WikiLeaks data will remain active thanks to distributed denial of secrets
The nonprofit whistleblowing site announced it will host content from WikiLeaks following Julian Assange’s plea deal.
One of the stipulations of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s plea deal in June was that he remove any classified material not yet published, but for now, previously published material remains online.
However, to prevent the site from being ultimately taken down, leak hosting site Distributed Denial of Secrets has announced that it will be hosting all WikiLeaks content, and in a much easier to access format.
Distributed Denial of Secrets, also known as DDoSecrets, made the announcement at the recent Hackers On Planet Earth conference, along with a general revamp of the DDoSecrets website.
Speaking to 404 Media, journalist and DDoSecrets co-founder Emma Best said WikiLeaks “has the problem of being a centralized point of failure.” Best also said the nonprofit would work to make its own leaked data more resilient by providing duplication guidelines for other sites.
The data being republished is exactly the same as that first published by WikiLeaks and includes data sets called Gitmo Files, CIA Travel Advice To Operatives and Vaults 7 and 8 – huge amounts of information related to CIA malware and piracy campaigns.
Also included as is is a controversial data set known as The Saudi Cables, which included sensitive personal medical data and contact details of a Saudi man who had been arrested for being gay.
“We’re just providing the raw information that they released themselves,” Best told 440 Media.
“While we probably would have handled that data differently than WikiLeaks did, the data is out there and we should not act as censors of it.”
Assange pleaded guilty to felony conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information in a US court in the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory, after a 14-year legal dispute. He was sentenced to a sentence already served and returned to Australia the same day.
