WikiLeaks designed 21st century model for leak-based journalism in a wired age | The Japan Times:
April 12, 2019 - "Using cryptography and virtual drop boxes, Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks created a revolutionary new model for media to lure massive leaks from whistleblowers, exposing everything from U.S. military secrets to wealthy tax dodgers’ illicit offshore accounts.
"Assange’s arrest in London Thursday on a U.S. extradition request to face computer crime charges could spell the end of 13-year-old WikiLeaks. But his legacy will live long in the world’s media. News outlets and journalists everywhere can now offer potential sources encrypted apps and secure virtual mailboxes to receive secrets that were once divulged by discreet whispers, furtive phone calls and unmarked manila envelopes.
"Skilled at hacking and cryptography — and motivated by a deep distrust of traditional institutions — Australia-born Assange applied his libertarian streak to the challenge of breaking government secrecy. In 2006 he built an online platform that offered an anonymous, encrypted path for leaking computerized files without fear of exposure. Leaks have forever been crucial currency in journalism. But no one had before created a convenient, relatively easy-to-use electronic drop box that could almost instantly, with absolute secrecy, take delivery of gigabytes of documents. And he did it at a ripe time, when the wired world was emerging and social media were taking off....
"WikiLeaks obtained documents exposing the Kenyan leader’s corruption, the secret operating rules for the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison camp, and offshore banking records from a Swiss bank. It began scooping mainstream media on stories ranging from secret climate-change discussions to Iran’s nuclear activities and Icelandic banking fraud.
"In 2010, U.S. Army intelligence official Chelsea Manning ... began secretly feeding hundreds of thousands of classified files to WikiLeaks. They showed evidence of possible war crimes by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.... Assange partnered with The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel and others to help sort through and make sense of the Manning material. WikiLeaks won awards and Assange was put on the cover of Time magazine....
"Almost as soon as he hit that peak, Assange’s star began to fade.... But by 2012 others were already adopting his model of setting up encrypted, anonymous paths for leakers to contribute documents. WikiLeaks copycat sites opened in different countries. Journalists became trained in the use of encryption and secret file transfers.... U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden ... used the encrypted communications Assange helped popularize to communicate with the journalists who collaborated with him.
"In 2013 the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which had aided WikiLeaks with financing, developed a new anonymous drop box free for anyone to use: SecureDrop.... SecureDrop is important to the most successful WikiLeaks-like operation, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. In recent years it has obtained from leakers millions of financial account files detailing money laundering and tax avoidance from offshore banking centers — digital troves that became known as the 'Panama Papers' and 'Paradise Papers.'”
Read more: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/04/12/world/wikileaks-designed-21st-century-model-leak-based-journalism-wired-age/#.XLNUNtQrLn4
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April 12, 2019 - "Using cryptography and virtual drop boxes, Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks created a revolutionary new model for media to lure massive leaks from whistleblowers, exposing everything from U.S. military secrets to wealthy tax dodgers’ illicit offshore accounts.
"Assange’s arrest in London Thursday on a U.S. extradition request to face computer crime charges could spell the end of 13-year-old WikiLeaks. But his legacy will live long in the world’s media. News outlets and journalists everywhere can now offer potential sources encrypted apps and secure virtual mailboxes to receive secrets that were once divulged by discreet whispers, furtive phone calls and unmarked manila envelopes.
"Skilled at hacking and cryptography — and motivated by a deep distrust of traditional institutions — Australia-born Assange applied his libertarian streak to the challenge of breaking government secrecy. In 2006 he built an online platform that offered an anonymous, encrypted path for leaking computerized files without fear of exposure. Leaks have forever been crucial currency in journalism. But no one had before created a convenient, relatively easy-to-use electronic drop box that could almost instantly, with absolute secrecy, take delivery of gigabytes of documents. And he did it at a ripe time, when the wired world was emerging and social media were taking off....
"WikiLeaks obtained documents exposing the Kenyan leader’s corruption, the secret operating rules for the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison camp, and offshore banking records from a Swiss bank. It began scooping mainstream media on stories ranging from secret climate-change discussions to Iran’s nuclear activities and Icelandic banking fraud.
"In 2010, U.S. Army intelligence official Chelsea Manning ... began secretly feeding hundreds of thousands of classified files to WikiLeaks. They showed evidence of possible war crimes by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.... Assange partnered with The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel and others to help sort through and make sense of the Manning material. WikiLeaks won awards and Assange was put on the cover of Time magazine....
"Almost as soon as he hit that peak, Assange’s star began to fade.... But by 2012 others were already adopting his model of setting up encrypted, anonymous paths for leakers to contribute documents. WikiLeaks copycat sites opened in different countries. Journalists became trained in the use of encryption and secret file transfers.... U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden ... used the encrypted communications Assange helped popularize to communicate with the journalists who collaborated with him.
"In 2013 the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which had aided WikiLeaks with financing, developed a new anonymous drop box free for anyone to use: SecureDrop.... SecureDrop is important to the most successful WikiLeaks-like operation, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. In recent years it has obtained from leakers millions of financial account files detailing money laundering and tax avoidance from offshore banking centers — digital troves that became known as the 'Panama Papers' and 'Paradise Papers.'”
Read more: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/04/12/world/wikileaks-designed-21st-century-model-leak-based-journalism-wired-age/#.XLNUNtQrLn4
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