Anonymous to launch Wikileaks clone TYLER

According to a member of the hacking collective, there are plans to set up a similar service to Wikileaks by the end of the year.

A Wikileaks competitor is in the works, and due to be launched on December 21 this year, according to The Hacker News. A representative of the loose hacktivist group -- who said he was representing the collective as a whole -- spoke about the project in an emailed interview with the Voice of Russia.

The project is called TYLER, and will be based on decentralized, peer-to-peer technology rather than fixed, dedicated servers. If successful, in the same way as torrents need seeding parties, user participation will be necessary to keep information flowing. The hackers claim that this kind of project setup will be next to impossible to close or eradicate.

It will be based on the same principles as Wikileaks -- a haven for whistleblowers or those with access to sensitive information to publish documents on a public platform.

When asked about the future of Wikileaks and the role of Anonymous, the "representative" said:

"Julian has threatened on at least one previous occasion to pull the plug on the project because the fundraising was not meeting his expectations. It was at that time that Anonymous began planning to field our own alternative disclosure platforms. Julian desperately needs WikiLeaks, and he is the only one that can pull the plug on the project. I rather think that so long as he is in dire straits, he will not do so despite any threats from him to the contrary."

It is necessary to keep in mind that by the nature of the anonymous group, this may not reflect the intentions or wishes of the entire Anonymous community.

However, according to the hacker, the project has been spurred on due to the forced funding techniques recently employed by Wikileaks through a paywall blocking access the Global Information files. A statement was released by one or more members of the collective, claiming that Wikileaks "betrayed" them by such "rabid scrounging for money", and withdrawing support not only for the site, but for Julian Assange -- who is currently taking refuge in the London-based Ecuadorian embassy.

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