What is Wiki Leaks?

Wiki Leaks Founder Julian Assange

BRADENTON -- With all of the media attention that has been focused on this week's Wiki Leak story, many of our less tech savvy readers have been asking exactly what a "wiki leak" is. I will do do my best to explain. A "wiki" site is tech slang for forums in which users publish articles, comment on and edit site content. The most popular has been Wikipedia and many people mistakenly assume that other sites that contain the "wiki" prefix are affiliated with the online encyclopedia that has become one of the most heavily trafficked sites on the web.

Wiki Leaks is not affiliated with Wikipedia. It is an international, non-profit media organization that acts as a publishing platform for leaked (often classified) documents or articles on highly-sensitive issues that otherwise would be unlikely to get published via more conventional outlets. Sometimes they re-publish or re-broadcast content from more obscure sites in order to expose it to their much larger audience. Very little is known for sure about the people who are responsible for the site. According to the New Yorker, Australian Internet activist Julian Assange, is the driving force behind the sight's content. Assange founded Wiki Leaks in 2006, and has won several media awards for articles that he's published on Wiki Leaks.

This year, Wiki Leaks has published ground-shaking articles, videos and documents on both the Iraqi and Afghan wars, including the Iraqi War logs – nearly 400,000 field reports from the battlefield. This week, after leaking State Department cables, the site lost its U.S. Internet domain provider, who said that broad-scale attempts to attack the site and hack into it had threatened their entire operation. Wiki Leak's U.S. site it still down, however, they are now available at a Swiss based address here. Assange is reportedly in hiding near London after receiving a barrage of death threats.