After exposing government secrets to the world and inspiring an army of hackers to their defense, the future of Wikileaks should have been all but certain.
Unfortunately public opinion has turned against the organization thanks in part to the Wikileaks exposure of weak security spots in the US as well as the death of an individual by the hands of the Taliban (who used Wikileaks to identify an informant against them).
With their leader arrested on “questionable” sex charges, Wikileaks brand may never recover in the public. However the trend they started may survive underneath a new organization with close connections with Wikileaks founder.
The German Domscheit-Berg, along with several other former Wikileaks staffers, plans to launch a website they’re calling OpenLeaks as early as next week, Domscheit-Berg told Forbes in an interview. Like WikiLeaks, the new site will allow leakers to anonymously submit information to a secure online dropbox. But unlike its parent site, it won’t publish that information itself. Instead, it will allow the source to designate any media or non-governmental organizations he or she chooses and have that information passed on for fact-checking, redaction and publication. That difference, argues Domscheit-Berg, will allow OpenLeaks to accomplish much of the transparency achieved by WikiLeaks, without drawing the same political fury and legal pressure. (Forbes)
OpenLeaks method seems to be a smarter way of leaking information, which will place the responsibility of leaking corruption in the hands of journalists who are feared more by governments than the average blogger or leak site.
It will also make it much more difficult for government forces to shut them down as OpenLeaks is not directly leaking the info to the masses themselves (which will make attacking them harder to justify).
OpenLeaks is due to launch sometime this month (with reports with the site going live sometime next week) and its presence may inspire numerous sites to spring up as well which means whether people like it or not, the “Wikileaks” of the internet are here to stay.
(Hat Tip: TechCrunch)
Originally posted on December 10, 2010 @ 2:18 pm