Is wikileaks.org offline ?

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WikiLeakS.org has effectively been offline this morning.

The various domain names and cover aliases and SSL/TLS protected webservers, still seem to resolve ok, but they are currently pointing to Swedish IP addresses, which seem to be online, for which the webservers are not working.

e.g., from the Wikipedia article about wikileaks:

Whether this situation is due to the sudden popularity of the website(s) as a result of the latest leak of a US Military document about the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp, or due to active denial of service or other attacks, or due to legal threats, is unclear..

We note that lots of visitors to this blog are searching for "Guantanamo" or "camp delta standard operating procedures" etc. - do not bother - you will not find that document here.

UPDATE:

N.B. there are no copies of wikileaks.org whistleblower leaks or documents mirrored here on this blog

wikileaks.org have been hyping their leaks to the media like the worst political spin doctors, before they have established a trustworthy or scalable security and anonymity infrastructure.They have not published even a high level security and anonymity architecture design, and they have let their PGP encryption and signing key expire over 2 weeks ago, without replacement.

The analysis of the leaked documents produced so far seems quite good, but it has not been done through any secure, anonymous "wisdom of crowds" collaboration through the Wiki discussion and editing model. If you have the requisite insider knowledge to comment sensibly on the authenticity of a leaked document, or to provide extra details, then you as an analyst will be suspected by some people, of being involved in the initial whistleblower leak itself.

At the moment, we do not yet trust wikileaks.org sufficiently to make use of either their whistleblower document submission methods, or their Wiki facilities for analysis, commentary and or editing of articles, (which is effectively switched off for the public anyway).

4 Comments

You guys have been slashdotted.

@ Ishmael - this blog is not part of the official WikiLeakS.org project, but there is a noticable peak in traffic from people who cannot get through to the supposedly uncensorable anonymous wikileaks.org website.

Slashdot isn't what it used to be, but the fact that there is a link from a BoingBoing article and Wired news etc. is probably compounding whatever the problems there are with the wikileaks.org systems.


NPR Radio was discussing wikileaks.org today, this would have a much greater effect than other sources I think.
wired and slashdot get several thousand people actually linking, not enough to crash a typical server, but NPR might get a hundred thousand (like me) to look and subsequently crash a server.

boingboing.net has nearly 63,000 subscribers via the Bloglines RSS and Atom syndication feed aggregator alone,which must be equivalent to a much larger mainstream print a or broadcast media website or audience. The number of people checking out a link published there is enough to cause a webserver some bandwidth related problems, but should not be enough to crash the webserver.

However, even a server crash should really have been sorted out by now, but wikileakS.org is still not responding.

There have not been any email list announcements, so conspiracy theories about what is happening will start to fester.


About this blog

This blog here at WikiLeak.org (no "S") discusses the ethical and technical issues raised by the WikiLeakS.org project, which is trying to be a resource for whistleblower leaks, by providing "untraceable mass document leaking and analysis".

These are bold and controversial aims and claims, with both pros and cons, especially for something which crosses international boundaries and legal jurisdictions.

This blog is not part of the WikiLeakS.org project, and there really are no copies of leaked documents or files being mirrored here.

Email Contact

Please feel free to email us your views about this website or news about the issues it tries to comment on:

email: blog@WikiLeak[dot]org

Before you send an email to this address, remember that this blog is independent of the WikiLeakS.org project.

If you have confidential information that you want to share with us, please make use of our PGP public encryption key or an email account based overseas e.g. Hushmail

LeakDirectory.org

Now that the WikiLeakS.org project is defunct, so far as new whistleblower are concerned, what are the alternatives ?

The LeakDirectory.org wiki page lists links and anonymity analyses of some of the many post-wikileaks projects.

There are also links to better funded "official" whistlblowing crime or national security reporting tip off websites or mainstream media websites. These should, in theory, be even better at protecting the anonymity and security of their informants, than wikileaks, but that is not always so.

New whistleblower website operators or new potential whistleblowers should carefully evaluate the best techniques (or common mistakes) from around the world and make their personal risk assessments accordingly.

Hints and Tips for Whistleblowers and Political Dissidents

The WikiLeakS.org Submissions web page provides some methods for sending them leaked documents, with varying degrees of anonymity and security. Anybody planning to do this for real, should also read some of the other guides and advice to political activists and dissidents:

Please take the appropriate precautions if you are planning to blow the whistle on shadowy and powerful people in Government or commerce, and their dubious policies. The mainstream media and bloggers also need to take simple precautions to help preserve the anonymity of their sources e.g. see Spy Blog's Hints and Tips for Whistleblowers - or use this easier to remember link: http://ht4w.co.uk

BlogSafer - wiki with multilingual guides to anonymous blogging

Digital Security & Privacy for Human Rights Defenders manual, by Irish NGO Frontline Defenders.

Everyone’s Guide to By-Passing Internet Censorship for Citizens Worldwide (.pdf - 31 pages), by the Citizenlab at the University of Toronto.

Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents - March 2008 version - (2.2 Mb - 80 pages .pdf) by Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Guide to Covering the Beijing Olympics by Human Rights Watch.

A Practical Security Handbook for Activists and Campaigns (v 2.6) (.doc - 62 pages), by experienced UK direct action political activists

Anonymous Blogging with Wordpress & Tor - useful step by step guide with software configuration screenshots by Ethan Zuckerman at Global Voices Advocacy. (updated March 10th 2009 with the latest Tor / Vidalia bundle details)

WikiLeakS Links

The WikiLeakS.org Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page.

WikiLeakS Twitter feeds

The WikiLeakS.org website does not stay online all of the time, especially when there is a surge of traffic caused by mainstream media coverage of a particularly newsworthy leak.

Recently, they have been using their new Twitter feeds, to selectively publicise leaked documents to the media, and also to report on the status of routing or traffic congestion problems affecting the main website in Stockholm, Sweden.

N.B.the words "security" or "anonymity" and "Twitter" are mutually exclusive:

WikiLeakS.org Twitter feed via SSL encrypted session: https://twitter.com/wikileaks

WikiLeakS.org unencrypted Twitter feed http://twitter.com/wikileaks

Internet Censorship

OpenNet Initiative - researches and measures the extent of actual state level censorship of the internet. Features a blocked web URL checker and censorship map.

Temporary Autonomous Zone

Temporary Autonomous Zones (TAZ) by Hakim Bey (Peter Lambourn Wilson)

Cyberpunk author William Gibson

Campaign Button Links

Watching Them, Watching Us, UK Public CCTV Surveillance Regulation Campaign
UK Public CCTV Surveillance Regulation Campaign

NO2ID Campaign - cross party opposition to the NuLabour Compulsory Biometric ID Card
NO2ID Campaign - cross party opposition to the NuLabour Compulsory Biometric ID Card and National Identity Register centralised database.

Gary McKinnon is facing extradition to the USA under the controversial Extradition Act 2003, without any prima facie evidence or charges brought against him in a UK court. Try him here in the UK, under UK law.
Gary McKinnon is facing extradition to the USA under the controversial Extradition Act 2003, without any prima facie evidence or charges brought against him in a UK court. Try him here in the UK, under UK law.

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FreeFarid.com - Kafkaesque extradition of Farid Hilali under the European Arrest Warrant to Spain

Peaceful resistance to the curtailment of our rights to Free Assembly and Free Speech in the SOCPA Designated Area around Parliament Square and beyond

Parliament Protest blog - resistance to the Designated Area restricting peaceful demonstrations or lobbying in the vicinity of Parliament.

Petition to the European Commission and European Parliament against their vague Data Retention plans
Data Retention is No Solution Petition to the European Commission and European Parliament against their vague Data Retention plans.

Save Parliament: Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill (and other issues)
Save Parliament - Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill (and other issues)

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Open Rights Group

The Big Opt Out Campaign - opt out of having your NHS Care Record medical records and personal details stored insecurely on a massive national centralised database.

Tor - the onion routing network
Tor - the onion routing network - "Tor aims to defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security. Communications are bounced around a distributed network of servers called onion routers, protecting you from websites that build profiles of your interests, local eavesdroppers that read your data or learn what sites you visit, and even the onion routers themselves."

Tor - the onion routing network
Anonymous Blogging with Wordpress and Tor - useful Guide published by Global Voices Advocacy with step by step software configuration screenshots (updated March 10th 2009).

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Amnesty International's irrepressible.info campaign

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BlogSafer - wiki with multilingual guides to anonymous blogging

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NGO in a box - Security Edition privacy and security software tools

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Home Office Watch blog, "a single repository of all the shambolic errors and mistakes made by the British Home Office compiled from Parliamentary Questions, news reports, and tip-offs by the Liberal Democrat Home Affairs team."

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Reporters Without Borders - Reporters Sans Frontières - campaign for journalists 'and bloggers' freedom in repressive countries and war zones.

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Committee to Protect Bloggers - "devoted to the protection of bloggers worldwide with a focus on highlighting the plight of bloggers threatened and imprisoned by their government."

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Wikileaks.org - the controversial "uncensorable, anonymous whistleblowing" website based currently in Sweden.

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Recent Comments

  • WikiLeak: boingboing.net has nearly 63,000 subscribers via the Bloglines RSS and read more
  • Bob: NPR Radio was discussing wikileaks.org today, this would have a read more
  • WikiLeak: @ Ishmael - this blog is not part of the read more
  • Ishmael Rufus: You guys have been slashdotted. read more

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