Posted on 08/01/2010 2:55:37 AM PDT by tlb
Julian Assange has uploaded a file called “insurance” to the website and elsewhere. The file is 1.4 gigabytes, a thousand times larger than the recently leaked documents.
It is estimated that even the fastest computer would take millions of years to decrypt the file.
It is believed that Assange may have distributed the pass key to supporters, who could release it to the public.
The contents of the file are unknown. However, the recent release of documents, detailing the coalition’s experiences in Afghanistan, are not part of the 500,000 documents from Iraq, alleged to have been sent to WikLeaks by Bradley Manning.
Admiral. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that Assange and WikiLeaks may “already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family.”
An angry Assange responded by asking “Why is the Pentagon focusing on the hypothetical blood on our hands, which has never been proved, rather than the real blood of the 20,000 deaths revealed in the documents?”
The top whistle blower, also criticized the US for “sloppy” and “unprofessional” security. WikiLeaks only uses code names internally for sources. Assange criticised the accessibility of the documents, saying, the information, including names of informants, “was available to every member of the U.S. military and every U.S. contractor — not just in Afghanistan — but all over the world. The military has acted in a disgraceful and careless way.”
Assange told reporters that he has plenty more material to be published, including “very significant” information on the BP oil spill and abuses in the US military, including sexual abuse.
In the meantime, the mystery file is being downloaded by many people, waiting for the key.
(Excerpt) Read more at neurope.eu ...
It is estimated that even the fastest computer would take millions of years to decrypt the file.
Textbook example for a non sequitur.
The file size has absolutely nothing to do with how long it would take to break the encryption code. A 1kB file encrypted with the same key would take exactly as long to decrypt.
I held a TS w/SBI at 18.
If the file is too short it can not be decrypted as there would be several possible solutions. In order to have a definite solution the corpus should have a certain minimum length.
“Top Secret” clearances are a dime a dozen in our government. The recent Washington Post investigation revealed there are over 800,000 people who have them. What’s more absurd is that they are given for every job imaginable inside the federal beast - everything from an analyst at the Pentagon down to the guy who makes travel arrangements for the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Yes, of course. 1kB was extreme just to make a point. Make it 1 MB or 10MB then.
I take it you haven’t studied encryption.
Why? He’s exposing the inanity of this war, which the media and the military are trying to keep hidden. Sounds more like heroism than treason.
I don’t think any encryption algorithm is safe against a multi-million dollar supercomputer array system designed to crack encrypted files.
I don’t know what the dollar value is of the most advance technology the government current employs, but I know there are massively arrayed super-fast computers dedicated to breaking encryption. I doubt anything this guy used would be safe. Especially, since the story says he handed the key out to several people. There is no such thing as a secret if two if more than one person knows.
The file is 1.4 gigabytes, a thousand times larger than the recently leaked documents. It is estimated that even the fastest computer would take millions of years to decrypt the file.The estimate is from someone who has never used anything north of an abacus. :') Thanks AdmSmith!
You watch way too much TV
The government does not want this information to fall into the hands of our enemies. Anyone with a copy of the file and the key can release the decoded information on the internet.
I got a feeling there is some cloak and dagger activity happening to isolate the harm. And yea, I watch too much T.V. ;^)
Exposing operational information that could get US armed forces personnel and our allies killed is not heroism. It is treason.
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