Photo Gallery The WikiLeaks Leak
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. At first, the whistleblower platform published only selected diplomatic dispatches from its cache of 250,000 State Department files. They were carefully chosen and redacted to protect informants. Now, though, they are all available to the public, without redactions -- a disaster for WikiLeaks.
Assange has been accused of being primarily interested in himself and it was ultimately a conflict within WikiLeaks which led to the error which has resulted in the publication of the 250,000 dispatches.
Assange with the Guardian after the dispatches were initially made public. A book written by Guardian reporter David Leigh, who was given the WikiLeaks files by Assange, included the password to the files originally provided by Assange. That password is still able to open a datafile including the dispatches which as been coursing through the Internet for months.
Daniel Domscheit-Berg was the German spokesman for WikiLeaks before he and Assange had a falling out. The mudslinging between the two has contributed to the disastrous publication of the complete collection of diplomatic dispatches.
Domscheit-Berg went on to found his own platform called OpenLeaks and he also wrote a book in which he presents Assange as an egomaniac.
Assange prior to a court appearance in London. After it became apparent that the files were in the public realm, Assange accused "a person in Germany" of spilling the beans about the fact that the password could be found in Leigh's book. He also blamed the Guardian for playing a role in the disaster.
The WikiLeaks Twitter account. WikiLeaks this week used Twitter to carry out a vote as to whether the complete files should be released or not.
The ex-US soldier Bradley Manning is thought to be the original source of the diplomatic dispatches. He is currently in prison in the US, but he has many supporters, seen here.
Assange in January of this year. Assange has never been shy of standing in the spotlight.
