In September, a number of Wikileaks‘ partners quit that organization, complaining that its leader, Julian Assange, was too tyrannical and careless. In November, they announced they were creating a competing leaks service, called OpenLeaks. In December, it was supposed to go live. Now, in January, it has.
Yesterday, Cryptome released a leaked PDF of the OpenLeaks content. OpenLeaks announced that not all the areas of content and functionality in that document are good to go yet.
OpenLeaks 101 from openleaks on Vimeo.
Our presumption of how OpenLeaks would likely work seems to be in fact how it’s designed. Whistle-blowers will upload leaked documents and send them to particular recipients, such as newspapers, news channels, radio stations, non profit organizations, labor unions, governmental oversight groups and others.
OpenLeaks itself, unlike Wikileaks, will not publish the leaked documents on its site. By-passing the editorial function is intended to keep the organization unencumbered political considerations.
On its FAQ, the involved persons make certain to distance themselves from their former home at Wikileaks, while staying polite:
“A number of us were previously involved with WikiLeaks. None of us has any remaining association with WikiLeaks, and all of us had left by the end of September 2010 (despite other claims). While we fully support the stated goals of WikiLeaks, and wish them success, OpenLeaks is an independent project.”
OpenLeaks says that its current incarnation is merely an alpha, with beta beginning “early in 2011.’ Those interested in being part of the “OpenLeaks community” will be allowed to apply for inclusion in the coming months.
Other sources: Ars Technica
