Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

In the former case he might fear he releases the secret to stop the Dead Man's Switch, in the latter case his contacts might avoid him or be tortured themselves just to pressure JA, so it doesn't sound like a free life either.

So you hold onto it to protect a high value asset - your life. Assume that you want charges dropped unto you - and you get that granted. Then you want something more annoying to the powers you control - maybe that would be granted. But at a certain point the cost to grant you wishes is going to be on the same level as the threat you hold over me, and then I may decide to take the fallout, and be done with it.

I suspect we're on the verge of this - Assange has something so damning that the fallout of having him taken out in broad daylight becomes something you contemplate. If this is so, at this point if Assange goes public with what he knows, he's a dead man anyway.

"State actor" can only really mean UK or Ecuadorian government - or at the very least one of those two must be pulling the trigger.

If it's Ecuador that makes some sense, they control the connections to the outside world - they could just change some passwords and internet is cut. But that would be very obviously what had happened so why not just name them.

Alternatively the UK could cut the connection from outside the embassy. I don't see how that could be done without cutting off the internet for the whole embassy. That would possibly be in breach of the Vienna Convention [0] but at the very least I can't imagine it happening without creating a gigantic diplomatic stink.

Neither of those options sound that plausible. Is there a third I've missed? Somehow know it's Assange browsing and kill all his packets in flight?

Also, this is central London - the internet floats freely through the air. Contingency measure is tethering?

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Diplomati...

Ever since the DNC leaks and the subsequent accusations against Russia, it became clear to me that, at some point, the attempts to tarnish Wikileaks's name was to prime the listening audience in a way such that when information so irreparably damaging would get released, the voters would have to choose between continuing a corrupt government and choosing an apparently mad authoritarian, and to soften the landing on the former. Since the RNC, Trump's campaign has been entirely pushing "Don't believe their lies", and the gaslighting from both sides seems to be hitting a nadir at this moment. It's becoming far more difficult to find reality in the fog.

These are indeed interesting times.