SafeHouse, The Wall Street Journal’s answer to WikiLeaks, did not get off to a good start with the whistleblowing community.

 

SafeHouse is supposed to be a place where people can anonymously expose corporate “fraud, abuse and other wrongdoing.” However, after launching SafeHouse this week, the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper received a barrage of criticism for putting together a technically-weak website that can expose the identity of individuals submitting sensitive information.

 

One encryption analyst described SafeHouse as a “total anonymity failure,” while other experts said the website needed “basic improvements” that should have been addressed before launching.

 

But the major inherent weakness in SafeHouse can be found in the site’s terms and conditions. Under the Limitations section, the Journal says it reserves “the right to disclose any information about you to law enforcement authorities or to a requesting third party, without notice, in order to comply with any applicable laws and/or requests under legal process, to operate our systems properly, to protect the property or rights of Dow Jones or any affiliated companies, and to safeguard the interests of others.”

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Researchers Say WSJ’s WikiLeaks Copycat Is Full of Holes (by Andy Greenberg, Forbes)

Wall Street Journal Faces Backlash over Wikileaks Rival (by Josh Halliday, The Guardian)

SafeHouse (Wall Street Journal)