Wall Street Journal Launches WikiLeaks-Style Site for Whistle-Blowers

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Wall Street Journal Launches WikiLeaks-Style Site for Whistle-Blowers
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On Thursday, the paper launched WSJ SafeHouse, a WikiLeaks-style whistle-blower site.

"SafeHouse will enable the collection of information and documents that could be used in the generation of trustworthy news stories," Robert Thomson, editor-in-chief of Dow Jones & Company and managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, said in a statement.

While news organizations such as The New York Times and The Guardian have worked with WikiLeaks to obtain such information in the past, they learned that it was no picnic in the process. If the WSJ site and several others like it prove effective, its likely that more of them will appear.

Contributors to SafeHouse can choose whether or not to include their contact information when they upload files. They can also request confidentiality before they submit information.

The paper has made a number of efforts to create an anonymous submission process. SafeHouse runs on its own server instead of sharing with WSJ.com, and any file sent or stored within the system is encrypted. The WSJ says that it will minimize the technical information it receives during upload that might identify the user, and it encourages users who want further protection to use an encryption key and install a free software that masks their web identities. Only a select group of editors have access to the submissions.

Still, the terms of service warn, "We cannot ensure complete anonymity."

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