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OpenLeaks: Schmitt on Toast II

Daniel Domscheit-Berg's expulsion from CCC only 2nd in 30-year history.


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BERLIN (Rixstep) — Andy Müller-Maguhn explained to Spiegel Online how he's lost faith in Daniel Domscheit-Berg over the past year. A lot of things simply didn't add up.

Müller-Maguhn told Spiegel the CCC board weren't happy with how Domscheit-Berg tried to hype his impromptu hacking camp as a sort of 'seal of approval' from the CCC. The CCC were initially inclined to trust him as he came with good credentials back then - from WikiLeaks.

But now the picture's changed. And after playing mediator between the elusive Domscheit-Berg and WikiLeaks in an attempt to bring stolen property back to the latter, Müller-Maguhn and the others in the CCC tired of Domscheit-Berg's games and playful lies.

Domscheit-Berg seems adamant to hang onto stolen property he won't even consistently admit he actually stole. The CCC and WikiLeaks have put the safety of the exposed whistleblowers in the forefront: if Domscheit-Berg did everything he could to not reach an agreement, then at least he could securely destroy the sensitive documents so no one got hurt?

But Domscheit-Berg wouldn't even agree to that.

'But now I doubt Domscheit-Berg's integrity. He's certainly quite flexible with the facts.'
 - Andy Müller-Maguhn, Chaos Computer Club

Müller-Maguhn tells Spiegel.

'For eleven months I have tried to intercede between Julian Assange and Daniel, because I know them both and I believe the idea of a whistleblowing platform is right. When Domscheit-Berg left WikiLeaks amid conflict there, he also took the archive and unpublished submissions with him. He said he had no plans to use the material for himself or OpenLeaks. But now I have my doubts about that. I have put lots of patience and discussion into this. Still, flimsy excuses have led to unbelievable delays in the handover of the archive. I can no longer believe in his willingness to hand over the unpublished material either.'

Does Even His Hairdresser Know for Sure?

But it's just how Domscheit-Berg changes his story all the time. Only last week he was talking with one of his 'media partners' and felled this memorable quip.

'Nein, ich habe keine Dokumente von Wikileaks mitgenommen.'
 - Daniel Domscheit-Berg to Freitag 10 August 2011

But that's the whole point, says Müller-Maguhn. 'He told me last Thursday evening that he had to look at each document before handing them over!'

'It doesn't match up', says the CCC leader. 'I have never personally seen the documents but Assange told me that there are about 3,000 submissions, some of them with several hundred documents.'

3,000 submissions with hundreds of documents per submission can make for a lot of anxious whistleblowers.

Safe with WikiLeaks, Not Safe with OpenLeaks

One of the excuses Domscheit-Berg uses the times he admits he's a thief is that those tens/hundreds of thousands of documents are only safe with Daniel Domscheit-Berg. Despite the fact the WikiLeaks system has never been compromised.

'That's nonsense', says Müller-Maguhn. 'I've visited Assange a number of times in England over the last 11 months. There I also saw more than ten hard-working WikiLeaks employees from around the world.'

Those ten hard working WikiLeakers no longer include Daniel Domscheit-Berg. That's even more reason to trust them.

You ask if I'd change anything if I could do it all over? Yes. One staff hire.
 - Julian Assange
Pathological liars always have great faith in their own honesty. That's what helps them lie.
 - Julian Assange
You have fucked up in so many ways and you want me to enumerate them but what is the point if you can't see things for yourself?
 - Julian Assange to Daniel Domscheit-Berg May 2010

See Also
Industry Watch: Schmitt Leaves WikiLeaks?
Industry Watch: The WikiLeaks Palace Revolt
Industry Watch: OpenLeaks: Schmitt on Toast
Industry Watch: OpenLeaks Off to a Flying Fail
Topsy: The Life and Times of the Leberkäse Kid
Industry Watch: Schmitt Suspended from WikiLeaks
Zeit Online: Chaos Computer Club misstraut OpenLeaks
Hanno's Blog: OpenLeaks doing strange things with SSL
The Technological: Daniel Domscheit-Berg: The Reviews
The Technological: The Life and Times of the Leberkäse Kid
Red Hat Diaries: Unrequited Love, Uncomfortable Coincidences
Spiegel Online: WikiLeaks-Aussteiger haben Datenschatz entführt
Spiegel Online: Chaos Computer Club wirft OpenLeaks-Gründer raus
Spiegel Online: Chaos Computer Club: Hacker distanzieren sich von OpenLeaks
Spiegel Online: 'I Doubt Domscheit-Berg's Integrity': Top Hacker Slams OL Founder

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