GlobaLeaks - Open Source Whistleblowing Framework

by yaph • 14 years ago

87 50 14 years ago

It would be interesting to see how governments around the world react to this. They haven't taken WikiLeaks to kind and in some ways we know their decision. However, it would be great if some governments accept such a framework.

readme• 14 years ago

If a government reacts to this, then you know the project was a success.

denzil_correa2• 14 years ago

I think if a government reacts, we would know that this Whistle Blow framework has good potential. Unless adopted, I wouldn't label it as success. It would be another project like WikiLeaks which is waiting to be back door squeezed by the FBI and their equivalents.

Karunamon2• 14 years ago

Indeed. However if this ends up being a peer to peer type project, then it doesn't matter how the government reacts to it. Embrace it, try to stifle it, doesn't matter.

A network of GlobaLeaks "nodes" makes the entire process infinitely effectively impossible to stifle at any level, unless you go the route of shutting off the internet as some regimes have done. And even then information finds a way out.

I love this idea.

mooneater• 14 years ago

It looks like mostly icing on top of http://tor2web.org/

taphangum3• 14 years ago

I worry about things like this. I'm all for freedom of information and all that, but if that information is all that's keeping one country from launching nuclear weapons at another. That information should be kept very very private indeed,

yaph3• 14 years ago

I understand your concerns, but whoever decides what information will be kept secret is biased in some way and keeping information secret may actually pose a bigger threat than publishing it.

taphangum3• 14 years ago

How?

I've heard this argument many times but can't actually think of any non-idealogical reasons why it would.

mkup2• 14 years ago

The only reason keeping one country from launching nuclear weapons at another one is Mutual Assured Destruction principle. Without nuclear weapons, the world would be a much more dangerous place to live.

We had two world wars in the first half of previous century. It was a like a loop: as soon as new generation of youth eligible for combatant service grew up, world war started again.

Fortunately, nuclear weaponry ended that loop, and Mutual Assured Destruction principle is the only reason for protracted peace at the global scale.

yaph3• 14 years ago

If every country had nuclear weapons, would there be no more wars then? And to take it one step further, if every man had a gun, would there be no more murder?

taphangum3• 14 years ago

You're right.

I used that example to make a point, the core of what i am saying still applies though.

Some information should be kept private

linschn2• 14 years ago

I find your statement

> Mutual Assured Destruction principle is the only reason for protracted peace at the global scale

very hard to believe. Do you have any source I could read that may change my mind ? For the moment I am a proponent of global nuclear disarmament, I don't have any source in english but the argument that draw me in was can be phrased as :

During the one true nuclear crisis, the Cuba missiles, Kennedy did not send the Air Force because the chance of getting nucleary hit, even "a little", was not 0%. Still, the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction posits that one enemy must be sure to be completely destroyed.

So we have a doctrine that leads to enormous arsenals, yet the only data point we have shows it is probably not true, as a mere chance of getting a small hit was enough for Kennedy to back down.

Hence, our arsenal are, at best, far too huge. I furthermore believe that we would be better off with no nuclear weapon at all, but I wanted more info about your precise statement.

ktizo2• 14 years ago

M.A.D. only works if all of those involved are rational actors with high levels of control and clear geographic definitions.

If every country had nukes then you only need one country to have a civil war and things could get rather messy.

Imagine what would happen in the US, for example, if Washington went bankrupt. Something like that could lead to civil war, which raises the thought of what a nuclear civil war might look like, could you have an independent theologically-apocalyptic nuclear armed Texas spitting bible verses and megaton warheads at any heathens, for instance?

nextparadigms2• 14 years ago

At least until US has anti-rocket shields everywhere on Earth. Then they won't have to worry so much about mutual destruction. I remember a few years ago when Russia was upset about US putting an anti-rocket shield in Poland, I was taking US' side, because I naively thought that US is a democracy hero country and that having those anti-rocket shields will be a good thing for the world. But now I realize how dangerous is giving US so much control over the Earth and turning it into a quasi-empire.

celticninja• 14 years ago

What if that information details acts of war by nation 2 against nation 1, however those acts have been, up until the publication of the documents, untracebale or unatributable to nation 2. For example Mossad paying revolutionary groups to kill off Iranian scientists, the release fo the documents would lead to condemnation of Mossad and stilfe their activities, thus saving some innocent scientists from being assasinated, sure Iran may want to retaliate but the other option is you allow Mossad to go on killing iranians (or anyone else they choose to) without bringing scrutiny on their actions.

Your example was extreme but it was poorly thought out. If the information is powerful enough to cause a nation to want to launch a nuclear weapon at another country then that sort of information needs to be publicised, whatever the hell it is that is bad enough to start a nuclear war is certainly not going to get any better by hiding it away from people.

magicjuand2• 14 years ago

<rant> "What if that information details acts of war by nation 2 against nation 1, however those acts have been, up until the publication of the documents, untracebale or unatributable to nation 2."

Nation one should not have been meddling in nation two's business in the first place. I think this comment summarizes the overall problem with our governments. They should be completely transparent and open. The reason that we go to war is over secrets. Remember growing up:

When/why did this stop applying to governments or "adults". Secrets are used to push agenda's. If there are no secrets, then no one can hold anything against anyone else. There wouldn't be conflict. I do not want to go to war or get drafter to fight for something, unless I know all the information. I don't want to die so someone else can grow their bank account. Governments work for the people and paid for by the people, not the other way around. Therefore, all information they possess belongs to us, the people.

Israel should not be meddling in Iran's business, and vice versa. I have friends of all denominations, nationalities, and colors. We all get along just fine and generally complain about the same things. Its our governments that cause problems for the worlds populations. If our governments really represented the people and not the politician's own agenda's there would not be any need for secrecy.

This solution could be a huge step for us to start changing things for the better.

</rant>

TL;DR "Secrets, secrets, are no fun. Secrets, secrets hurt someone." Secrets are used to control people/agenda's.

Karunamon2• 14 years ago

I'm having a hard time thinking of "information that would keep one country from launching nuclear weapons at another". Unless that information was "this country is planning a nuclear strike", and then the threat of retaliation could very well save lives.

Could you give me an example of what you mean?

SquareWheel• 14 years ago

As an example, let's say one country poisoned the leader of another country 20 years ago and covered it up. Exposing that information could start a war.

If it's the right action to leak that information is entirely dependent on your moral philosophy. Utilitarians would generally want to keep it a secret, though.

driverdan2• 14 years ago

This is software. It doesn't dictate the type of information people share. Why do you assume it's going to be state secrets?

ktizo2• 14 years ago

Good to see someone trying the Dissent As A Service turnkey business model.

sparknlaunch12• 14 years ago

Whistle blowing is not limited to wiki leaks style government secrets publication. What about employees stumbling onto corporate mis behaviour? Victims of war etc etc This may help the Arab spring type scenarios.

aw3c2• 14 years ago

The website does not work without Javascript. Javascript is unsafe. I would not trust them with my sensitive revelations.

driverdan2• 14 years ago

Saying JavaScript is unsafe is like saying driving a car is unsafe. If you intentionally run into a wall sure, it's unsafe.

If you don't trust a site enough to let them use JS do you really trust them enough to send them your leaked data?

streptomycin• 14 years ago

JavaScript just adds another thing that could go wrong, in exchange for a potential increase in usability. On a site like this, it's almost certainly not worth it.

olalonde2• 14 years ago

Your concern is pretty silly. If your life is at stake for whistle blowing, I bet Javascript being unsafe will be the last of your worries! You will probably use Tor in an Internet Cafe with incognito browsing mode.

aubergene• 14 years ago

> The Target receives the submitted material as a tulip that will expire after a certain amount of downloads

Perhaps I am hopeless behind the times, but what is a tulip?

ewest• 14 years ago

From what I found reading through some stuff, 'tulip' is the term used to describe whatever a whistle-blower uploads. It also has some meta-data including a point of discussion, so that the Global Leaks provider (the recipient of information) can ask the sender (the whistle-blower) to upload some more material or explain something. It seems tulips can be set, by the sender, to expire.

Here's a link to the tulip controller - you can mostly figure out what it does reading through the well-structured code:

https://github.com/globaleaks/GlobaLeaks/blob/master/globale...

9k9• 14 years ago

What happened to openleaks?

freshhawk2• 14 years ago

Note enough people fell for that con I guess

ChrisNorstrom2• 14 years ago

The vibe that OpenLeaks gave off was that it was founded by Daniel Domscheit-Berg, the guy that was rumored to have betrayed (in some way) Julian Assange of Wikileaks. Say what you want about Assange (like him being the Jason Russel or Michael Arrington of whistle-blowing) but with Julian it felt like you were protected and anonymized at all cost. Whereas with Daniel it feels like the moment he's threatened with jail time he'll sell you out.

Also,

"[OpenLeaks] will allow leakers to anonymously submit information to a secure online dropbox. But unlike [Wikileaks], it won’t publish that information itself. Instead, it will allow the source to designate any media or non-governmental organizations he or she chooses and have that information passed on for fact-checking, redaction and publication."

Sorry Daniel, but it doesn't work that way. In the world of whistle-blowing, it's all or nothing. You either publish the leak or you don't. Not go through 3 extra steps and a whole lot of "if/then"s and still not be guaranteed that your leak will be published. A broken model in my opinion.

olalonde2• 14 years ago

I've noticed yet another interesting double-standard on HN: privacy should always be respected except when it comes to the "bad guys". It's all good as long as you agree on who the bad guys are. This is an extremely slippery slope as we can all witness with the US war on terror slowly eroding personal rights for the greater good. In my mind, this line of thinking is analog to the "free speech unless you say something I don't like" mentality. Do we really want to devalue privacy so we can catch a few bad guys? Just saying we should all be extremely careful around the topic.

nextparadigms2• 14 years ago

You don't really have to make that choice, because these leaks are targeted at Governments. Governments should be transparent with their citizens. When they are not, the leaks will start showing up. I think that's ultimately good for society, even if now and then some secrets are not supposed to come out.

J3L2404• 14 years ago

Good luck with diplomacy if you have no private communications.

aestetix• 14 years ago

My response to the "bad guys" argument has always been: if you asked the bad guys if they were bad, what would they say?

GlobaLeaks - Open Source Whistleblowing Framework

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