Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Wikileaks a Little Too Naive?

A new site, scheduled to come out in March, Wikileaks.com will put millions of leaked documents from governments and various corporations on the web. It's supposed to be a safe outlet for whistle-blowers. The site will be a wiki (as clearly suggested by its name) and users will be able to view the documents, post anonymously, and analyze them. However, as Time.com writes in an article that came out Monday, there's a lot of questions brewing around the legitimacy of the site. They wrote:
Yet the speculation that Wikileaks might a front for an intelligence agency is understandable, considering the recent arrival of "Intellipedia" — an internal wiki system used by 16 U.S. spy agencies. Steven Aftergood, director of the Project of Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists and writer of the blog Secrecy News doesn't buy that theory. "I just think they're naive," says Aftergood, who was contacted by Wikileaks via e-mail in late December to join the site's advisory board. "They have a very idealistic view of the nature of leaking and its impact. They seem to think that most leakers are crusading do-gooders who are single-handedly battling one evil empire or another." Aftergood declined their offer.

It seems that the idea is generally a good one, but there are still many questions to be answered before its launch in March. Another blogger, John Young (who writes Cryptome.org) also refused their offer to become a part of the advisory board. I just wonder who is behind the site and what would happen if a particularly powerful document was posted? What about IP addresses? Is it really anonymous? It's a noble idea but I agree that it can become just another "intellipedia".

No comments: