According to his own Twitter account, Andy Greenberg is a happily married tech reporter for Forbes , focusing on technology, information security, and digital civil liberties and the author of This Machine Kills Secrets: How WikiLeakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World’s Information.
The Machine Kills Secrets Book Cover. Source: Andy Greenberg
This book is a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice and is said to be one of the most important books of the decade.
Whistle-blowing : One who reveals wrongdoing within an organization to the public or to those in positions of authority
WikiLeaks revealed a channel of whistle-blowing. This channel included cryptographic codes to hide leakers’ identities while they disclose the private data of government agencies and corporations. “Hacktivists” are aiming their energy to destroy the world’s institutional privacy.
Andy Greenberg. Source: Book Court
Andy Greenberg traveled all around the find the next best WikiLeaks. He found himself in Berlin at a Communication Camp for the launch of OpenLeaks (a spinoff WikiLeaks). He has VIP access to codes and characters that are changing what society can consider activism to entail. Domscheit-Berg is the creator of OpenLeaks and a past employee of WikiLeaks.
The difference in OpenLeaks is that it seeks to safely pass on leaked information to media organizations and non-profits, and by pass who publishes it. Basically, to have untraceable anonymous uploads. Tricky.
“Domscheit-Berg believes he has all the ingredients to build a new WikiLeaks that’s more efficient, more democratically organized, and perhaps most important, more legal. He wants to incorporate as a non-profit, a steadfast, permanent institution that can strike blows for information freedom against the world’s governments and corporations without needing to hide from anyone.”
This idea that people can whistle-blow anonymously intrigues me. This means that more people would be likely to come forth and provide illegal information that is known out there. What would you do if you knew you would not get pursued legally for revealing withheld information from the public? I bet a lot.
This cryptography is being used to take power away from officials. To protect peoples’ identities while they dump all these hidden documents. If the OpenLeaks finally did get online, then I feel this would be a great opportunity to truly see what is going on behind closed doors.
I enjoyed reading your post on this topic, and agree with you in many of your thoughts. I’m glad you define Whistle-Blowing, because when I first read the article I did not understand what it exactly was. I feel as if OpenLeaks started up it would be a good place for people to feel safe to give important or illegal information and “whistle blow.” I like how you incorporated both Wiki and Open Leaks.