There is some shit storm a-brewing between Wikileaks(WL) / Assange(ASS) on the one side and Openleaks(OL) / Domscheit-Berg(DD) on the other with a cameo appearance of the Chaos Computer Club(CCC), a German hacking/freedom of information/activism group affiliated with both platforms.
Haven't seen much of this on English news sites. Compiled the below from articles on heise.de, spiegel.de and some googled stuff, then added my subjective opinion.
DD was a member of the CCC for some time, which got him into contact with WL where he ended up a spokesperson, financing and maintaining some servers etc. Fast forward to ASS positioning himself to be synonymous with WL and abusing unpublished leaks as potential blackmail in the possibly unrelated swedish rape case against him or if the CIA, FSB or Mossad kill him. Note that without ASS running WL like it's his personal property none of the above and what is to follow would have happened.
Now, WL does currently not accept new submissions of leaks. From what I can find on the internets their submission system appears to have been shut down since at least late 2010. I guess ASS is too busy hoarding unpublished leaks for his personal gains and doesn't really give a shit anymore about the site's original intent to get the information out into the public.
DD in the summer of 2010 called on ASS to get his ass in gear, which netted him a charge of being disloyal to ASS.
Enter stage right, DD and the creation of Openleaks in early 2011 pretty much due to the issues above. ASS was instantly on DD's ass for this of course, I guess ASS doesn't like competition.
As it happens DD took a bunch of unpublished leaks with him in the form of a backup copy from one of the servers he maintained and would only give them back to ASS/WL once they'd assure the security of the leakers. Insult to injury, the guy who built and maintained the submission platform for WL also left and joined OL - I guess that might explain to some extent why there are no submissions accepted at WL for about a year now.
What then happened was that ASS charged DD with theft - of illegally leaked documents, really?! I mean, what the hell, information is free unless it comes into the possession of ASS or what?
ASS also got a wedgie over DD, who published a book in early 2011 about the Clusterfuck WL had become in which he supposedly utilized chat protocols between himself and ASS which according to ASS are confidential and mustn't be published. I don't get it, information is free, leaks are awesome, but when it's stuff about ASS it's out of bounds? Are you fucking kidding me?
Fast forward to the past month and things start to heat up. DD wanted the attendees of a CCC convention to stress test OL to in a way as a result certify it is secure. The CCC leadership rather irrationally got their panties in a bunch and kicked DD out on charges of trying to utilize the clout of CCC for OL. At the same time the CCC charged OL that their security is intransparent. This CCC decision was apparently not unanimouos with some leading CCC members opposing the decision. Strange, isn't it? With all the bullshit ASS has been perpetrating and WL being effectively dead for the past year with no submissions being accepted I'd have expected the CCC to be sympathetic towards OL and trying to help them along so there'd be a place to leak and publish.
Now it gets weird: due to all the crap DD/OL have thrown at them they state they'll delete both the data they copied from WL, their cryptographic keys to access the material and have that process notarized because all this shit is getting out of hand.
ASS gets back in the game and states WL has no keys to access the data. Given that the data was copied from WL servers, it must still be in the possession of WL, nowhere is it mentioned that the data was deleted on WL's servers.
But even if it should have been deleted (which also would mean to me WL is insecure) ASS said in late 2010 that all unpublished leaks are contained in a widely distributed encrypted 1.4GB file with the keys going public if anything happens to him - so the copied material must surely be included and keys to it available to ASS/WL? Add to that, the data is out there as a torrent and the CCC stated ASS actually has a master key to all encrypted WL data, so really, no biggy and ASS is full of shit or incomptetent.
During the past two days DD/OL went ahead and deleted their crap.
Next the WL twitter propaganda machine kicked in, culminating in what seems like a smear campaign where ASS tries to link DD to various intelligence agencies especially in a post last night that reads as if it was ghost written by Glenn Beck with its charges against DD, nebulous sources and following qualifications of not knowing if the charges are correct or significant. Class A hit piece by ASS.
Next WL/ASS state that DD was a rather unimportant figure within WL who was merely a follower and nominal member. How this supposedly uninvolved person could copy the data weeks after being thrown out of WL and was also tasked with repairing the WL mail server weeks later is not explained.
On the contrary it shows that security at WL is not up to the task if ASS's charges are correct yet DD could still get his hands on all that leaked material. It shows that a leaking organization built on the principle ala ASS "I am the heart and soul of this organization..." can easily compromise such a project when the leaked material is taken hostage by that individual as a blackmail-bomb to go off if anything happens to him instead of the material being published as intended by those who leaked it to WL.
All this egomania did was to discredit both WL and OL.
What is needed now is sadly yet another leaking site, one without a singular narcissistic leader which can be compromised or smeared, with an openly vetted security system in place which quickly publishes whatever media is leaked to them and doesn't just sit on the material.