Officially launched in 2007 by Australian Julian Assange, WikiLeaks has among its most controversial cases the disclosure of documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. WikiLeaks is very well organized. It all begins when material that is restricted or censored is sent to WikiLeaks. This may occur over a network or physical environment, which provides several ways to ensure anonymity. Their website technology is designed to ensure that not even the organization is aware of who sent the material.
Next, the website goes beyond the traditional techniques of investigative journalism and subjects the material to specific procedures to identify counterfeits. An independent team evaluates the material and journalists publish stories based on other documents together with the document itself. Using a slightly different concept than the famous Wikipedia, anyone can submit material, but only the website owners can publish and disseminate new contents. Nowadays, to prevent attacks, the website is spread across multiple servers in the world.
Due to the international pressure WikiLeaks is facing, people are wondering about its future. At least one new competitor has already arrived, OpenLeaks. The concept of OpenLeaks is slightly different from WikiLeaks, in that the information will not be published directly, but it will allow the media and other organizations to access OpenLeaks to disclose internal documents provided by the website, and in this way it hopes to avoid the troubles WikiLeaks is facing.
The fact is that simple portable devices such as CDs, pen drives, cellphones and others will no longer be treated as harmless devices because of their ability to copy and spread information. Consequently, what we are seeing today will change freedom of expression and the limits of transparency. We are witnessing a new approach to journalism and even a new paradigm of information. No one knows yet what its impact on diplomacy and state secrets will be.
* Article published on Curitiba in English.
