Is Openleaks Censored?

Yes. It is possible to be censored by the Openleaks community of publishers. The only way someone will know whether an Openleak submission has been censored by a publication source is to be in their general circle of members, or be the original submitter. A comparison then of the originals to the published articles will tell who has censored what or not. But, in general you the audience may never know if an Openleak's submission was censored or not.

This is a major drawback for Openleaks. Traditional whistle blower sites like Wikileaks do in fact publish whole submissions unedited without question.

Data submitted to the OpenLeaks community can become increasingly available to all members (see Concept section for a full explanation of this process). Upon submission, whistleblowers have the possibility to specify whether or not the information they provide should also be made available to the community at large. Keeping the majority of leaks open within the community will, ideally, foster a general attitude of publishing only full releases of original documents, since if this does not occur, it will be easy for the community to trace the cause of any censorship.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat resigns over Wikileaks

So, this is the kind of power that Wikileaks has. Far more results oriented and personally damaging than the traditional espionage services offer; quicker, deadlier, and more accurate.

In this new scenario is character assassination just as viable as the traditional tools of cloak and dagger? It's easier. It's cheaper. And, the blow-back can be anonymous.

Saeb Erakat has submitted his resignation as the chief Palestinian negotiator after an investigation into the leak of Palestinian negotiating documents aired by the Al-Jazeera television network proved that the source of papers came from his office.


The so-called Palestine Papers suggested that Palestinian negotiators offered to give up large swaths of East Jerusalem to Israel during talks dating back to 2008 and that they had been willing to offer much larger concessions in private than they were publicly acknowledging. CNN

So, who wanted him out? Probably nobody yet. But, in the future the fun of Wikileaks et al will be in guessing who the source of leaks might be and why. And, we have yet to see just how obvious this new little game between spies will become.

Doesn't the old Bush company wish Wikileaks had been around when they outed Valerie Plame?

You betcha.

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.

Dirty tricks and clandestine moves begins the new world of online spying

Here's a good question brought up by Kit Eaton on Fastcompany. Did Wikileaks even own the documents allegedly "stolen" by Domscheit-Berg?

Here's what he said: 

The legality of the matter is likely up in the air. Technically, WikiLeaks may never have owned the leaked documents in question, so Domscheit-Berg may not have "stolen" them. WikiLeaks has, for its part, distanced itself from him by noting he was not a high-ranking official, merely a "spokesman for WikiLeaks in Germany at various times."

That he took them from Wikileaks is a given as he addresses this in his own words. And, I quote:

Domscheit-Berg denies the allegations of sabotage, but has difficult things to say about Julian Assange: While he was "imaginative, energetic" and "brilliant" at first, he's now become "paranoid, power-hungry" and a "megalomaniac." He admits to taking a backlog of three hundred thousand leaked documents with him when he left, presumably to use them to prime OpenLeaks with fresh, controversial meat. He alleges that leaving the documents with Assange would have been "irresponsible."

In the end only time and a judge will tell. But, in the meantime it will interesting to see what Domscheit-Berg does with his ill gotten booty squared. Will, double leaked documents sell? Will they sell enough to launch another site? And, considering Wikileaks is out of the whistle blowing game for at least a couple of months while it repairs the damage done by the exit of Domscheit-Berg, will these secret documents put Openleaks ahead of it's only other competitor in the new, exciting and online web 2.0 remake of the classic cloak and dagger drama spy vs. spy.

Welcome to the new world folks. This is what it looks like. The question is will having two competing major whistle blower sites up the ante in this new competitive market to freaky standards?

Wikileaks sabotaged by ex-programmer opening new site

Ex-programmer Daniel Domscheit-Berg is about to publish a book about the move.

Julian Assange and Wikileaks confirms his submission software is out and can't receive new leaks.

Domscheit-Berg has taken a whole bunch of leaks with him when he left, Domscheit-Berg, is the author of "Inside WikiLeaks: My Time With Julian Assange at the World's Most Dangerous Website," 

Assange is suing.

Domscheit-Berg, in his book, admits stealing leaks and compromising the security of Wikileaks anonymity. Kristinn Hrafnsson, a WikiLeaks spokesman, states.

"The sabotage and concern over motives led to an overhaul of the entire submission system," Hrafnsson added. 

Leakers who've worked with the site before say the sites anonymity has been compromised, probably for months.

Domscheit-Berg has left Wikileaks for an another site, OpenLeaks.org with possible German backing. 

Just how much material Domscheit-Berg stole from Wikileaks is unknown.

Domscheit-Berg won't say. But, he has let on that he might just give it back to Assange.          

Domscheit-Berg is holding a a news conference on Thursday to say what he is gonna do.

The spat is over Domscheit-Berg calling Assange a dictator at Wikileaks. He wants Openleaks to be a less centralized organization.

The new website won't be a publisher. Instead it will be an agent between leakers and third parties interested in their information.

Assange is claiming to have leaked documents from a Bank of America exec cached. But, Domscheit-Berg tells German weekly magazine Stern that cache of leaks is old and "completely unspectacular."