GlobaLeaks

GlobaLeaks
Developer(s) Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights
Initial release 6 September 2011 (2011-09-06)[1]
Stable release
2.64.11 / October 31, 2016 (2016-10-31)
Repository https://github.com/globaleaks/GlobaLeaks
Written in Python, JavaScript
Operating system Linux
License Affero General Public License
Website www.globaleaks.org

GlobaLeaks is an open-source, free software intended to enable secure and anonymous whistleblowing initiatives. It was developed by the Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights, an Italian based NGO supporting freedom of speech online.

The software empowers anyone, even non-technical people, to easily set up and maintain a whistleblowing platform.

History

The leading figures in GlobaLeaks creation are Claudio Agosti, Arturo Filastò, Michele Orrù, Giovanni Pellerano and Fabio Pietrosanti.[2][3][4][5]

Asked by an interviewer how the GlobaLeaks project began, Filastò explained: “After the whole WikiLeaks Cablegate drama we decided to work on this.”[6] The idea for GlobaLeaks “was born from the realization of a need for journalists to ensure the confidentiality of their sources despite an insecure network.” It is designed to be used by journalists who do not have advanced computer skills but who need a secure platform to protect their sources. The software enables journalists and their sources to communicate securely, allowing “a continuous flow of data among individuals with complete security.” It also enables journalists to verify sources by requesting various kinds of data and documents. Moreover, GlobaLeaks is more flexible than WikiLeaks, which is only in English, and is centralized, with a focus on “events of national and international resonance.” GlobaLeaks, by contrast, “allows you to communicate in the language of users and is open to local issues with an impact on everyday life.”[7]

Filastò and his partners noted that most leaksites “had poor security,” with the vulnerabilities of the Wall Street Journal’s whistleblowing dropbox SafeHouse,[8] for instance, being “exposed only hours after it went online.” Filastò commented that: “We saw that there is a user base but the developers were doing it wrong. We said: ‘we are security people, we can do this better’. So two years ago we came up with an advanced prototype: Globaleaks 0.1. It was an initial experiment but it went quite well. We then redid it from scratch and we’re now at version 2.24.”[6]

The initial plan was conceived on 15 December 2010,[9] with the first prototype announced on 6 September 2011[1] as an alpha release.

In 2011 Tor2web, Tor Hidden Service proxy designed by Aaron Swartz, became part of the GlobaLeaks project as a component intended for extending nodes reachability to traditional HTTPS connections.[10]

By 2012 the Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights NGO was founded in Italy.

In a report from the December 2013 Chaos Communication Congress (CCC), John Borland wrote that “the whistleblower-support community has never been healthier.” He explained that the whistleblowing movement was “now filtering into country after country at a smaller level, as local activist and media organizations work with technology providers to fine-tune the collection and solicitation of leaks to specific populations or subject areas.” Much of this work, he noted, “is being facilitated by the Italian GlobaLeaks, a project of the Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights.”[11]

Reception

Brandon Stosh has described GlobaLeaks as “an open source project aimed at creating a worldwide, anonymous, censorship-resistant, distributed whistleblowing platform.”[12] GlobaLeaks seeks “to democratize the WikiLeaks model” and to become “the de-facto standard in technologically-powered whistleblowing" focused on the research of the best trade-off between security and usability. The Hermes Center NGO “aims to help with the release of information on a different scale than WikiLeaks can address.” Pietrosanti said in December 2013, we identified the needed for a "solution or software that would enable any organization to engage in whistleblower solicitation, even at the local level.”[11]

Andy Greenberg has quoted Pietrosanti as saying that Hermes’s goal “is to expand the leaking movement from the current fifty or so WikiLeaks copycats to a network or hundreds or thousands of ‘leak nodes’ run by everyone from U.S. corporations that are legally mandated to run an internal whistleblowing outlet to radical activists that hope to pass their materials on to publishers while using Tor to remain completely anonymous.” GlobaLeaks, wrote Greenberg, “aims to disperse the risk of handling sensitive material over an army of individuals rather than one vulnerable group of intermediaries. ‘Some people may be like Assange, and say, OK, we’ll publish and fight and whatever,’ says Pietrosanti. ‘But lots of people want to fight corruption without taking that much responsibility. If the risk profile of everyone who runs a leak node is reduced, there will be a lot more leak nodes.’” Filastò added: “WikiLeaks taught us something. And it brought the word whistleblower back into the awareness of the public (...) But GlobaLeaks is the next logical step.”[13]

In an October 2013 article, “Building an Infrastructure for Whistleblowing,” Tessel Renzenbrink wrote that “there are very few protection mechanisms in place for whistleblowers,” and that because of this, “whistleblowing featured as an important topic at OHM2013, the biggest outdoor hacker festival in Europe.” At the festival, Renzenbrink spoke with people from “several organizations that have started initiatives to build a better whistleblowing infrastructure,” including Filastò, who told her: “Globaleaks is a software designed to allow anybody to easily set up a whistleblower site". Filastò emphasized that “It is open source software so anybody can download it, install it and have a whistleblower site set up. (...) we don’t run a whistleblowing platform ourselves (...) but we contribute to this ecosystem by enabling other people to run successful initiatives.”

Operation

The organization who develops GlobaLeaks does not run any leaksite. The organization instead, invites anyone to install the software on their own computers, thus making it a node in a distributed private anonymous network. Whereas Wikileaks uses a centralized data distribution system similar to Napster, Globaleaks uses a shared download distribution system similar to BitTorrent.[14]

A GlobaLeaks site utilizes Tor Hidden Services in order to guarantee the anonymity of the identity of the source, and Tor2web in order to obtain public web reachability.[3]

Once submission are performed on a GlobaLeaks node, the data is encrypted using PGP and the system automatically notifies registered recipients (e.g., local media, NGOs, or even single journalists).

GlobaLeaks nodes do not store anything permanently and the submitted information and files are deleted as soon as possible with a strict data retention policy.

The process is generally improved suggesting sources, whenever possible, to use the Tails operating system while connecting to GlobaLeaks. Tails is special GNU/Linux distribution, fully-Torified that does not allow the user to make mistakes installing Tor and that does not leave any trace on the PC that is used.

Implementations

As of the end of 2013, the largest implementation of GlobaLeaks was by PubLeaks in the Netherlands, “a foundation that counts 42 of the country’s biggest media organizations among its members. There, each organization pays €500 per year, and in return receives a special laptop designed to access the leak system.” Borland noted that “When accessing Publeaks from the web, whistleblowers can choose to send information to three of these media organizations. All participating organizations agree to honor embargo periods, enabling information to be examined without immediate publication pressure. The group has already had several high-profile leaks, including one that led to the resignation of a prominent parliamentarian.”[11]

A GlobaLeaks founder has said that “Investigative journalists immediately understood the GlobaLeaks model power, but in fact all journalist can use it, in a way or another, to empower their sources and themselves. They need just to have the time to understand how much their work needs to change.”[6]

As of December 30, 2013, according to an article by Wired reporter John Borland, GlobaLeaks had been “deployed around Europe, by independent journalism and activist groups in Serbia, investigative journalism organizations in Hungary and Italy, and an anti-Mafia group in Italy.” Borland noted that “A GlobaLeaks-powered whistleblowing site in Iceland, called Ljost, today [December 30, 2013] released new documents on that country’s 2008 financial collapse.” Pietrosanti told Borland that GlobaLeaks was “currently talking with organizations in a number of other countries, including several media groups that want to replicate the successful Dutch model.” Borland added that “activists are also examining topic-specific leaks sites for issues such as human rights, wildlife crimes, surveillance, food safety in the United States, and censorship.”[11]

The foundation Radio Free Asia (RFA) has funded the project for potential use in countries ruled by dictatorships, in environments with a high level of criminal infiltration, and in places where the Internet is strictly controlled.[7]

One whistleblowing platform that runs the GlobaLeaks software is the Belgium-based Associated Whistleblowing Press Press. AWP co-founder Pedro Noel describes AWP as “a nonprofit organization which struggles for freedom of expression and against human rights violations by means of whistleblowing.”[6]

As of October 2013, one of the GlobaLeaks founders estimated that their work had so far “empowered” about forty journalists, including “the aggregates like Publeaks.”[12][15]

The Hermes Center now maintains an official directory of GlobaLeaks instances. This is a partial list in chronological order.

Name of organization Implementation date Category Tor Url Tor2web Url Country
Perun[16] 2012-April-7 Investigative Journalism Closed Closed Serbia
Ljost[17][18] 2012-September-30 Transparency Activism w6csjytbrl273che.onion https://w6csjytbrl273che.tor2web.org/ Iceland
MagyarLeaks[19] 2013-July-7 Investigative Journalism ak2uqfavwgmjrvtu.onion https://ak2uqfavwgmjrvtu.tor2web.org Hungary
Publeaks [20][21] 2013-September-9 +40 National/Local Media Consortium 5karyquenden4d6k.onion https://secure.publeaks.nl Netherlands
Pistajka 2013-September Anticorruption activism acabtd4btrxjjrvr.onion https://acabtd4btrxjjrvr.tor2web.org Serbia
Irpileaks[22][23] 2013-October-7 Investigative Journalism 5r4bjnjug3apqdii.onion https://5r4bjnjug3apqdii.tor2web.org/ Italy
Mafialeaks [24][25][26] 2013-November-5 Anti Mafia Activism 2dermafialks7aai.onion https://secure.mafialeaks.org Italy
InfodioLeaks 2014-January-28 Anticorruption Activism ymi7h25hgp3bj63v.onion https://ymi7h25hgp3bj63v.tor2web.org Venezuela
WildLeaks [27][28][29][30][31][32] 2014-February-7 WildLife Crime Activism ppdz5djzpo3w5k2z.onion https://secure.wildleaks.org United States/Africa
Salzburger-Piratenpartei 2014-March-4 Activism pltloztihmfrg2sw.onion Austria
Nawaatleaks [33] 2014-March-27 Activism ur5b2b4brz427ygh.onion Tunisia
Internet Governance Transparency Initiative 2014-April-5 Transparency Activism jeuhrnvdyr3xyqz3.onion Unknown
Filtrala [34][35] 2014-April-23 Anticorruption Activism w6csjytbrl273che.onion Spain
MediaDirect [36] 2014-May-11 Transparency Activism abkjckdgoabr7bmm.onion Australia
ExpoLeaks[37][38][39] 2014-June-10 Investigative Journalism 5r4bjnjug3apqdii.onion Italy
ExtremeLeaks 2014-June-18 Investigative Journalism focusing on extremism and extremist organisations in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa bqs3dobnazs7h4u4.onion https://www.extremeleaks.org/ Norway
EcuadorTransparente 2014-June-19 Transparency Activism ea433ils4wtprqbv.onion Ecuador
ManxLeaks 2014-July-07 Transparency Activism 3qnry3qqjvc2u3c4.onion Isle of Man
Allerta Anticorruzione[40][41] 2014-October-14 Anticorruption Activism fkut2p37apcg6l7f.onion https://alac.transparency.it Italy
Brussels Leaks 2014-October 24 Europe Focus Anticorruption Transparency Activism 6iolddfbfinntq2b.onion Belgium
AfriLeaks[5] 2014-December 14 Pan African Investigative Journalism Initiative (publeaks-like) wcnueib4qrsm544n.onion https://secure.afrileaks.org Africa
Whistleblowing.jp [42][43] 2014-Dec 19 Activism 4ge3uua3uaxuhhaq.onion/#/ https://whistleblowing.jp/ Japan
SourceSure[44] 2015-February-12 French/Belgium PubLeaks initiative made by large French Speaking media partners Le Monde, La Libre Belgique RTBF Le Soir hgowugmgkiv2wxs5.onion https://secure.sourcesure.eu France & Belgium
Xabardocs 2015-January 27 AntiCorruption Activism in Ukraine rfftlkqzjdse5jvl.onion http://www.xabardocs.org/start/ Ukraine
MexicoLeaks[45][46] 2015-Feb 25 MexicoLeaks pb5icjbw6g5hnhl6.onion https://mexicoleaks.mx/ Mexico
Buzón de Xnet - XnetLeaks 2015-March 1 Leaks to fight against corruption by Xnet ztjn5gcdsqeqzmw4.onion https://xnet-x.net/en/xnetleaks Spain
DataLeaks 2015 Free Internet Serbia x2tzc4z2kdi5io4j.onion https://twitter.com/FreeInternetSRB Serbia
The Torist 2015-March Literary and Arts toristinkirir4xj.onion Tor
OCCRPLeaks [47][60][60] 2015-March 1 Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project c4br2yayzdfcfkae.onion https://occrp.org/occrpleaks/ Bosnia (region)
Nieuwsleaks[48] 2015-April 1 VTM Media Whistleblowing site in Belgium pb5icjbw6g5hnhl6.onion https://nieuws.vtm.be/nieuwsleaks Belgium
SecuriLeaks 2015-May Investigative Journalism - focusing on threats against regional and global security, in particular in the aftermath of the Russian annexation of Crimea in February–March 2014 and on all issues related to NATO and Russia and beyond ms5qd5es5qltiqsf.onion https://www.securileaks.org/ Norway
Oživení 2015-June 15 Anticorruption activism iopx5pchfdldldwp.onion https://secure.bezkorupce.cz/ Czech Republic
ToristFR 2016-Feb 19 Literary and Arts toristfgqiroaded.onion https://mobile.twitter.com/TheToristFR France
RegeniLeaks [49] 2016-May 16 Journalism diy7cyqbjh4p5apa.onion Italy
Netpoleaks [50] 2016-Jul 13 Activism owmx2uvjkmdgsap2.onion England
Edison Platform [51] 2016-Jul 23 Corporate Whistleblowing 754hkfmiyumu5xlc.onion https://segnalazioni.edison.it/ Italy
Oko Press [52] 2016-Aug 02 Investigative Journalism p6vbgbn7ggutkt3i.onion Poland
BrasiLeaks 2016 Activism kzmw4yfm3viaojqt.onion https://brasileaks.org Brazil

Funding

In 2011 GlobaLeaks 0.1 received funding from USAID Serbia.

In 2012 GlobaLeaks 2.0 and Tor2web 3.0 software had been funded with $108,400 by the Open Technology Fund under the Freedom2Connect program.[53]

In 2013 the project was able to survive with few donations and a lot of volunteer work done by its core members.

In 2014 Hermes Center has been awarded €200.000 by the Hivos Foundation for Project Deployments of Whistleblowing Initiatives in the Global South.[54]

In July 2014 GlobaLeaks project has been funded with ~$234,000 by the Open Technology Fund in order to develop a new Roadmap from Q3/2014 up to Q1/2016[55] for which all progress reports are publicly available.[56]

In September 2014 Transparency International Italy started up its AntiCorruption Advocacy and Legal Advice Centre (ALAC)[57] with a contribution of €6.000 from an EU grant.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Filastò, Arturo (6 September 2011). "Globaleaks demo of the Prototype online!". Full Disclosure (Mailing list). Retrieved 21 January 2012.
  2. ↑ "About Us - HERMES Center For Transparency And Digital Human Rights". HERMES - Centro Studi Trasparenza e Diritti Umani in Rete. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
  3. 1 2 28th Chaos Communication Congress. "Workshops/GlobaLeaks". Retrieved 21 January 2012.
  4. ↑ "Whistleblowing Rippling into New Corners". wired.com. Retrieved 22 February 2014.
  5. 1 2 Cummings, Basia. "Wikileaks for Africa? Introducing Afrileaks". The Guardian.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Renzenbrink, Tessel. "Building an Infrastructure for Whistleblowing". Tech the Future.
  7. 1 2 "GlobaLeaks e la protezione delle fonti nell'era digitale: intervista a Claudio Agosti". Web Magazine. Apr 28, 2013.
  8. ↑ Halliday, Josh. "Wall Street Journal faces backlash over WikiLeaks rival". The Guardian.
  9. ↑ Pietrosanti, Fabio (15 December 2010). "An idea of leaking alternative to wikileaks". Full Disclosure (Mailing list). Retrieved 15 December 2010.
  10. ↑ "GlobaLeaks Project Plan" (PDF). Retrieved 1 January 2012.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Borland, John (Dec 30, 2013). "Whistleblowing Rippling into New Corners". Wired.
  12. 1 2 Stosh, Brandon. "Interview with GlobaLeaks – The Open Source Whistleblowing Platform". Freedom Hacker.
  13. ↑ "This Machine Kills Secrets: Julian Assange, the Cypherpunks, and Their Fight". Google Books.
  14. ↑ Greenberg, Andy (26 January 2011). "GlobaLeaks Wants To Be The Bittorrent To WikiLeaks' Napster". Forbes. Retrieved 21 January 2012.
  15. ↑ Chiusi, Fabio. "How to protect the next Snowden". International Journalism Festival.
  16. ↑ "Prijavi korupciju – anonimno". juznevesti.com (in Serbian). Retrieved 30 April 2014.
  17. ↑ Dreyfus, Suelette. "Whistleblowers: gagged by those in power, admired by the public". theguardian.com. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  18. ↑ Veal, Lowana. "Alternative to Wikileaks Arises in Iceland". inter press service. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  19. ↑ "MagyarLeaks accepts leaked documents via Tor". atlatszo.hu. Retrieved 30 April 2014.
  20. ↑ "Vanaf vandaag: anoniem lekken naar media via doorgeefluik Publeaks". volkskrant.nl. Retrieved 22 February 2014.
  21. ↑ "Handling ethical problems in counterterrorism An inventory of methods to support ethical decisionmaking" (PDF). RAND Corporation. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  22. ↑ Chavkin, Sasha. "Initiatives seek to protect anonymity of leakers". the international consortium of investigative journalists. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
  23. ↑ Giulietti, Cristian. "President of IRPI Cecilia Anesi talks about secure leaks platform IRPILeaks". onlinejournalismblog.com. Retrieved 22 March 2014.
  24. ↑ Schlamp, Hans-Jürgen. "MafiaLeaks site calls on victims to inform on gangsters". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 22 February 2014.
  25. ↑ "MafiaLeaks: Italian Portal Takes Aim at Organized Crime". spiegel.de. Retrieved 22 February 2014.
  26. ↑ Hern, Alex. "MafiaLeaks promises whistleblowers safety from the Family". theguardian.com. Retrieved 22 February 2014.
  27. ↑ Neme, Lauren. "New WildLeaks Website Invites Whistle-Blowers on Wildlife Crime". nationalgeographic.com. Retrieved 22 February 2014.
  28. ↑ Drake, Nadia. "A New Website That Lets Tipsters Report Wildlife Crimes". wired.com. Retrieved 22 February 2014.
  29. ↑ "WildLeaks launched - the WikiLeaks for wildlife". theecologist.org. Retrieved 22 February 2014.
  30. ↑ Amato, Sal. "Wildlife Crime Whistleblowers: Exclusive Interview with WildLeaks Founder Andrea Crosta". annamiticus.com.
  31. ↑ Garrett, Jemima. "Wildleaks forest crime whistleblower site looks to Asia Pacific - Interview to Andrea Crosta and Fiachra Kearney". Radio Australia. Retrieved 3 April 2014.
  32. ↑ Carrington, Damian. "WildLeaks attracts major wildlife crime leads in first three months". [The Guardian]. Retrieved 13 June 2014.
  33. ↑ Gharbia, Sami Ben. "Nawaatleaks: نواة تطلق موقعا خاصا و آمنا لتسريب الوثائق السرية". Nawaat.
  34. ↑ Sánchez, Juan Luis. "eldiario.es, medio colaborador de la nueva herramienta de filtraciones anónimas Filtrala". el diario. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
  35. ↑ Renzenbrink, Tessel. "The Associated Whistle-Blowing Press launches Spanish leak site". techthefuture.com. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
  36. ↑ KEANE, BERNARD. "Media Direct: towards better security for whistleblowers". [Crikey]. Retrieved 4 July 2014.
  37. ↑ "Al via ExpoLeaks la prima piattaforma per la trasparenza di Expo2015". Wired.
  38. ↑ "ExpoLeaks: trasparenza anti-corruzione, con l'aiuto di tutti". La Stampa. Retrieved 11 June 2014.
  39. ↑ Di Salvo, Philip. "ExpoLeaks, whistleblowing per Expo". European Journalism Observatory. Retrieved 11 June 2014.
  40. ↑ Fontana, Ludovico. "Esplora il significato del termine: Denunce in forma anonima: nasce il portale anti-corruzioneDenunce in forma anonima: nasce il portale anti-corruzione". Corriere della Sera. Retrieved 16 October 2014.
  41. ↑ Frediani, Carola. "Allerta Anticorruzione, il sito anonimo per denunciare il malaffare". L'espresso. Retrieved 16 October 2014.
  42. ↑ Kasai, Teppei. "Activist challenges secrets law with anonymous whistle-blower website". The Japan Times. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  43. ↑ "A japanese anonymous whistleblowing website using Tor". ITMedia. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  44. ↑ Eudes, Yves. "Source sûre, une plateforme sécurisée pour lanceurs d'alerte". Le Monde. Retrieved 1 April 2015.
  45. ↑ Partlow, Joshua. "Mexico's version of WikiLeaks causes controversy before its first story". The Washington Post. Retrieved 12 April 2015.
  46. ↑ Tuckman, Jo. "Whistleblowers wanted: Mexican journalists seek tips through website". The Guardian.
  47. ↑ Cassin, Richar. "Journalists help whistleblowers stay safe in Eastern Europe, Central Asia". The FCPA Blog. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  48. ↑ Fontana, Ludovico. "VTM nieuws lanceert niuswleaks". Vtm. Retrieved 1 April 2015.
  49. ↑ Pratellesi, Marco. "RegeniLeaks, per smascherare le menzogne del regime di al Sisi". L'espresso. Retrieved 27 May 2016.
  50. ↑ "New Tor Site 'Netpoleaks' Helps Whistleblowers Report on UK Police". Vice (magazine). Retrieved 13 July 2016.
  51. ↑ "Policy Whistleblowing Edison" (PDF). Edison (company). Retrieved 23 July 2016.
  52. ↑ "Patrz na ręce rządzącym. Sygnalizuj!". Polityka. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
  53. ↑ "Open Technology Fund". Retrieved May 2012. Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
  54. ↑ "GlobaLeaks 2014/2015". Retrieved 24 May 2016.
  55. ↑ "2014-2015 GlobaLeaks project roadmap". Google Docs. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
  56. ↑ "OTF Reporting". GitHub. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
  57. ↑ "ALLERTA ANTICORRUZIONE - ALAC". Retrieved 24 May 2016.

External links

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