The incident has shown that any country with a grudge against any online entity can, with enough technology capability and is equipped with sufficiently thick skin, can disable even the most popular online destinations.

This does not mean, however, that the Internet has lost its shine as one of the world’s bastions of freedom of expression, although government censorship severely restricts this feature in various countries. For most freedom fighters, environmentalists and activists, the Net remains a powerful tool and weapon.

The Internet, despite some governments’ efforts to thwart its effectiveness as a communications tool, still carries a mean wallop as an instant, relatively reliable and almost free forum and venue with which anybody can use to air his or her message.

Wikileaks, a Web site that allows anonymous posting of leaked sensitive corporate and government documents, has been getting lots of media attention since its launch in December 2006. What made the Web site more popular, some would say notorious, was its legal tussle with a Swiss bank.

An interesting scenario, which has turned into a PR disaster for the bank, the legal battle has pitted an activist and freedom of information proponent Web site against a Swiss bank. The former fights shenanigans and other acts inimical to humanity and basic decency by publishing documents online that it hopes would throw light onto secret deals, while the latter by its very nature thrives on secrecy.

According to a news story from the Associated Press, a disgruntled ex-employee of the bank posted on Wikileaks documents detailing the bank’s dealings with several of its very rich, and hence preferred, clients. Allegedly, the bank has been helping these clients avoid certain duties and responsibilities that usually go with being rich and earning lots of money. Worse, the papers allege that the bank helps the clients in laundering their money.

The bank then sued the Web site, asking a federal court in San Francisco, California, to close down the Web site. The judge ruled in favor of the bank. The bank won, it and its lawyers thought.

Were they in for a rude awakening. Mirror and sympathetic Web sites promptly took over after Wikileaks was gagged by the court order.

In 2003, American celebrity Barbra Streisand sued to force a Web site to remove satellite photos of her Malibu house. The lawsuit only made the Web site immensely more popular among Internet users, defeating Streisand’s purpose. People began accessing photos of Streisand’s previously low-key vacation home.

Media and industry observers started calling the incident and anything similar the "Streisand effect," which is now used to describe anybody’s damage control efforts that turn into a public relations disaster or something worse.

That is what happened to that Swiss bank.

The recent actions of the government, some sectors might say, could be signs and symptoms of an episode of Streisand effect. It’s purely damage control gone haywire, some government critics might readily add.

After weeks of rain pitter-pattering on the roof, the sun finally decided to peep if even for just a while. Instantly, one’s mood gets brighter and that belief in better tomorrows comes a-calling although not as fast as it used to do. Still, the soul cannot complain, and instead take the fun no matter how little and token-like it has become.

That’s all for the meantime, folks. Join me again next time as we keep on watching IT.