Appelbaum, a developer for the Tor anonymity network and a past volunteer for WikiLeaks, says that SafeHouse insecurely implements Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption, the protection meant to render any data passed between a user and a website unreadable.

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Assange has blamed the delay of his new leak platform in part on vulnerabilities in the SSL encryption commonly used on websites, after a year that saw several of the companies ensuring the authenticity of encrypted sites compromised and used to issue fraudulent certificates.

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For example, an icon similar to the SSL encryption key-prevalent in e-commerce transactions-may pop up to indicate that a site matches a user's privacy tolerance level.

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