Whistle-blower site taken offline :: BBC

A dedicated website called Wikileakes.org has been forced offline with the courts putting the interests of big corporations as a priority over law, journalism and public interest. Even more worrying is how admin's details, contacts, payment details, IP addresses and any associated data to be handed over under the terms of the court order, which is very worrying as there is no risk assessment as to what that data contains and could be endangering journalists and individuals alike. Wikileaks.org were given just one hours notice of the court hearing which was by email, while the Swiss bank group who brought the court action, remain anonymous

In a classic case of Censorship which is increasing as Reporters Without Borders has documented in its 2008 report which is a scathing attack on Public Officials around the world, combined with HotBlack's  report on how the UK government was gearing up to stop mobile phones from working with new media, to limit/stop media sharing and social networking websites at their will.

Whistle-blower site taken offline

The case was brought by lawyers working for a Swiss bank

A controversial website that allows whistle-blowers to anonymously post government and corporate documents has been taken offline in the US.

Wikileaks.org, as it is known, was cut off from the internet following a California court ruling, the site says.

The case was brought by a Swiss bank after "several hundred" documents were posted about its offshore activities.

Other versions of the pages, hosted in countries such as Belgium and India, can still be accessed.

However, the main site was taken offline after the court ordered that Dynadot, which controls the site's domain name, should remove all traces of wikileaks from its servers.

The court also ordered that Dynadot should "prevent the domain name from resolving to the wikileaks.org website or any other website or server other than a blank park page, until further order of this Court."

Other orders included that the domain name be locked "to prevent transfer of the domain name to a different domain registrar" to prevent changes being made to the site.

Wikileaks claimed that the order was "unconstitutional" and said that the site had been "forcibly censored".

Web names

The case was brought by lawyers working for the Swiss banking group Julius Baer. It concerned several documents posted on the site which allegedly reveal that the bank was involved with money laundering and tax evasion.

The site was founded in 2006

The documents were allegedly posted by Rudolf Elmer, former vice president of the bank's Cayman Island's operation.

A spokesperson for Julius Baer said he could not comment on the case because of "pending legal proceedings".

The BBC understands that Julius Baer asked for the documents to be removed because they could have an impact on a separate legal case ongoing in Switzerland.

The court hearing took place last week and Dynadot blocked access from Friday evening.

Wikileaks says it was not represented at the hearing because it was "given only hours notice" via e-mail.

A document signed by Judge Jeffery White, who presided over the case, ordered Dynadot to follow six court orders.

As well as removing all records of the site form its servers, the hosting and domain name firm was ordered to produce "all prior or previous administrative and account records and data for the wikileaks.org domain name and account".

The order also demanded that details of the site's registrant, contacts, payment records and "IP addresses and associated data used by any person...who accessed the account for the domain name" to be handed over.

Wikileaks allows users to post documents anonymously.

Information bank

The site was founded in 2006 by dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and technologists from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa.

It so far claims to have published more than 1.2 million documents.

It provoked controversy when it first appeared on the net with many commentators questioning the motives of the people behind the site.

It recently made available a confidential briefing document relating to the collapse of the UK's Northern Rock bank.

Lawyers working on behalf of the bank attempted to have the documents removed from the site. They can still be accessed.

Dynadot was contacted for this article but have so far not responded to requests for comment.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Whistle-blower site taken offline

Be your own personal privacy czar

Be your own personal privacy czar

Some campaigners worry about using social sites such as Facebook

Regular columnist Bill Thompson wonders if it is time to create web services that can be trusted.

Like most journalists I know I'm very sloppy about keeping my online communications secure.

I rarely encrypt e-mail messages, leaving them to be read by anyone in the electronic chain between me and the intended recipient.

And I use public chat services like MSN Messenger and iChat, even though they send messages as plain text across the network.

Partly this is because the tools needed to make communications secure can be cumbersome and complicated, even for someone with a technical background.

But partly it is because I have not often been involved in researching stories that are going to bring me to the attention of those with the capabilities needed to tap even insecure online communications.

But you never know.

Each year I tell my students on the online journalism course at City University that they should take care to protect their files and e-mail.

And I point out that once someone e-mails them from a work address then that person can never be guaranteed anonymity in future, simply because it is so easy for employers or the police to get access to e-mail traffic records.

They may not know what was said, as reading the contents of e-mail requires permission under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, but they can find out that messages were exchanged.

But using commercial services for campaigning or organising raises the same sorts of issues as we see with Hushmail, because the interests of the owners are not the same as those of the users. Bill Thompson

In the past I've suggested that they get an account with Hushmail, the Canadian company that offers secure encrypted e-mail for its customers.

But after revelations that Hushmail has passed on details of supposedly secure e-mails to the Canadian police I think I'll stop.

I like Hushmail because it works in your web browser. When you sign in it downloads an application written in the Java programming language, and this encrypts and decrypts your message using your secret keys.

Hushmail never sees your e-mail, and so it can't hand it over to the authorities even if they come with a warrant.

But the company also offers an easier to use service which does the hard work on its server rather than your computer. And when it does that it has to have access to your original message, at least briefly.

So when the Canadian police asked it for copies of e-mail sent and received by someone suspected of the illegal manufacture and distribution of anabolic steroids it could not deny that it could read them.

The company has been open about what happened, although it does not seem to have got around to mentioning it on its website yet.

But being open isn't good enough, as the issue has highlighted a fundamental flaw in its security model, one that it will be all but impossible to get around.

Even its more secure service could be undermined if the company agreed to add a 'backdoor' to its code at the authorities' request.

The problem is that Hushmail, like other companies that store and process personal information, is bound by the laws of the country in which it is based and sometimes those laws will require it to betray the confidence of its customers.

A newspaper editor in the UK has to decide whether to go to court or hand over leaked documents; a manager at an net service firm has to decide whether to allow the police to access e-mail logs; and someone running a secure e-mail company has to decide whether the privacy of a suspected drug dealer is worth a jail sentence.

Usually they do what is asked, and often they are not even allowed to tell users what they have done because of gagging orders.

It can be hard to keep your messages secret, warns Bill

The issue goes much wider than trying to decide who to trust with confidential or possibly incriminating data. It also has an impact on the tools we use to contact our friends or organise activities.

The National Union of Journalists is currently having an occasionally fractious internal discussion about the impact of new media on the profession, and the use of social network sites has been raised several times.

Some of the participants are simply opposed to these new-fangled technologies, a position that I have little sympathy with.

I remember meeting Tony Benn, former MP and lifelong campaigner for socialism, and being pleasantly surprised at his enthusiasm for YouTube and the ways it could be used to amplify a political message.

But using commercial services for campaigning or organising raises the same sorts of issues as we see with Hushmail, because the interests of the owners are not the same as those of the users.

Trade union activist and online campaigner Eric Lee put it succinctly in a recent blog post when he noted that 'Facebook is a poor replacement for a real online campaigning strategy for unions. And it makes us vulnerable to the whims of those who own the company'.

Hushmail seems to offer a good service, but its 'simple' service offers little real security when it matters. Far better to install your own encryption software, like the freely available GnuPG, and take responsibility for your own security.

And Facebook may make it easy to set up a group, but it will never be as good as having your own server, your own code and your own security mechanisms in place. Organise a group on Facebook and it belongs to them; organise it on your own server and it belongs to you.

Of course doing this takes time, costs money and requires expertise that many campaigners simply do not possess. Perhaps the time is right for a co-operative social network site, one owned by its members and run in their interests.

It might never be worth $15 billion, but it could make the world a better place.
Source :: BBC