By Michal Bartlomowicz

Though the topic of WikiLeaks has faded somewhat from the news, the issue remains unchanged. The website promotes itself as a “non-profit media organization dedicated to bringing important news and information to the public.” Some “important news” that made the organization the topic of headlines included hundreds of thousands of leaked government documents. Regardless of the legality of the organization’s actions, the process and structure behind it are fascinating. So how does WikiLeaks work?

Founded in 2006 by Julian Assange, WikiLeaks is a website where anyone can anonymously upload leaked, private, secret, or classified information. At the organization’s discretion, the uploaded material will be published. The website itself utilizes various software, including Freenet (peer-to-peer data distribution), Tor (online anonymity), and PGP (data encryption).

Contrary to popular belief, Assange does not completely run WikiLeaks; he is only the founder. The website is supported and financed by a large community of followers. Interestingly, WikiLeaks does not involve itself in the actual process of obtaining the documents it posts. Most of the documents that made headlines were stolen, meaning they were illegally obtained, and WikiLeaks obtained the documents from the people who stole them. It is still, however, debated whether possession of the leaked documents is legal or not.

In recent months, the actual operation and functioning of WikiLeaks has drastically changed. Various hackers have taken down the original WikiLeaks.org domain using Distributed Denial of Service attacks. DDoS attacks involve one or more computers flooding a website with more requests than it can handle, causing the website to slow down and ultimately fail. WikiLeaks is currently hosted by the Swedish-based company PRQ. The hosting is provided on a “no questions asked” policy, and servers are spread around the world in secret locations, including some that are housed in a nuclear bunker in Stockholm. Each server uses military grade encryption and hardly any logs are kept. This means that PRQ doesn’t even know which specific servers host which website, and no current technology can break into it. Sweden also offers legal protection to WikiLeaks, because the Swedish constitution fully protects any information provider. In addition, the large community that supports WikiLeaks has made mirrors, or copies, of the website. As of December 21st, there were 1426 mirrors online, making any future DDoS attacks ineffective.

WikiLeaks releases and distributes its information using peer-to-peer file-sharing technology. Though the file- sharing technique is most often used by people pirating computer software, WikiLeaks utilizes the method to spread its leaked files. Files are initially broken up using a BitTorrent protocol, and distributed to a number of people’s computers. Those computers subsequently distribute missing pieces to each other, allowing many peers, or people, to download the file. This method has the advantages of allowing large files to be effectively distributed to many peers and offering protection from attacks.

Amidst all the political and legal controversies surrounding it, WikiLeaks has remained relatively intact, and still is a big story in the news. Regardless of whether you believe the actions of WikiLeaks are heroic or treasonous by nature, the inner workings of WikiLeaks are fascinating.