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The not-for-profit whistleblower site announced it will host WikiLeaks content in the wake of Julian Assange’s plea deal.
One of the stipulations of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s June plea deal was that he delete any as-yet-unpublished classified material, but for now, material previously published remains online.
However, to guard against the site eventually being taken down, the leak-hosting site Distributed Denial of Secrets has announced that it will host all of 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, alongside an overall revamp of the DDoSecrets website.
Speaking to 404 Media, journalist and DDoSecrets co-founder Emma Best said WikiLeaks “has the problem of being a centralised point of failure”. Best also said the not-for-profit would be working to make its own leaked data more resilient by providing mirroring guidelines for other sites.
The data being republished is exactly the same as that first published by WikiLeaks and includes datasets called the Gitmo Files, CIA Travel Advice To Operatives, and Vaults 7 and 8 – huge troves of information relating to CIA malware and hacking campaigns.
Also included as-is is a controversial dataset known as The Saudi Cables, which included sensitive personal medical data and the contact details of a Saudi man who had been arrested for being gay.
“We’re just providing the raw information they published themselves,” Best told 440 Media.
“While we likely would have handled that data differently than WikiLeaks did, the data is out there and we shouldn’t act as censors for it.”
Assange pleaded guilty to a felony charge of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information in a US court on the Northern Mariana Islands – a US territory – after a 14-year legal stoush. He was sentenced to time already served, and he returned to Australia on the same day.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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