Aaron Swartz's Last Gift: Site Launches Whistleblower Safe House

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Commondreams.org, By: Lauren McCauley, 05/17/2013

 

 

One month before his January 11th suicide, web pioneer and creative commons architect Aaron Swartz completed one last project—an "opensource drop box for leaked documents along the lines of WikiLeaks." Launched Thursday, Deaddrop is the brainchild of former hacker turned Wired editor, Kevin Poulsen, who approached Swartz with the idea. Swartz built the code for the project—one last gift to journalists and whistleblowers worldwide and the open-source internet community.

 

"He agreed to do it," writes Poulsen, "with the understanding that the code would be open-source—licensed to allow anyone to use it freely—when we launched the system." As the Obama Administration continues their dogged pursuit and prosecution of press sources and whistleblowers like Bradley Manning and while the news of the Justice Department's seizure of Associated Press records continues to swirl, newsrooms are frantically reevaluating their security procedures.

 

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