Posted on 08/05/2010 5:04:07 PM PDT by redhead
LONDON – Online whistle-blower WikiLeaks has posted a huge encrypted file named "Insurance" to its website, sparking speculation that those behind the organization may be prepared to release more classified information if authorities interfere with them.
At 1.4 gigabytes, the file is 20 times larger than the batch of 77,000 secret U.S. military documents about Afghanistan that WikiLeaks dumped onto the Web last month, and cryptographers say that the file is virtually impossible to crack — unless WikiLeaks releases the key used to encode the material.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
As an article in the New Yorker says, the music industry tried to shut down Napster, and found that technology had outdistanced it. The better solution was to arrange for music to be purchased on the NET.
The government won’t be able to shut down sites that offer information. A better solution would be to 1 ) classify only a very few documents, those which really need to be “secret”; and 2 ) otherwise be as transparent as possible (make the FOI swift and responsive).
“Secret” documents should not be accessible to a low-level clerk, ever. Some “secrets” should never even be written down (let alone placed in endless bureaucratic reports).
The government is going to have to learn to live with and adapt to the new technological innovations—and not try, as the Pentagon has, to insist that Wikileaks “undo” the leak
and erase all websites which have the documents...
and forbid service members to look at websites which have the documents.
(One imagines that the leadership of the Army is in their dottage and has never used the NET the way every soldier under 30 has...)
“The government won’t be able to shut down sites that offer information.”
Not if they follow our current constitution, no, they can’t.
But with a little more power, they could make it a fine-able offense for an ISP to offer, allow, cause, or enable traffic to or from a particular URL, site, or node (perhaps designated as a “hate site” or “espionage node). Say $10,000 per packet. And lay the same restriction on the backbone servers and transmission trunks.
Also, offer a $500 cash reward to anyone who discovers such a transmission, no arrest or conviction required.
The net appears to be free and robust, but that’s only because the ISP’s and trunk servers are currently operating freely without too much interference from USG or UN or the EU authorities. Look at China and places like that that do a pretty good job of controlling what their people can access.
I wonder if some bright young lad from the CIA is currently looking at the WikiLeaks guy through a scope.
If so, I hope he can read his mind through the same scope too. Because *most likely* the Wikileaks guy prepared multiple "dead man switches". He knows he jumped the shark on this one. For example, he hacks into some obscure computer somewhere, and programs a simple instruction to email the password to the whole world on a certain date, or if something happens, or if something doesn't happen.
Just to illustrate, he may post some trivial ad on Craigslist, every week a different one, and only the computer knows what that ad must and must not contain to hold onto the key for another week. The algorithm may be simple enough to just remember, but any mistake (unverifiable if he is arrested and works under control) will result in the release of the key. With Craigslist's traffic it's impossible to detect a lone computer in Elbonia (or California, to that matter) that checks ads.
That's the whole idea of distribution of the encrypted material. The whole world can take its time to download the bits, and since nobody knows what's there it's largely safe in legal terms. For all we know, it might be the video of Hillary Clinton running under sniper fire in Bosnia :-)
All it takes to unlock is a tiny key; it's only 32 bytes, or 64 printable characters. It can be emailed, or mailed on a postcard, or shouted from rooftops, or spray-painted on a bridge, or anonymously posted anywhere on the Internet. It's trivial to write down and enter into the program that then decrypts the large file.
This guy is desperately acting out and NEEDS piano wire late one night.
yeah, but its on an Apple, so its 100% encrypted and hack proof
/s
Well, well well.
This is like a chess game! P-K4!
Does anyone know exactly where Insurance is on the wikileaks.com website? I can’t find it.
This article makes it sound like 1.4 GB is really big, but I have 67 GB available on this 8 year old computer.
If someone can point me to where it is, I’m ready to press the download button.
THANKS!
I googled wikileaks insurance and got this:
leakmirror.wikileaks.org/file/straw-glass-and-bottle/insurance.aes256
I tried downloading it, says it will take over 3 hours, so I canceled, I have no way of knowing if it’s really wikileaks or some Russian hacker taking advantage of this situation.
Please somebody tell me where the real download is. Thanks.
http://leakmirror.wikileaks.org/file/straw-glass-and-bottle/insurance.aes256
This is indeed the file you seek. What will you do with it?
How long before some hacker opens that file?
It’s not blackmail if whoever has incriminating evidence just puts it out there and does not contact let’s say ...Hillary and ask for monetary items or favors.
I suspect that the news will report that some random person with no connection to anyone has hacked the file.
This is political drama, something planned in advance.
That level of crypto rises to “national technical means” and its release won’t be accidental, though it will appear to be, like the Climategate release was anonymous (not).
Is that the real file or is the “Afgan War Files” / insurance the real thing. I downloaded 7z465.exe, I did an antivirus report from Download.com and it says it should be clean. I am now downloading the real file, supposedly. Should take 4 more hours.
Assange’s reputation is riding on this. If this is nonsense, he is toast. If there’s any viruses in this, he is toast. If this is just about Hillary and her girlfriend Houma, he is toast.
There is a guy here on FR who has been banned a few times for posting anti-Darwin threads. He is the expert on hacking/security and assembly language. If anyone here can get into this, it will be him. Instead of going into the higher level, hacking, he goes down into the assembly code, into the bowels of computer software. I don’t know what his current FR name is.
>At 1.4 gigabytes, the file is 20 times larger than the batch of 77,000 secret U.S. military documents about Afghanistan that WikiLeaks dumped onto the Web last month, and cryptographers say that the file is virtually impossible to crack
Except that the more encrypted data you have, the more chance you have of finding and exploiting a weakness.
Though the ‘data’ in that scenario are usually multiple messages rather than one humongous blob.
It’s an interesting conundrum.
That would be awesome!! / LOL
Oh man, the Contra code! I can hear the music now...
NO ONE is cracking AES 256 without a few DOZEN more major breakthroughs in computer processor speeds. This ain't your daddy's WEP 64 bit encryption algorithm.
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