WIKILEAKS

Wikileaks

Wikileaks

Introduction

The news of the day has to do with spying, secret documents and international relations. WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks is an organization that publishes information content which is highly sensitive. WikiLeaks website was launched in 2006 and began publishing papers in 2007. In July 2010, the organization leaked 77,000 sensitive documents about the war in Afghanistan and three months later, 400,000 papers related to the information about the war in Iraq (Channing 2007). What started as a blog publishing leaks, is today one of the most uncomfortable website leaking confidential and sensitive documents. It is directed by the Australian Julian Assange and has over a thousand people working (Ampie 2010).

Discussion

The unveiling platform Wikileaks was founded in 2006 and is more of a loose association as an organization. 800 to 1,000 volunteers, from computer scientists to journalists, work hard to ensure that the public get access to confidential and controversial documents (Channing 2007). The volunteers know each other not with a real name but the communication takes place via encrypted chat. Only the Australian, Wikileaks-founder, Julian Assange and a German who calls himself Daniel Schmitt represent Wikileaks in public (Ampie 2010).

Who funds Wikileaks

WikiLeaks is a non-profit business, and it is reliant on public offerings. Its main investment means consist of general bank transfers and payment systems thorugh internet (Appelbaum 2010). Wau Holland Foundation, WikiLeaks' main financing contributor, confirmed that they have received more than US$1.2 million of donations by public through the year 2010, out of which some amount has been transferred to WikiLeaks.

The identification, exposure, dismissal, prosecution or legal action against members and informants could discourage people from using the site Wikileaks.org. To be prepared against such financial attacks, the supporters of Assange and Schmitt have set up two payment methods (Channing 2007). They use the online service of Flattr. Here, everyone who signs up for Flattr donates money in a special account to pay monthly. Clicking on the Flattr icon on the Wikileaks home page will help donors to start the payment to Wikileaks. "For me, this system is revolutionary because now everyone can pay just one click on the web as much as he has available," says Schmitt, "that could be the future of funding in the Internet" (Appelbaum 2010).

Companies who work with Wikileaks

Giants like Paypal, Visa and MasterCard almost instantly gave way to the dispersion of the U.S. government to abandon WikiLeaks. But other companies, some of them ...