WikiLeaks has indefinitely delayed the launch of a new system that would have allowed whistleblowers to remain anonymous while submitting tips.
The updated, more secure submission site (which has been offline for a year) was supposed to have debuted on November 28.
“Constructing the system is very complex,” the whistle-blowing organization tweeted over the weekend.
“Due to the deteriorating state of Internet security which directly impacts the ability of sources to communicate with journalists and human rights activists securely, [we have] decided to postpone the launch in the interest of source protection.”
As Sophos Security analyst Lisa Vaas notes, WikiLeaks has taken a virtual beating over the past year in the security arena, with its SSL certificates penetrated by various organized crime groups and intelligence agencies, which “severely and irreversibly compromised” the site.
According to WikiLeaks, the entire SSL system, which is coded to guarantee online security and anonymity, has been compromised, with the site dubbing the standard as “beyond repair.”
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is expected to discuss the next phase of the organization’s operations at an official press conference on Thursday, December 1. Assange will likely expound upon a recent statement he made about the Pentagon ordering the organization to destroy all data pertaining to the US government and military.
“[When we released our documents] the Pentagon said we must destroy everything we published and were going to publish,” Assange told the News 2011 Summit in Hong Kong via Skype. ”And if we didn’t, we would be ‘compelled to do so.'”
