Let's focus on the "as we know it" part of that question. WikiLeaks describes itself as a "not-for-profit media organization" that provides "an innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to our journalists." In a matter of speaking, WikiLeaks as we know it ended with the departure of the organization's former spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg last fall. Upon leaving, Domscheit-Berg crippled the site's submissions system. "Children shouldn't play with guns," Domscheit-Berg later wrote. "That was our argument for removing the submission platform from Julian’s control … We will only return the material to Julian if and when he can prove that he can store the material securely and handle it carefully and responsibly."

WikiLeaks has been unable to rebuild its submission system, due in part to a lack of funding. The eruption of controversy over the questionable legality of WikiLeaks' activities left the organization with only four methods of donating funds--direct deposits to a bank in Germany, one in Iceland, the electronic currency Bitcoin or checks by mail. Lately, the organization is also having trouble keeping its servers online. Following the release of all 251,287 diplomatic cables, the site's searchable database overloaded prompting pleas for donations. The collapsing infrastructure doesn't mean that WikiLeaks is no longer accepting or hosting secrets, but that would-be whisteblowers are restricted to mailing or hand-delivering material to the organization. There are also now a number of WikiLeaks copycats, including Domscheit-Berg's own OpenLeaks, that offer to host leaked information.

With this week's release of unredacted diplomatic cables, WikiLeaks has alienated themselves from past allies and inevitably threatened their reputation with future funders. Chief amongst those allies are the organization's five media partners--The Guardian, The New York Times, Der Spiegel, El País and Le Monde--who said in a joint statement that they "deplore the decision of WikiLeaks to publish the unredacted state department cables, which may put sources at risk." As Times editor Bill Keller explained in recounting his relationship with the organization and Assange earlier this year, WikiLeaks has been "roundly criticized for its seeming indifference to the safety of those informants, and in its subsequent postings it has largely followed the example of the news organizations and redacted material that could get people jailed or killed. Assange described it as a 'harm minimization policy.'" This policy has effectively been thrown out the window. According to an initial survey of the released documents, The Guardian, one of these former allies, found:

The newly published archive contains more than 1,000 cables identifying individual activists; several thousand labelled with a tag used by the US to mark sources it believes could be placed in danger; and more than 150 specifically mentioning whistleblowers. The cables also contain references to people persecuted by their governments, victims of sex offences, and locations of sensitive government installations and infrastructure.

Assange has so far defended the release that there's "no claim by official sources that WikiLeaks has caused the death of any individual anywhere in the world." Regardless of what he says now, however, Assange is also remember for his lack of sympathy for those sources. "Well, they’re informants," he told The Guardian last year in a conversation with editors about redacting names of sources. "So, if they get killed, they’ve got it coming to them."