Wikileaks: How does it work

This post seeks to shed light on What is Wikileaks and how does it work. 


Wikileaks is constantly in the news. Newspapers, blogs and TV channels are covering it relentlessly.


So what is Wikileaks? WikiLeaks is a multi-jurisdictional public service designed to protect whistleblowers, journalists and activists who have sensitive materials to communicate to the public. 


This material being leaded on Wikileaks is essentially material that powerful men and governments would not want leaked to the general public. 



How does WikiLeaks operate?
"WikiLeaks combines the protection and anonymity of cutting-edge cryptographic technologies with the comfortable presentation style of Wikipedia, although the two are not otherwise related. Our network also collects materials in person and from postal drops. We also run a network of lawyers and others to defend our work and our sources.
WikiLeaks information is distributed across many jurisdictions, organizations and individuals. Once a document published it is essentially impossible to censor". (Source: Wikileaks)


Wikipedia has this to say: "Wikileaks is an international organization, based in Sweden,which publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive documents while preserving the anonymity of sources. Its website, launched in 2006, is run by The Sunshine Press.The organization has described itself as having been founded by Chinese dissidents, as well as journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the U.S., Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa. Newspaper articles and The New Yorker magazine (June 7, 2010) describe Julian Assange, an Australian journalist and Internet activist, as its director. Within a year of its launch, the site claimed a database that had grown to more than 1.2 million documents.Video posted on a website called Collateral Murder established Wikileaks as a prime portal for unauthorized, accurate accounts, documents and video from distant battlefields".


Wikileaks maintains its own servers at undisclosed locations, keeps no logs and uses military-grade encryption to protect sources and other confidential information." Such arrangements have been called "bulletproof hosting.


So put all of this together. How does Wikileaks work? and how will they help the public?


Wikileaks seeks to give it's users complete anonymity and maintain their privacy while leaking sensitive documents that powerful governments usually want to hide. People who use the site are also protected in a way. Information leaked from distant battlegrounds make their way to Wikileaks and then become totally available to the public. Ordinary citizens can then see for themselves wrongs or rights that might have been done.  Ordinary citizens are privy to information that is usually listed as classified and hidden away from public view. 


Wikileaks seeks to break all this and bring corrupt governments and officials into the limelight and not allow them to hide behind a veil of secrecy. For all this to work however there need to be whistleblowers, people willing to tell their stories while remaining unknown for obvious reasons. These leaks are them seen by ordinary citizens who get to know things that could come as a real shock. Wikileaks says that they facilitate all this because they believe Governments need to know that they can be held accountable. Ordinary citizens need to know what their government is up to and people of other countries also need to be aware. 


Well the thing that brought Wikileaks the media attention they needed was the Wikileaks Afghanistan War Logs. Also known as the Afghan War Diary, (2004 -2010). Which brought to the forefront lot's of issues including General Hamid Gul if the WikiLeaks Afghanistan war logs are to be believed, he is also behind a secret network helping the Taliban and al-Qaeda strike at U.S. forces.


What do you think about all this, use the comments section to let us know. 

Visit Wikileaks at www.wikileaks.org

An original post by

Sociolatte