Wikileaks Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange. Photo via Shutterstock
It has been almost five years since Wikileaks’ staffers sabotaged its online submission system and the organisation is finally ready to take anonymous leaks again.
As reported by Wired, a new online submission page has been launched via the WikiLeaks website, advising potential uploaders on how they can submit documents without revealing their identity by using the anonymity software Tor, which is is available as a free download.
WikiLeaks has also provided a number of tips for anyone who might want to utilise the new system, advising potential whistleblowers to use a computer that can’t be traced back to them and not to talk about their submission to anyone, especially media outlets.
“We thought, ‘This is ready, it should be opened’,’” WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson told Wired. “We’re hoping for a good flow of information through this gateway.”
WikiLeaks’ previous system was brought down in 2011 when spokesperson and early supporter Daniel Domscheit-Berg split with founder Julian Assange over security concerns. Domscheit-Berg destroyed more than 3,500 unpublished documents because of fears that Assange could not guarantee their safe handling.
The Australian took to Twitter later that year to announce that WikiLeaks would be relaunching its submission system on 28 November, 2011 – the one-year anniversary of its Cablegate release of classified documents that had been sent to the US State Department by 274 of its consulates, embassies and diplomatic missions around the world.
The date came and went, however, with no relaunch. Assange has since become bogged down by a series of legal troubles. Wanted for questioning over an alleged sexual assault, he has been successfully avoiding returning to Sweden for years now, having taken refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012.
Julian Assange image via Shutterstock
