Wikileaks needs money

[gwillen]

Apparently WikiLeaks has suspended operations due to lack of funds.

If you like them, and you have money, give them some money. I am.

ETA: It's also worth noting that they can't use low-bid hosting -- they get constant takedown notices and lawsuit threats, so they have to use so-called "bulletproof" hosting, most often used by spammers, so they don't get shut down every time someone threatens their webhost with a lawsuit. This adds a substantial multiplier to their hosting cost.

Comments

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

This answer:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/38874.html

Suggests that a T3 can run $150k/yr. That doesn't include hosting/storage/power/etc., and Wikileaks is citing $200k/yr as their expenses not including staff. So it seems pretty reasonable.

[mellowcupcake.livejournal.com]

That sounds preposterously high. Like, stupidly so.

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

For a point of comparison, in 2007 it cost about a million a year to run Wikipedia:

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/What_we_need_the_money_for

I assume it's more now. I don't know if you guys will consider that a point in favor of or against wikileaks' $200k, but note that they tend to serve up large PDFs and other bandwidth-heavy content, whereas wikipedia mostly serves text.

[mellowcupcake.livejournal.com]

That's actually a really interesting breakdown of the costs for a huge site. I don't know how big Wikileaks is compared to Wikipedia, but if they're in the same general class of organizations, I guess I'd believe that.

I'm with Akiva though - they could probably do it more efficiently.

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

As mentioned in the update I am about to make to the post, Wikileaks also has a cost multiplier on their hosting due to legal problems. Because they get constant takedown notices and lawsuits, they can't host with normal providers -- they have to use bulletproof (i.e. spammer) hosting, which costs a lot more.

[mellowcupcake.livejournal.com]

That's a very good point!

[platypuslord.livejournal.com]

Hrm.

The link above dates from 2002.
This link: http://compnetworking.about.com/od/networkcables/f/t1_t3_lines.htm is undated, and puts the price of a T3 at 3000$/month.
This link (from an ad): http://www.usaccess-llc.com/t3.html says the price of a T3 is "from $1416/month".

But it's not implausible that wikileaks might have more than one T3. I have no sense for how much bandwidth they use.

[gwillen.livejournal.com]

Read my added note about "bulletproof" hosting -- they can't use a low-bid webhost, because they'd get shut down as soon as someone sent a takedown notice or threatened to sue. Their host presumably costs a lot more, in exchange for ignoring takedown notices and spurious (and perhaps nonspurious) legal threats. (It sounds like they are hosted by some of the same people who work on ThePirateBay.)