OpenLeaks-founders want to destroy their WikiLeaks-keys

Source: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/OpenLeaks-Gruender-wollen-ihreWikileaks-Schluessel-vernichten-1325868.html According to an article by Freitag the WikiLeaks-dropouts who are since then engaged with the competing platform OpenLeaks want to destroy all access keys supervised by a lawyer for the ca 3000 documents they took with them. The dropouts who left the whistleblower project in early autumn 2010 want to demonstrate with that action that OpenLeaks has no interest in the archive they took along. During the announced test of OpenLeaks during the Chaos Communication Camp 2011 it was rumored that the new platform wants to release the documents by itself. When Assange expulsed his companion Daniel Domscheit-Berg from working with WikiLeaks also other activists left that organization amongst others one customer engineer and the architect who developed the submission platform of WikiLeaks. When he dropped out the Architect took this platform including the ca 3000 documents with him. That these documents are in the hands of the OpenLeaks founders got known when Domscheit-Berg presented his book Inside WikiLeaks. He explained that he wants to hand over the documents if Assange can prove to store them securely and to publish them adequately. To avoid misunderstandings the OpenLeaks activists now want to destroy their access keys for WikiLeaks. The Architect and technicians hold the general access keys while for example Domscheit-Berg only has a key for his WikiLeaks area. Similar to that should be the access keys of the IMMI activist Birgitta Jonsdottir and Smari McCarthy. Both gave lectures in the camp village of OpenLeaks about the necessity of a broad legal protection of whistleblowers. These different ownership structures led to ambiguities which were backed by DomscheitBergs vague informations. According to Freitag he regrets the slip through of imprecise wordings. This in the meantime let to his expulsion from the CCC, where Andy MllerMaguhn wanted to act as an intermediator (translators note: between OL and WL). MllerMaguhn feels deceived by the statement of Domscheit-Berg not having the material and induced the expulsion procedure. If the documented destruction of the access keys really is enough to calm things down is questionable. At least the hard drive (CCC) or data carrier (OpenLeaks) containing the 3000 documents meant for WikiLeaks should be destroyed to. But to check if these are really the disputed documents there has to be a key. The crosscheck could only be done by Julian Assange who owns the master key. Since the 3000 documents are included in an encrypted torrent file they are never lost. The other question is whether the documents are still up to date or if whistleblowers used other ways to inform the public. (Detlef Borchers) / (vbr)