In a recent interview Mike Pompeo the ex CIA Director, who has fantasies of becoming the next US President dismissed murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi as an "activist" This is the same Mike Pompeo who appears to have a visceral hatred of Wikileaks and in particular Julian Assange.

Mr Pompeo was almost certainly involved in the alleged CIA plans to assassinate Julian Assange. Plans that were later taken to the White House. This actions and others have led to him both being called as a witness in a legal case in Spain over the assassination allegations and also being sued in the US over Fourth Amendment violations of Julian Assange's US lawyers.

In seeking to destroy Julian Assange and Wikileaks Mike Pompeo should be careful in what he wishes for. Wikileaks quickly developed, with Julian Assange at the helm into a responsible publisher with values firmly in line with the best traditions of Western liberal democracies.

Wikileaks publications embarrassed the US and other governments and for that Mr Pompeo and his ilk wish to silence Julian Assange.

Publishing information on the crimes and corruption of governments and corporations is after all the correct and proper role of journalists and news publications. It is a role the founders of the United State would have supported wholeheartedly.

“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”

 Thomas Jefferson, U.S. Founding Father

What will happen if Mike Pompeo did get his wish and Wikileaks destroyed? Would the need for the truth about what our governments are doing in our name diminish? Will those with a burning desire to provide that truth go away? I believe not and posit that just as Julian Assange used his knowledge and understanding of cryptography to build Wikileaks the next generation of cypherpunks will build Wikileaks 2.0 utilising technology that is much harder to destroy.

I fear that an autonomous, distributed Wikileaks 2.0 built on artificial intelligence (AI) may not be as responsible as Julian Assange and Wikileaks in what or how it publishes.

Julian Assange and his team at Wikileaks worked hard to redact any names that could have put individuals at risk. Working with the State Department to redact many files. Indeed some who worked alongside Julian Assange from other publications felt that he was paranoid about security. There is no guarantee that Wikileaks 2.0 would show the same responsibility or humanity.

The alternative to Wikileaks is not the CNN topped up with ex CIA spooks or the Guardian simping to the D-notice committee¹. The alternative is likely to be an autonomous AI bot built upon a decentralised messaging and file system. A system without a figure such as Julian Assange for governments to try and destroy. No vulnerable human to provide an attack vector.

Wikileaks 2.0 the elements:

Wikileaks 2.0 will probably be built upon decentralized

elements in a similar manner to Bitcoin. In order to avoid a single point of failure.

Julian Assange did this up to a point with Wikileaks. Using Bitcoin when the US weaponised dollar based payment rails to block donations. Wikileaks also distributed copies of files using servers in different nations, particularly those with a strong history of protecting a free press.

Ultimately though, Julian Assange proved to be a single point of failure that governments (The US in this case) could and did go after.

A few ideas on how this may be delivered

I'm not technically literate but have thrown together a few ideas below to highlight how I believe Wikileaks 2.0 may be put together. Please feel free to throw stones at the idea or even provide constructive feedback.

Artificial Intelligence

How long before the capabilities of ChatGPT artificial intelligence are decentralised, widespread and open source?

A quick play with ChatGPT brought back this reply:

Q: What does Wikileaks say about the knowledge of diplomats in regards to Ukraine joining NATO and Russian security concerns

A: "Wikileaks has released several cables related to Ukraine joining NATO and Russian security concerns. One notable cable is the "US Ambassador's Assessment of Prospects for Ukraine's NATO Membership," dated September 2008, which outlines the US government's position on Ukraine's potential membership in NATO.

According to the cable, the US ambassador believed that Ukraine's membership in NATO was "a matter of when, not if," and that it would provide important security guarantees to Ukraine. However, the ambassador also acknowledged that NATO membership would be viewed by Russia as a threat to its security and that it would likely trigger a strong response from Russia.

Another cable from November 2008, written by the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, reports on a meeting between Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and U.S. Ambassador John Beyrle. According to the cable, Ryabkov warned that Russia would take "appropriate measures" if Ukraine were to join NATO. The cable also notes that Ryabkov expressed concern about the presence of U.S. missile defence systems in Europe and the possibility of a "new arms race."

Another cable, dated March 2009, discusses the views of Russia's ambassador to NATO on Ukraine's potential membership in the alliance. The Russian ambassador expressed concern that Ukraine's entry into NATO would lead to a military build-up in the region and threaten Russia's security.

Overall, the cables suggest that US and Russian diplomats were well aware of each other's positions on Ukraine joining NATO and the potential security implications of such a move. They also indicate that the issue was a source of tension between the US and Russia, highlighting the complex geopolitical dynamics of the region"

A dedicated journalist researching the Wikileaks Diplomatic logs would come up with deeper and broader concerns about NATO expansion but this does give a glimpse of the potential capabilities of AI to search files and to use it's language capabilities to put relevant information into the public domain.

SingularityNET: Decentralizing AI through emerging blockchain technology

Bloom: Introducing The World’s Largest Open Multilingual Language Model: BLOOM

Decentralised storage

In the years since the inception of Wikileaks particularly from around 2014 private and commercial organisations in the Crypto space have been building decentralised data storage. This type of storage would overcome the problem Wikileaks faced of where to locate the servers.

Two projects that look interesting as a decentralised file storage for Wikileaks 2.0

Arweave Is like Bitcoin, but for data: A permanent and decentralized web inside an open ledger

SIA Not as developed but open source offering decentralized data storage with redundancy.

Distributed messaging system

Governments both in the East and West increasingly censor what is allowed to be communicated over the internet. Obviously (they tell us) that this is for our safety and security. There are several communication apps that attempt to leave control and privacy with the user. How "censorship resistant" they are remains to be seen.

One social network that aims to be truly censorship-resistant is Nostr

Nostr: Nostr is a simple, open protocol that enables global, decentralized, and censorship-resistant social media

Distributed funding – how else can Wikileaks 2.0 be autonomous?

Bitcoin has now become too expensive to fund anything via low value transactions.

No doubt smart contracts built on the Ethereum network and utilising tokens may work.

Bitcoin offers the largest most secure blockchain, also the most censorship resistant. Possibly smart contracts utilising the Lightening network would work on top of Bitcoin and offer a payment solution for an autonomous Wikileaks 2.0?

Of course there is much I have missed and I'm sure that many holes can be blasted through my logic.

Governments are not going to sit on their hands and do nothing.

One major problem that has just crossed my mind is how to deal with reputational damage. Attempts by unfriendly parties to tarnish Wikileaks reputation by feeding false information?

Wikileaks 1.0 had a stellar reputation for publishing the truth. With a 100% record of winning in court. How much of this was down to Julian Assange's dedication and intuition?