WikiLeaks has been firing up popular imagination by suggesting that the round-the-corner leaks will have serious consequences on the world. Its strategy is to get and post on the Internet, secret documents flying out of the wraps of Governments and businesses.
WHAT IS THE MUCH-TALKED-ABOUT ‘WIKILEAKS’?
WikiLeaks is a website that is used for publishing sensitive documents and news. It established an editorial policy that accepted only documents that were ‘of political, diplomatic, historical or ethical interest’. The website run by The Sunshine Press, was launched in 2006. It is a non-profit media organization that works with the objective of publishing submissions of otherwise unavailable documents from anonymous news sources and leaks. The idea was relatively simple: given the viral nature of the Internet – and the ease of duplicating digital documents – once secret information was published, it could never become secret again.
WikiLeaks describes itself as “an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking”.
IS WIKILEAKS, BY ANY MEANS, RELATED TO WIKIPEDIA?
A very common misconception prevails: Wikipedia and WikiLeaks are affiliated to each other. But this is NOT the case. These are two different entities that share the same ‘wiki’ prefix. Wiki is the abbreviation of WikiWikiWeb, which was the first wiki software. It’s actually a Hawaiian word that means “fast.” As a noun, wiki means a collaborative website that can be directly edited using only a web browser.
Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia editable by any user. Whereas, WikiLeaks was formerly a wiki, but and has turned into a more traditional website. Also, wiki is a generic word that anyone can use; it is not a brand name.
HOW WAS WIKILEAKS BORN? HOW DOES IT WORK?
The wikileaks.org domain name was registered on October 4, 2006. The website was unveiled, and published its first document in December 2006. The site claims to have been “founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and start-up company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa”.
WikiLeaks has been in the eye of the storm due to the controversial nature of content published by it. They really do not have any permanent website due to a number of denial-of-service attacks and its division from different Domain Name System (DNS) providers. Formerly, the website was http://www.wikileaks.org.
It was launched as a user-editable wiki site, where any person can submit sensitive data without the fear of being tracked by Government agencies or organizations. However, a team of reviewers – volunteers from the mainstream press, journalists and WikiLeaks staff – decides what is published.
WHO ARE THE BRAINS BEHIND WIKILEAKS?
The creators of WikiLeaks have not been formally identified. It has been represented in public since January 2007 by Julian Assange and others. He has been called “the Robin Hood of hacking.” As the founder and public face of WikiLeaks, Julian Paul Assange is best known as the spokesperson and editor-in-chief for the whistleblower website. He is an Australian journalist, publisher and internet activist.
Assange was reportedly born in 1971 in the city of Townsville, northeastern Australia. When he turned 16, he began hacking computers, reportedly assuming the name Mendax – from the Latin splendid mendax, or “nobly untruthful.”
Before working with the website, Assange was a physics and mathematics student as well as a computer programmer. He has lived in several countries and has told reporters he is constantly on the move. He makes irregular public appearances to speak about freedom of the press, censorship, and investigative journalism.
The soft-spoken Assange is almost as opaque as the website he edits. He declines to release personal details and leads a somewhat nomadic lifestyle.
And the information war continues. The super power US v/s the whistleblower WikiLeaks is the biggest cyber war the world has witnessed.
Read original article at: http://epaper.namoleague.com/EpaperArticle.aspx?title=WIKILEAKS:%20THE%20POWER%20THAT%20HAS%20SHAKEN%20THE%20WORLDS%20SUPER%20POWER_344
Aditi Rindani 