Slashdot Mirror
Wikileaks — Anonymous Whistle-Blowing
too_old_to_be_irate writes to tell us about a site that word got out on before they were ready. Wikileaks aims to be an anonymous and uncensorable repository of leaked documents, posted for commentary by interested parties. It's expected to go live in a month or two. From the site: "Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable version of Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact; this means our interface is identical to Wikipedia and usable by non-technical people. We have received over 1.1 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources."
For some real information, check out the 'Leaked' WikiLeak mailing list via (my favorite) Cryptome:
http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/wikileaks-leak.htm
http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/wikileaks-leak2.htm
I'm curious how this repository of uncensorable documents intends to keep their credibility when the 9/11 conspiracy, and moon landing was a hoax crowd move in.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
That's the hilarity of it all. John Young (owner of Cryptome) was asked by the people behind Wikileaks to be the owner of the domain (since it would end up being public, and Mr Young is no stranger to Government intimidation). He agreed and participated in the private mailing list, but became disillusioned after it appeared the creators had no actual product and were only interested in funding. He posted all the private and internal conversation his own site.
Read the two links I provided, and you'll get the story.
Short Version: This 'secure and untraceable' Wiki software probably doesn't exist, it's a PR ploy for cash.
This group, whomever they are, is improperly using the trademark "Wikipedia" as a buzz word to try and gin up support for this very dubious sort of project.
Say what you might about Wikipedia, but this does not involve either the Wikimedia Foundation, its employees, or frankly much of anybody even involved with the day to day running of Wikipedia either.
And slashdot is hardly the best place to announce something like this if you wanted to involve the Wikipedia user base. While this is a sort of "geek news" that might get some notice, it is disingenuious to suggest any association with Wikipedia.
Besides, on those Wikimedia projects where I have admin privileges, I would delete most of this content on the spot as unverifiable rumors and gossip, and expect the same on the other Wikimedia projects.
While this might be something rather interesting in terms of a web server to host this material, and invite some anonymous method of gathering these documents, I don't even see that they are going to be using a Wiki to gather this information.
In short, move along.... there is nothing here to see.
What free press? There's no free press. That's a fucking myth. You can and will be hauled off to gitmo for what you write or publish if the powers-that-be deem that it should be so. Of course, first they'll paint you as some kind of secret terrorist to justify it, and that will be enough for the majority of the population to accept their actions.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This type of anonymous whistle-blower system is mandated by U.S. Sarbanes Oxley Act, but is illegal under European privacy laws. SarBox says thou shalt support anonymous informants as a means of preventing fraud, corruption, etc. The EU says thou shalt NOT permit anonymous tipsters because that's how the Nazi's found so many Jews.
It's a real conundrum for multinational companies.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.