OpenLeaks Founder 'Crippled' WikiLeaks

SETIGuy writes "Former WikiLeaks programmer Daniel Domscheit-Berg sabotaged WikiLeaks in a manner that threatens the anonymity of leakers, according to a WikiLeaks spokesperson. Since leaving WikiLeaks, Domschiet-Berg has become one of the cofounders of OpenLeaks. This raises the question: if you had material to leak, would you trust it to someone who has already jeopardized the anonymity of leakers at a site where he worked?" Domscheit-Berg denies claims by WikiLeaks that he damaged the organization or 'stole' material, but did say he took roughly 300,000 documents with him when he left. An anonymous reader notes related news that WikiLeaks is attempting to get around donation blocks by selling a line of T-shirts.

Re:Bitter from competition?

[Spy Handler]

Well whatever Wikileaks is alleging Domscheit-Berg of doing (stealing wikileaks' info, sabotaging their server), it happened a while ago. They're only throwing a fit NOW and threatening to sue because Berg's new book about his experience in Wikileaks hit the bookstores today [independent.co.uk].

Apparently the book alleges that Assange once threatened to kill Berg over their differences, was intensely paranoid and began travelling with bodyguards, and ruled over his followers as an "emperor".

Re:Hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

You're gonna have to wait a while because Assange is currently trying to ransom out the BoA material for cash from news publication.

You want leaks? You're gonna have to pay for it.

Re:Bitter from competition?

[poetmatt]

Are you retarded?

You don't just take leaked information and leak it to the public. The reason wikileaks doesn't do this is to protect the people who leak info. Believe it or not, they actually do this. There is no such guarantee from openleaks.

Wikileaks never said anyone else couldn't do this, just that they need to be cognizant of what it takes to anonymize stuff before it's released.

Re:Wikileaks leaks...

[Decessus]

I don't know whether it's a big deal or not, but from reading the article it is more than just about documents from Wikileaks being leaked to another site. This Domschiet-Berg guy did something that compromised the anonymity of people who submit things to the Wikileaks website.

Re:Wikileaks bitter about stolen documents?

[mcvos]

As I understand it, WikiLeaks' submission system used to be full of holes. Some guy ("the architect") took it upon himself to fix it. Then Assange went on an ego-trip and Domscheit-Berg left, and the architect joined him and founded OpenLeaks with him. And yes, took his code with him.

Maybe Assange should have realised a bit earlier that he doesn't run WikiLeaks on his own. WikiLeaks depends on a lot of people, and if he kicks them out, the organisation crumbles.

By the way, WikiLeaks is also suing Domscheit-Berg over a number of documents that Domscheit-Berg has been trying to give to Assange for quite some time now, but Assange keeps ignoring him. At least, that's what my newspaper said about it.