(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Wikileaks (www.wikileaks.org), a collaborative site with the intention of facilitating the free flow of information has reportedly kept crucial information from the public about its own operations, and its secure submission system, a cornerstone of the concept, has been offline for more than three weeks.
Months after Wikileaks director Julian Assange was caught lying about the identities of his organization’s board members, Wikimedia Commons reports that the site’s secure submissions server has been down since June 12 after the organization failed to pony up the $30 fee for its annual Secure Sockets Layer certificate renewal.
Launched in 2007, Wikileaks gained wide media attention recently for releasing a video of journalists being killed by US helicopters in Iraq. Following this attention, Assange was apparently the subject of unwanted attention from authorities. upon his return to his home country, Australia, airport security confronted him, taking his passport and searching his bags.
This incident and others (such as claims that gunman broke into his home in Kenya and attempted to kill him for Wikileaks’ role in exposing government-sponsored killings there — despite little evidence suggesting that it was anything more than a robbery) helps to further establish Wikileaks as a threat to authority. These incidents, however, have led some to the conclusion that Assange may be misreporting these events to make him seem like the target of conspiracies in an effort to stir publicity.
