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Wikileaks Releases A Massive "Insurance" File That No One Can Open

Posted by samzenpus on from the just-in-case dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks just released a treasure trove of files, that at least for now, you can't read. The group, which has been assisting ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden after he leaked top-secret documents to the media, posted links for about 400 gigabytes of files on their Facebook page Saturday, and asked their fans to download and mirror them elsewhere."

7 of 394 comments (clear)

  1. 349GB? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    WikiLeaks insurance 20130815
    A: 3.6Gb http://wlstorage.net/torrent/wlinsurance-20130815-A.aes256.torrent
    B: 49Gb http://wlstorage.net/torrent/wlinsurance-20130815-B.aes256.torrent
    C: 349GB http://wlstorage.net/torrent/wlinsurance-20130815-C.aes256.torrent

    ~ $ df -h
    Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
    /dev/sda1 292G 53G 225G 19% /

    Hm... :|

  2. Re:Hey look at us, we are still relevant! by reve_etrange · · Score: 5, Informative

    They publish individual documents, usually with conscious timing, after redacting names and potentially other information. The diplomatic cables were released by accident.

    --
    .: Semper Absurda :.
  3. Re:NSA has cribs? by phantomcircuit · · Score: 5, Informative

    I would assume the files are encrypted with a symmetric cipher like AES. Known plaintext attacks are not very effective against symmetric ciphers. Indeed they're designed to be resilient to chosen plaintext attacks.

  4. Re:Oh delicious irony by jovius · · Score: 5, Informative

    You are wrong in your irony. Wikileaks is not an anti-secrecy organization. They are a media organization (by their own account). They are against secrecy when it's being used to conceal dishonesty and unjust practices by governments (often to mislead the population). Wikileaks' own leak submit system relies heavily on secrecy to protect the sources from persecution, so you are pretty late with your remark.

  5. Re:NSA has cribs? by Fnord666 · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's a pretty good assumption since all of the files end in .aes256.torrent.

    --
    'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
  6. Re:Hey look at us, we are still relevant! by shentino · · Score: 5, Informative

    You seem to forget my point that the news agency is the one that leaked the key, not wikileaks itself. Wikileaks got burned by *someone else's* incompetence.

    And I still suspect it was an inside job from a covert spook looking to ruin wikileaks by spoiling the private key.

  7. Re:Smaller chunks 400GB would transmit/store easie by Pieroxy · · Score: 5, Informative

    They probably need to divide that gargantuan thing, 400GB, down into smaller, more manageable, chunks before encrypting it. Then they might get more people cooperating with them. How many people can download and store 400GB in one chunk?

    As it turns out, plenty of people. I got 20Mbps down and terabytes of free space. It just takes about 55 hours to get all in and plenty of storage. And I have a pretty slow connection by today's standards. Most of my friends have 100Mbps down, meaning the file will be in in about 5.5 hours. It's really affordable by most in Europe.

    --
    Write boring code, not shiny code!