[kurtsiegfried]

WSJ Terms about Confidentiality:

3. Request Confidentiality: If you would like us to consider treating your submission as confidential before providing any materials, please make this request through this online submission form. Please note that until we mutually decide to enter into a confidential relationship, any information you send to us (including contact information) can be used for any purpose, as outlined in point 1 above, and described more fully below in the Limitations section). If we enter into a confidential relationship, Dow Jones will take all available measures to protect your identity while remaining in compliance with all applicable laws.

Wikileaks version:

2.3 Protection for you

Wikileaks does not record any source-identifying information and there are a number of mechanisms in place to protect even the most sensitive submitted documents from being sourced. We do not keep any logs. We can not comply with requests for information on sources because we simply do not have the information to begin with. Similarly we can not see your real identity in any anonymised chat sessions with us. Our only knowledge of you as a source is if you provide a coded name to us. A lot of careful thought by world experts in security technologies has gone into the design of these systems to provide the maximum protection to you. Wikileaks has never revealed a source.

[lucasjung]

If wikileaks knows so little about their sources, how do they establish the legitimacy of the documents they receive? In other words, what's stopping me from using previously leaked documents as a sort of "style guide" for forging new documents and then "leaking" them to wikileaks?

EDIT: I should point out that, in practice, somebody from the originating organization inevitably confirms the authenticity of the leaked documents through contacts with more traditional journalists. But what would happen if a set of documents were leaked and nobody was able to confirm them?

[hugh3]

Very little. And one day this will happen and it'll be a major wake-up call for leak journalism.

[georgieporgie]

There's a humorous example of verification given in Assange's TED conversation, starting around the twelve minute mark: http://www.ted.com/talks/julian_assange_why_the_world_needs_...

[eli]

I could see how others might disagree, but I think the WSJ's terms are reasonable. The WSJ also has an admirable policy of not respecting embargoes slapped on press releases unless there's an agreement in advance.

If what you're leaking is so secret that you can't even discuss it with them in advance, then you shouldn't trust them period. It's on you as the leaker to make sure they have no way to determine your identity in the first place.

[rhizome]

Only one of the two has proven themselves to be trustworthy at all, and only one of them doesn't use weasel words in their terms. If your criteria is whether the leaker is unsure of being able to discuss their material, the WSJ is even more useless.

Basically, it appears you're arguing for the case that the WSJ is a great place to send your leaks if you already know there won't be repercussions (via your own precautions or their flaccid protections), which is pretty much what they have now. What's the difference between this and a link to "[e-mail]"?

[bugsy]

Thanks very much for digging that up. It makes things very very clear.

[cowkingdeluxe]

Also worth noting, is that News corp (Foxnews etc) owns the WSJ.