Bahnhof selling out Wikileaks
In 2010 Wikileaks turned into a household name. The organization released almost 400,000 documents about the U.S. war in Iraq. Later the feat was repeated with 250,000 diplomatic cables.
The releases took place via a server hosted by Bahnhof in Sweden. The notorious physical server that changed the world is now auctioned off by Bahnhof for the benefit of Reporters Without Borders.
Stockholm, Sweden, September 3, 2013 ---- Today Bahnhof has put up the Wikileaks web server, a Dell Poweredge R410 blade server, for sale on eBay. All means from the auction will be used for purposes that further freedom of speech, freedom of the press and unrestricted formation of opinion.
– This is indeed the physical web server from which the leaked cablegate material was released, complete with hard drives, motherboard and everything! It can be plugged in and used immediately. We ourselves put it on a pedestal and displayed it as a museum item in our underground Thule Brunkow Ridge data center in central Stockholm, as a symbol for our values as a hoster and ISP. It constitutes a unique collector's item. A couple of years ago foreign authorities would have bid a fortune to lay hands on this specific server, says Jon Karlung, CEO of Bahnhof.
Wikileaks chose "free speech ISP" Bahnhof for obvious reasons in 2010: As Sweden's oldest independent ISP it had a tradition of never giving in to pressure from authorities to curtail free expression.
The contents of the server indirectly led to the rounding up of leaker Bradley Manning and to Julian Assange's current condition: He took shelter in the Embassy of the Republic of Ecuador in London for fear of being extradited to the USA.
– We can of course prove to the buyer that the server was indeed Wikileaks'. We have the signature of Julian Assange on the hosting contract, where the ID of this particular server is noted. As CEO I talked to him myself a couple of times when he called to inquire about our services, says Jon Karlung.
The money from the auction goes to non-profit organization Reporters Without Borders and to 5july.org, the 5th of July Foundation that works for freedom of opinion and expression and for upholding the right to privacy on the Internet.
– We burn for those causes, so I invite high bidders, says Jon Karlung.
* For closer specification, see the page of the eBay auction. All hardware is original, including the hard disks. Those have however been erased according to the U.S. specification DoD 5220.22-M where every byte of the hard disk is overwritten several times. The original information cannot be recreated, not even by NSA.
Note: The physical server is owned by Bahnhof. Wikileaks rented the server as part of a hosting contract. It was never used for any other client than Wikileaks.
The auction: www.bahnhof.net/wikileaks
Media contact: Jon Karlung, CEO. Phone +46-7601110160. E-mail: jon.karlung@bahnhof.net
Bahnhof is a Nordic internet provider, with offices in Stockholm, Uppsala, Borlänge, Hedemora, Lund, Malmö, Göteborg, Ponta Delgada and Kiev.
Bahnhof was founded in 1994 as the first privately owned Internet Service Provider, ISP, in Sweden. The company provides internet- and telephony services to businesses, and is leading in the field of server hosting and co-location in the Nordics. Bahnhof also provides internet connectivity aimed at the consumer market, as well as end-user web hosting services.
Bahnhof connects directly to the Internet backbone network in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London and Paris.
Bahnhof, a public company, is traded on the Aktietorget marketplace.