, it will put a severe ding in the public face of Wikileaks, an organization that seems highly centralized on and by Assange.

Should the prosecution prove inspired by pressure by the U.S. and others embarrassed by the release of diplomatic cables, it will probably give the organization a huge boost in credibility and justify the "infowar" in which many of his supporters fancy themselves soldiers.

Prank or crime?

David Kernell was sentenced to prison today for one year and one day as a result of his hacking into the Yahoo account of Sarah Palin during the 2008 Presidential Election. Kernell's lawyer had hoped for probation, describing the actions of the then 20-year-old college students as "a prank that spun out of control."

Paul Chambers lost his appeal in a U.K. Crown Court this week, as he sought to overturn his conviction for "improper use of public electronic communications network." Chambers, when learning that his local airport was closed, Tweeted that it had better reopen or "I'm blowing the airport sky high!!!" - something described as simply "a foolish prank."

An apparent DDoS attack on Amazon Web Services (AWS) over the weekend left a web-hosting code service down for about 20 hours before the problem became resolved. The attack raises questions about how fast Amazon responds to its clients in times of attack and what level of trust customers should place with one cloud service provider.

Right now, it clearly looks like yesterday's attacks against Twitter, Facebook, and LiveJournal were meant to target only one user - a pro-Georgian blogger knows as Cyxymu. What isn't clear yet, however, is who was actually behind these attacks. Assuming these attacks were politically motivated and really only meant to silence or intimidate Cyxymu, then they obviously failed spectacularly.