In December 2010, the mysterious Brusselsleaks website appeared. The idea was simple: Think of wikileaks in a EU/Brussels context.
Now BrusselsLeaks is back with a new website and a new logo! Well, the logo is rather basic and it looks like the Ukrainian flag turned upside down. 
A couple of weeks ago we wrote a lenghty post about brusselsleaks in which we critisised some of its features. As far as I can see it the most crucial problems have not (yet) been addressed. (https is nice, but not using tor remains a security flaw!)
The new website is based on the wikileaks theme (not sure whether that is such a good idea as it looks like a copy cat now) and the first item is a mirrored cable – originally published by wikileaks (not sure why it is there). Let’s hope this is just a test and the real stuff is coming soon…
More problematic for a website dedicated to leaking documents is the usage of google analytics. Google analytics can be used to trace back visitors and it generates very detailed (some might say too detailed!) user reports. The problem with Google Analytics can be practical (if someone hacks into your GA account or gets hold of the google account password) or indeed legal (you might be required to hand over the logs, or google might help some investigators without telling you …you never know!) – both scenarios are certainly no good news for any potential whistle-blower.
After some Googling I found that the embassy cable now published on brusselsleaks was already published on several other websites in December 2010, e.g. here.
This looked very much like wikileaks US embassy cables and using the cablesearch.org research tool I learned that two versions of the document have been released by wikileaks (documents were picked up by cablesearch.org’s scraper software on 14 December 2010 and 5 February 2011):
MEMBERS OF CONGRESS DISCUSS BONUSES, BAIL-OUTS AND
Dec 14th / leaked 2011-02-04 21:09 · 2009-09-11 14:02:00 from Embassy London · #09LONDON2121 · UNCLASSIFIED PP
MEMBERS OF CONGRESS DISCUSS BONUSES, BAIL-OUTS, EU
Feb 05th / leaked 2011-02-04 21:09 · 2009-09-11 16:04:00 from Embassy London · #09LONDON2124 · UNCLASSIFIED PP
Just see that you already wrote that the “Hello World” page on brusselsleaks displays a cable that was leaked via wikileaks. Should read more carefully…
[...] Ländern zensiert wird und nicht direkt erreicht werden kann. BrusselsLeaks zum Beispiel ist nach einiger Kritik nun im Umbau, aber sehr bald können hier brisante interne Dokumenten aus den europäischen [...]