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Possibly unpopular question: why is WikiLeaks so expensive? I'm well aware that hosting costs money -- especially if you're trying to find a service that is re

Possibly unpopular question: why is WikiLeaks so expensive? I'm well aware that hosting costs money -- especially if you're trying to find a service that is resistant to pressure from companies and governments around the world -- but WL seems to have run out of funds every time I try to access the site. I mean, if the goal is to freely distribute information, distributing leaks by torrent only would be a simple, insanely cheap option that would save WL money. But as far as I can tell, WikiLeaks hasn't exactly been forthcoming with details of where their money goes. I could be wrong, but I think every query Cryptome made to Wau Holland has been ignored, and some promised funds from WL to Bradley Manning have come up consistently short...

jgrahamc 15y ago
It's quite clear that WikiLeaks doesn't want to distribute via BitTorrent because they want control. Just look at how they handled the cables: they worked with media partners to analyze and release some of them. Later they totally screwed up and released everything unfiltered. Since they want to maintain control they need people and bandwidth/hosting. Even if the the latter were free, people tend to cost money.
- vladd 15y ago
  You can distribute encrypted files via torrents to solve both control and bandwidth (you just divulge the password at a future point in time).
  - danenania 15y ago
    That doesn't solve control on its own... you still need (smart, trustworthy, courageous) people to go through documents, verify credibility, determine and redact dangerous info, deal with media/pr, not to mention legal issues. Tech people seem to consistently underestimate the non-tech needs even of organizations that are primarily software driven. I'd venture to guess that despite technology clearly being a core component of what WL does, it represents a relatively small percentage of their expenses.
    - ww520 15y ago
      You can distribute the encrypted version via BT and give the decryption key to the selected few to verify. This is no different from giving the unencrypted version to the selected few to verify.
      - kd0amg 15y ago
        That still only takes care of the cost of hosting. It does not deal with the labor cost for reviewing the documents.
- guan 15y ago
  Wikileaks archives are distributed via BitTorrent. Do you mean that they don’t exclusively use BitTorrent?
wcchandler 15y ago
Salaries/Staff Expenses: $500,000 Productions: $400,000 Campaigns: $300,000 Publications Research: $500,000 Technical Information: $500,000 Security: $300,000 Legal Costs: $1,200,000 From their main page: http://wikileaks.org/wlnet.html http://wikileaks.org/wlnet.html Not sure how truthful the numbers are, but it's what they're advertising.
- tptacek 15y ago
  How many paid staffers does Wikileaks have? How much of the budgets for "Productions" and "Research" and whatnot are paid on a project basis to people affiliated with Wikileaks? How much of that legal budget goes directly to defend Julian Assange? I know they've broken out Assange's Stockholm legal defense from the rest of WL for donations. Does this number also break that out?
  - julian37 15y ago
    Are you insinuating these numbers are implausible? (Honest question, I can't quite tell whether you're questioning the validity of the numbers or whether you are trying to demonstrate their plausibility.) I have no idea how accurate/truthful these numbers are but any small company with a dozen or so employees can easily run up $500k in annual salaries, and this is an organization that has been all over the news for months on end--surely that sort of publicity requires the help of at least a handful of qualified people. Regarding productions, the cost for a single, five-minute music video can easily run into the millions [1]. And how does it matter whether or not the people involved with the production are "involved" with Wikileaks? As for the legal budget, we all know what kind of money lawyers charge. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_music_videos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_music_vi...
    - tptacek 15y ago
      I didn't insinuate anything. I asked specific questions. Is Wikileaks "a small company with a dozen or so employees"? Or is it for the most part one person? (That's a new question). The "affiliation" questions matters because if people who draw a salary from Wikileaks are also getting paid piecework rates for production &c, they're subtly getting paid more than those numbers indicate. Lawyers are expensive. Are they charging Wikileaks for Assange's personal sexual assault and concomitant extradition fight? Or is that not part of that number? (That's a repeated question). These aren't questions that are any tougher than the ones Diaspora faced. They're not political. Someone said Wikileaks seemed expensive for what they do. Well, are they?

jgrahamc 15y ago

It's quite clear that WikiLeaks doesn't want to distribute via BitTorrent because they want control. Just look at how they handled the cables: they worked with media partners to analyze and release some of them. Later they totally screwed up and released everything unfiltered. Since they want to maintain control they need people and bandwidth/hosting. Even if the the latter were free, people tend to cost money.

vladd 15y ago
You can distribute encrypted files via torrents to solve both control and bandwidth (you just divulge the password at a future point in time).
- danenania 15y ago
  That doesn't solve control on its own... you still need (smart, trustworthy, courageous) people to go through documents, verify credibility, determine and redact dangerous info, deal with media/pr, not to mention legal issues. Tech people seem to consistently underestimate the non-tech needs even of organizations that are primarily software driven. I'd venture to guess that despite technology clearly being a core component of what WL does, it represents a relatively small percentage of their expenses.
  - ww520 15y ago
    You can distribute the encrypted version via BT and give the decryption key to the selected few to verify. This is no different from giving the unencrypted version to the selected few to verify.
    - kd0amg 15y ago
      That still only takes care of the cost of hosting. It does not deal with the labor cost for reviewing the documents.
guan 15y ago
Wikileaks archives are distributed via BitTorrent. Do you mean that they don’t exclusively use BitTorrent?

wcchandler 15y ago

Salaries/Staff Expenses: $500,000 Productions: $400,000 Campaigns: $300,000 Publications Research: $500,000 Technical Information: $500,000 Security: $300,000 Legal Costs: $1,200,000 From their main page: http://wikileaks.org/wlnet.html http://wikileaks.org/wlnet.html Not sure how truthful the numbers are, but it's what they're advertising.

tptacek 15y ago
How many paid staffers does Wikileaks have? How much of the budgets for "Productions" and "Research" and whatnot are paid on a project basis to people affiliated with Wikileaks? How much of that legal budget goes directly to defend Julian Assange? I know they've broken out Assange's Stockholm legal defense from the rest of WL for donations. Does this number also break that out?
- julian37 15y ago
  Are you insinuating these numbers are implausible? (Honest question, I can't quite tell whether you're questioning the validity of the numbers or whether you are trying to demonstrate their plausibility.) I have no idea how accurate/truthful these numbers are but any small company with a dozen or so employees can easily run up $500k in annual salaries, and this is an organization that has been all over the news for months on end--surely that sort of publicity requires the help of at least a handful of qualified people. Regarding productions, the cost for a single, five-minute music video can easily run into the millions [1]. And how does it matter whether or not the people involved with the production are "involved" with Wikileaks? As for the legal budget, we all know what kind of money lawyers charge. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_music_videos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_music_vi...
  - tptacek 15y ago
    I didn't insinuate anything. I asked specific questions. Is Wikileaks "a small company with a dozen or so employees"? Or is it for the most part one person? (That's a new question). The "affiliation" questions matters because if people who draw a salary from Wikileaks are also getting paid piecework rates for production &c, they're subtly getting paid more than those numbers indicate. Lawyers are expensive. Are they charging Wikileaks for Assange's personal sexual assault and concomitant extradition fight? Or is that not part of that number? (That's a repeated question). These aren't questions that are any tougher than the ones Diaspora faced. They're not political. Someone said Wikileaks seemed expensive for what they do. Well, are they?