OpenLeaks: the Wikileaks of 2011? Will it mean more Whistle Blowers?

OpenLeaks is a whistleblowing website that launched in January 2011. It aims "at making whistleblowing safer and more widespread".


So, this is what it is all about:

In an interview with CBS News correspondent Shira Lazar, OpenLeaks co-founder Herbert Snorrason said OpenLeaks is much more than just a visible disagreement with Assange's way of doing things. They will not only provide a "technical infrastructure" for leaking materials anonymously that protects all parties involved, but the site will represent a growing online effort proclaiming to fight the corrupt, powerful entities of the world by spilling their secrets.

"What needs to be understood is that what's going is a movement that is considerably larger than what you see on the surface," Snorasson said. "I'm in this because I want information to be generally available. Governments, corporations don't have an unlimited right to secrecy."

 And, this is what the two competing sites had to say on competition:

Snorasson claims their website will not compete with WikiLeaks, and Assange himself agreed in an interview with Forbes magazine last Deecember.

Still, while in it's altruistic infancy there remains credible doubt that having two major players now in the whistle blowing industry will not create a need for marketing these two organizations differently thus creating more demand for the product by addressing more needs of potential whistle blowers. And, in fact Openleaks has done just that.

OpenLeaks will be used to support that movement in a very simple but direct way, Snorasson said. Instead of receiving, editing and carefully distributing leaked documents like WikiLeaks, the new website will just directly link leakers with media, non-profit groups or other organizations that might help or use the material.

 So, you now have two choices. You go with Wikileaks that will glamorize your leaked documents. Or, you can go with Openleaks, a more subtle, but no less effective super broker of your information.


But, just by the virtue of being different Openleaks creates a new customer and that is how these two sites will in fact compete with each other. And, the increased competition will in turn create more demand for their services in the whistle blower market as consumers of this new product see that the marketers are catering to their different needs.

It will be neat to see who, if anybody else will join them in this brave new industry. And, it will be equally as interesting to see the world turn in the face of this legitimate threat to secrecy long held by just the kinds of organizations these two sites actively solicit secret information about.

Instead of publishing the documents, OpenLeaks will send the leaked documents to various news entities.

At the time of its announcement, WikiLeaks was facing a number of threats: founder Julian Assange had been arrested in connection with sexual assault charges; the site had issues finding safe DNS and web hosting; and many companies had blocked payment to the site. According to Domscheit-Berg's initial statements, he expected OpenLeaks to bypass WikiLeaks problems by serving only as a safe conduit for whistleblowers to leak information, which would then be passed on to the press, instead of acting as a publisher itself.

The organization also intends to be democratically governed, rather than being run by one person or a small group." Our long term goal is to build a strong, transparent platform to support whistleblowers—both in terms of technology and politics—while at the same time encouraging others to start similar projects," says a colleague wishing to remain anonymous.