Julian Assange has taken the world by storm with his vast number of leaks ranging from the collateral murder video to Vladamir Putins dealings with the Russian mafia. The Aussie Freedom fighter has hit all the headlines with him being “sent death threats” , “Chased by interpole” and facing “allegations of rape” once again!
He has repeatedly said that he will be the “lightening Rod” for Wikileaks by absorbing all the attacks it may receive as well as answering any questions regarding the organisation. The US government haven’t held back, launching a number of cyber attacks putting the whistle-blower site to a virtual standstill.
Background
For those of you who have been living under Rock…. Here is a little background information on the elusive organisation.
WikiLeaks describes itself as “an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking”. WikiLeaks is an international Charity (non-profit media-organisation) that publishes submissions of otherwise unavailable documents from anonymous news sources or leaks. Wikileaks first appeared on the world wide web in 2006 and has been represented in public by Julian Assange since 2007.
Wikileaks came to life in August 2009, when Kaupthing, a large bank, succeeded in obtaining a court order silencing Iceland’s national broadcaster RUV. The Icelandic broadcaster was minutes away from broadcasting a risk analysis report showing the bank’s substantial exposure to debt default risk. However, an injunction was issued immediately leaving the citizens of Iceland outraged. In retaliation to the last minute sanction the RUV left a link of whistle-blowers website in the background.
How is Wikileaks Hosted?
WikiLeaks has servers across the world but its central server is located in Sweden. It is hosted by the Swedish company PRQ, a “highly secure, no-questions-asked hosting service.” PRQ is said to have “almost no information about its clients and maintains few if any of its own logs.” The use of military grade encryption ensures that sources along with confidential information are protected this technique is also referred to as “Bulletproof Hosting”.
After the site became the target for a series of Ddos attacks ( distributed denial-of-service-attack) from a team hackers. WikiLeaks moved its site to Amazon’s servers.However, pressure from head of homeland Security Joe Liberman forced the online retailer to remove Wikileaks from its servers, without a public statement from the company. WikiLeaks then decided to install itself on the servers of OVH in France.
On 4 November 2010, Julian Assange revealed that he is seriously considering seeking political asylum in neutral Switzerland and setting up a WikiLeaks foundation in the country to move the operation there. According to Assange, Switzerland and Iceland are the only countries where WikiLeaks would feel safe to operate.
What Has Wikileaks leaked over the past 4 years?
This video shows two Apache helicopters killing approximately a dozen (12) people in the iraqi suburb new Baghdad including missing BBC Camera man Saeed. It starts off by showing an officer asking his superior for permission to fire, upon questioning he exaggerates the situation claiming that all individuals involved are carrying guns despite two of the men in question were holding camera’s and all the men were acting peacefully. However, it is evident that it is hard to decipher whether the men all the men were holding weapons although this does not excuse the lack of proportional force. The most alarming feature of this video is the soldiers casual laid backed attitude to killing, using phrases like “LIGHT em up!” and “common let us shoot!” highlights a game console style approach. After all it does appear to be treated like a nice online game of COD (Call of duty)!
Collateral Murder Video: Collateral Murder
Iraq WarLogs: http://iraqwarlogs.com/
There are many other leaks available all over the internet. Although, Success4Dummies shall not be facilitating them for a number of reasons but I shall add more “information” regarding this particular question when appropriate.
Support
Wikileaks has received inconceivable support and media coverage over the last 4-5 years. Key figures such documentary film maker John Pilger, Daniel Ellsberg (who released the pentagon papers in 1971) and Republican Congressman of Texas, Ron Paul have all spoke on behalf of Wikileaks.
Daniel Ellsberg has appeared in a number of interviews defending the controversial whistle blowing site. Daniel has also publicly admitted “”not one single soldier or informant has been in danger from any of the WikiLeaks releases. That risk has been largely overblown.”
John Pilger wrote an article in the Australian Publication ‘Green Leaf titled “Wikileaks must be defended” he says Wikileaks represents the interests of “Public accountability and a new form of journalism which is “devoted to taking down Cynical and malign power”
Republican congressman Ron Paul disclosed his thoughts on Wikileaks during a Fox News interview and said “In a free society we’re supposed to know the truth,” Paul said. “In a society where truth becomes treason, then we’re in big trouble.”
In addition, Mike Ferner (president of Veterans for Peace) released a public statement saying “neither Wikileaks nor the soldier or soldiers who divulged the documents should be prosecuted for revealing this information. We should give them a medal.”
Why can’t governments in opposition to Wikileaks – “Just Raid the Organisation” ?
In theory the US government has the power and the technological means to shut down any website or organisation they want. However, a common misconception is that Wikileaks is located within a ‘plush white mansion, hiding amongst the trees in a remote village in Sweden!’ Wikileaks is more of a concept than organisation that is perpetuated by certain beliefs such as the ‘freedom of information’.
There has been unprecedented support for the ‘infamous chairty’ as groups of hackers have teamed up taking down companies like Visa and Master Card for their lack of cooperation and freezing of accounts supplying funds to Mr Assange. Despite the website receiving multiple attacks, people have proactively created mirrors and new domains to keep sensitive information on the web. As the saying goes “once its online its online forever”. The Internet is probably the most indestructible resource of the 21st century, continuously fuelling the battle between Justice and Secrecy.
Useful links regarding – Wikileaks coverage
The guardian has analysed and interpreted the data from the iraq war :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/dec/03/julian-assange-wikileaks
guardian video explaining datablog : http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/datablog/video/2010/jul/25/afghanistan-war-logs-video-tutorial
Guardians data blog data : http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/jul/27/wikileaks-afghanistan-data-datajournalism
Accurate accounts from civilians and soldiers are also being document on a daily basis at : http://iraqwarlogs.com/
Join Wikileaks facebook Group: For new Mirrors and Cables: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/wikileaks
Success4dummies Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Success4Dummiescom/173025959407071?v=wall