“Are you aware of any wrongdoing in the public administration, rigged procurements, scams, frauds, corruption, unreported environmental disasters or, last but not least, organized crime networks and related activities? Do you want to denounce any of the above to the public but are scared for your safety or that of your family? Or even just afraid of losing your job? Are you, in a word, a potential whistleblower but you don’t know how to do it? Try IRPILEAKS!”

That’s the just-launched call to arms made by IRPILEAKS (IRPI = Investigative Reporting Project Italy), the Wikileaks-inspired Italian group that has made it possible for anybody to leave tips and upload documents anonymously.

It is the first time there is a site like this in Italian and, probably more importantly, that has Italian speakers on the other end ready to receive. The site uses Tor, a means of directing Internet traffic through a network of relays that allows the user’s location to remain anonymous, and GlobaLeaks, an open source software that tipsters can install on their computer4 to conceal their whereabouts.

The IRPILEAKS website has been crashing all day…read into that what you will.

With all the malfeasance Italy has been subjected to in recent years – sometimes it seems that every businessman (I use “man” intentionally here as unfortunately there are still few women in positions of power in the Italian corporate world) in this country has been hit with legal charges in the past couple of decades (with most of them getting off on appeal) – here’s hoping IRPILEAKS gets flooded with useful tips.

(I cleaned up the IRPILEAKS English translation in the quote I used. Original, Italian and English, is on their website.)