A book about his experience with and separation from WikiLeaks was released in Germany in February 2011, entitled Inside WikiLeaks: Meine Zeit bei der gefährlichsten Website der Welt ("My Time at the World's Most Dangerous Website"). An English translation was later released by Australian publisher Scribe Publications. In Berg's book he criticizes Julian Assange's leadership style and handling of the Afghan War Diaries. Domscheit-Berg stated he would destroy WikiLeaks data when leaving WikiLeaks. He and the other staffers leaving the project wanted to be sure that duplicates would be confirmed deleted by a notary with an affidavit. After leaving, WikiLeaks stated that Domscheit-Berg representing OpenLeaks, negotiated for eleven months over the unpublished documents and internal organisation communications with mediation between OpenLeaks and WikiLeaks conducted and terminated by organization spokesman and board member Andy Müller-Maguhn. Domscheit-Berg told weekly Der Freitag that "I took no documents from WikiLeaks with me", leading to suspension of mediations. Domscheit-Berg was eventually kicked out of Chaos Computer Club by Müller-Maguhn due to tension over the files and for using the name of the Chaos Computer Club to promote OpenLeaks.
WikiLeaks and other sources later alleged that Domscheit-Berg had destroyed over 3500 unpublished whistleblower communications with some communications containing hundreds of documents, including the US government's No Fly List, 5 GB of Bank of America leaks, insider information from 20 neo-Nazi organizations and evidence of torture and government abuse of a Latin American country. Domscheit-Berg confirmed that he had destroyed the unpublished files including the No Fly list. He said that WikiLeaks' claims about the Bank of America files were "false and misleading" and that he hadn't taken them. According to Domscheit-Berg, the files were lost because of an IT problem when one of WikiLeaks storage drives crashed and they lost it.
On 17 December 2010, Domscheit-Berg announced the intention to start a site named "OpenLeaks" with the intention of being more transparent than WikiLeaks. "In these last months, the WikiLeaks organization has not been open any more. It lost its open-source promise." Several other members of WikiLeaks left with Domscheit-Berg to join OpenLeaks, including a programmer known only as "The Architect" who had designed the WikiLeaks submission system. OpenLeaks planned to launch a whistleblowing foundation in Germany and that would make decisions about how to operate.
Instead of publishing the documents, Domscheit-Berg said that his proposed OpenLeaks process would send the leaked documents to various news entities or publishers without publishing them directly. According to Domscheit-Berg, OpenLeaks wouldn't be able to read submissions. They would give the submissions to outlets chosen by the source, and then give others access after a certain amount of time or if the outlet refused the submission. Insiders at OpenLeaks said that because of that, they planned to avoid "the kind of political pressure which WikiLeaks is under at this time." Internal documents said it wanted to be a neutral intermediary "without a political agenda except from the dissemination of information to the media, the public, non-profit organizations, trade- and union organizations and other participating groups." Analysts said OpenLeaks was a promising alternative to WikiLeaks and Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, OpenLeaks structure would make it more of an internet service provider than a publisher.
OpenLeaks aimed to start public operations in January 2011 but postponed its launch more than once. In August 2011, Domscheit-Berg announced a four day test launch and invited thousands of hackers to attack the OpenLeaks site and look for security flaws during the Chaos Communications Camp. At the event, WikiLeaks associate Jacob Appelbaum brought up rumors that OpenLeaks was connected to German intelligence. Chaos Communication Camp board member, Andy Müller-Maguhn, said OpenLeaks did not provide source protection and lacked transparency. When OpenLeaks attempted to launch a test site at the event, it was unable to get online. At the time, four European newspapers and one non-profit group had signed up to receive the OpenLeaks documents.
On 23 December 2012 Domscheit-Berg announced on the website that the organisation would not go ahead as previously intended and would now focus on providing technology and expertise regarding how to receive documents from anonymous sources rather than directly facilitating leaks themselves.
In a July 2013 interview, Domscheit-Berg said that work on OpenLeaks would continue, but "without much public involvement."
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