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Wikileaks Releases A Massive "Insurance" File That No One Can Open
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."
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... :|
An "anti-secrecy" organization using secrecy to promote its agenda.
The idea (I think) is that these files will be released in time, but releasing them all at once, but encrypted, is to discourage governments from arresting or killing the high-ups of WikiLeaks. The info will come out, just like it did last time (wasn't the last insurance file the bulk of cables that was eventually released?), but this is a mechanism for doing that while protecting themselves.
Wikileaks has always stated they desire responsible disclosure.
They publish individual documents, usually with conscious timing, after redacting names and potentially other information. The diplomatic cables were released by accident.
.: Semper Absurda
I know! There's no way I'm mirroring that, Michael Grunwald might launch an airstrike at me!
If the NSA suspects that certain of their internal documents occur in the insurance files, can't they use these as cribs to break the encryption?
How does one determine the viability of cribs for data of a certain size? E.g. if one is cracking 400GB of data encrypted with a 4096 bit RSA key, how helpful is a 4GB crib?
.: Semper Absurda
If their "mission" is openness - and the info is that damning - shouldn't they be publishing it? I mean, isn't that sort of the point of Wikileaks? Or just attention whoring?
Or they are worried about responsible disclosure?
It is one thing to show the USA is spying. It is another thing to provide names e description of the spies themselves.
morcego
Wikileaks is now just a government pawn, setting up to record the ip addresses of anyone downloading this honeypot.
First, Wikileaks isn't just about making information open. They are about giving that information the most impact possible. If they release 400GB of damning stuff, do you think news organizations around the world will be able to stay on point, or will the primary story just be an unhelpful "Wikileaks releases 400GB of information"? It will eventually all get out, but in smaller, focused chunks. They also like to scrub information first so they don't end up blowing military or covert ops that could result in lives lost.
Because they release it in small chunks, they don't want anybody deciding to raid Wikileaks to prevent whatever is coming next. This way, there are copies all over the place. Presumable a number of trusted people have the key and would be able to let it all loose in such a major event.
Maybe they want some of us to use a distributed computing approach to broach the key?
If their "mission" is openness - and the info is that damning - shouldn't they be publishing it? I mean, isn't that sort of the point of Wikileaks? Or just attention whoring?
I suspect they will expend a lot of hours working with outside entities to redact the documents of information that would threaten their sources or private citizens or anyone's life before releasing them, and getting their fans to mirror encrypted files is an "Insurance policy" ---- where powerful forces working against Wikileaks may become aware of the leak; Wikileaks folks have probably designed some elaborate scheme, contingency plan, or something strange of that nature to get the keys released in case of emergency: corporate or government interference, coercion, arrest, or kidnapping of the Wikileaks folks working to release redacted documents.
Getting 400 gigabytes of data uploaded to the internet in a pinch is no easy task.
But posting a 100 KB key far and wide to unlock 400 gigabytes of pre-distributed data, is a trivial thing.
Depends on the nature of the data and the reason for the safeguarding. The implication they are probably trying to make based on recent events is that Wikileaks has ~400GB of data that was obtained by Edward Snowden, all of which is being widely mirrored as we discuss it, and could become public knowledge via the simple means releasing a password or key file. At the very least, that's potentially a pretty big incentive for the US and its allies not to mess with any attempt at relocation that Edward Snowden or Julian Assange might be about to make.
Of course, the flip side of that is that it's also a pretty big incentive for the enemies of the US to mess with any such relocation attempt in an effort to cause further embarrassment to the US and maybe learn a few interesting things about the US' surveillance programmes into the bargain.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Heh, COINTELPRO
Napoleon declared to his troops that a field marshal’s baton was tucked into every soldier’s knapsack, a powerful signal to people conditioned to accept personal limits on their careers as dictated by the class system. So, is this the modern equivalent with a thousand fingers resting upon the decode button in an attempt to deflect the wrath of the NSA onto others?
Maybe this is:
1) Data not ready to be published, unless..
or they:
2) Feel it's more valuable this way if that gives them freedom to release what they think matters in the future
Wikileaks is basically holding their closet skeletons hostage.
It's more likely that they've released the key for this file to the people they want insurance from. "See what we've got? All we need to do is release the key and everyone will know." They release these keys to a small set of folks around the world so they can publish the key if they need to. I bet that initial distribution list includes a senator and a head fo the CIA or something like that.
This is fundamentally a political act. The trouble is, there's no scaling back. Unless something happened behind the scenes that is not generally know, this'll be perceived as an escalation.
Gotta wonder why now, that idiot at Time Magazine aside.
The thing is, Western democracies have to get used to the Memory Hole, Cryptome, Wikileakeaks and the rest. You can play whack a mole with them or deal with the fact that people from now on will treat digital information in a way that nation states may not wish they would. This'll have positive and negative consequences but it needs to treated as fact.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
The last insurance file was spoiled by a news agency that screwed up handling the private key, and so wikileaks mitigated danger by making the leak obvious so that anyone on it could protect themselves.
It's basically an "oh shit, someone spilled blood in the water and the sharks are on their way, sound the alarm so people can get the hell out of the water."
And personally, I think it was an inside job from an intelligence agency that wished to ruin wikileaks by painting it as reckless, probably figuring that even leaking it to the news under seal was damaging enough that there was nothing more to be lost smearing wikileaks.
I did that once, and I know how it plays out.
dd if=Gladiator\ -\ Now\ we\ are\ free.mp3 of=key bs=1 count=4096
I'm as real of an American as can be done. What I want is a more focused government. I do not want the militarization of local police. I do not want decisions that affect the lives of me and others made behind closed doors. If the NSA programs were more transparent and if they did no lie about what they are doing, it would not be as much of an issue. I do not want a government that itself finds too complex to manage and uses that as an excuse to not do anything. If they can not do the job, they should give the job to states or counties or towns.
As a real American, I want to be able to trust my government. Any faith in the government is only faith that it will not collapse in on itself. There is no faith in supporting those that pay into it, us tax payers. Those that do not pay tax are paid for the security of the tax payers, so they are also included.
I wouldn't call it an accident, it was more incompetence and negligence on part of Guardian journalists.
Gay rights is not a good litmus test of human rights. I find womens rights to be a better gauge. And if he isn't gay, why should he use that as a metric for human rights? In the US, if we are better to our gays, and worse to our (something else), does that make us any better?
Learn to love Alaska
But the government has worked hard to make sure it doesn't happen. Because "responsible disclosure" would require the governments involved to work with and support wikileaks, and they don't want to be seen to have done that.
Learn to love Alaska
I suspect that a spook got it leaked on purpose to ruin wikileaks and stop future leaks.
It's not that he doesn't know what the term "accident" means, it was more an incorrect understanding of its' meaning.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
Have they security vetted everyone who does their redaction for them? If not, then what's the point in doing the redaction other than public relations theatre?
O please... not everything is the fault of the CIA / NSA / etc. If there was ANY evidence of that, Wikileaks would happily be spreading the news. I
That will solve anything?
NSA has already decided to cut 90% of their sysadmins. That will limit their exposure. Though one having access is enough. But at least then they will know who that one was =P
Blackmailing the USA is probably not their best move at this point.
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?
Also, the bigger the chunk, the more easily corrupted, and the corruption takes out the possibility of decrypting the whole thing?
The idea (I think) is that these files will be released in time, but releasing them all at once, but encrypted, is to discourage governments from arresting or killing the high-ups of WikiLeaks. The info will come out, just like it did last time (wasn't the last insurance file the bulk of cables that was eventually released?), but this is a mechanism for doing that while protecting themselves.
In this case I believe Snowden holds the final encryption key, not Wikileaks.
He has stated he doesn't want to harm the US, and hopes the people or congress steps in and stops the NSA abuse without having to release the most damning evidence. Its not attention whoring, its a pretty good understanding of human nature. The whole discussion would be yesterdays news had he released it all at once. Amazingly, for a young man, he understands that short sharp shocks are easily put to bed by demonizing the source and burying the issue, and a drum beat of news has more effect.
You can see this going on today.
After a few political hacks attempting to cast him as a traitor were met with an equal amount of push-back calling him a hero, the administration abruptly changed tactics.
1) They stopped talking about Snowden.
2) They have started trying to prove that the spying is actually good for America. (Essentially owning the spying in the hopes the public will go along.)
3) They rushed to close embassies on the slimmest of evidence and are hoping desperately that there will in fact be some actual attacks.
So far the terrorists don't seem willing to play along. (In fact I believe the so-called intercepted "conference call" was made up of whole cloth, or was simply the terrorists "playing" the NSA. Since when to terrorists hold conference calls?. The attacks were supposed to happen last week, yet nothing at all is happening that wasn't already in progress in Egypt and Syria).
So its about time for a couple more of Snowden's Shoes to drop.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
It's a 42 megapixel nude Assange selfie. Please, in the name of all that is blessed and holy, DO NOT LET THE KEY BE RELEASED! It can only bring tears.
Snowden holds the keys, not Wikeleaks. Your have your story muddled.
All wikeleaks is doing is making sure the file can't be destroyed at one source.
We can only hope that Snowden has the keys escrow-ed such that simply killing him prevents disclosure.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
better urn!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Real Americans want a bigger, stronger government, not a weaker one. A bigger, stronger government provides more services...
Hey, the American government is the one being the little bitch baby about crying over its spilt secrets. Waaaa... Waaaa... How very tough.
Mainly because it's labeled "skynet.exe".
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Well, how do you know that's not what's in one of these insurance files?
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
And yet they fail to behave as if that's their goal.
Just like Bill Clinton always stated he never had sexual relations with that woman.
Just like Anthony Weiner always stated that he stopped sending explicit messages to random women.
Just like George Bush always stated that there were WMD in Iraq.
At some point, when there is a massive disconnect between "what you say" and "what you do," the general public has to start viewing "what you do" as more important.
The government shouldn't be illegally spying on its citizens and doing everything in their power that is wrong and bad for this country, but that doesn't stop them.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
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.
" If there was ANY evidence of that, Wikileaks would happily be spreading the news."
That's certainly not true. They have deliberately withheld very damning documents for later times. It's part of what they do.
And it's smart. "Insurance" is really what it is.
Is there a client that can be instructed to download randomly selected non-sequential pieces up to a user-determined size limit? Then store those pieces along with the torrent file and wait until there is a call for them to be reassembled to seed?
The best gauge would be unique to each country. Gauge by whichever group a country treats the worst. Human rights includes all humans.
We can only hope that Snowden has the keys escrow-ed such that simply killing him prevents disclosure.
Shouldn't he have it set up in the opposite way, so that if he dies, then disclosure is automatic?
Yes, that' is EXACTLY what I meant to say, even though my fingers typed something else. Thanks for catching that.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
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!
You act like they are treated as slaves. I attended the wedding of my brother-in-law to his now-husband just 4 weeks ago, right here in the good ol' United States. I don't recall either of them being tied up with chains (although, he did wear a rainbow feather boa at one point...).
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
I hate to argue with you on a technicality but in all likelihood dick cheney's cock tastes like any other cock.
That will solve anything? NSA has already decided to cut 90% of their sysadmins.
The NSA has voluntarily reduced their own system administration capacity by 90%. Their hiring will become much more difficult, both because of their now piss poor reputation and because they will be 9x as suspicious as before. Keeping secrets has now become more difficult for them, so they will either not be able to keep as many secrets anymore or they will not be able to do as much with their secrets as they otherwise would. That's not a solution, but it's a giant leap in the right direction and the beautiful thing is that they are doing it to themselves.
That ...is a good question, actually.
How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.
Right, because gays aren't humans.
Change the word gay for "Jewish", "minority" or any number of things and see how much of a pathetic little bigot you are.
The rights of any group are a litmus test of the rights of all. We're just as human as you, thanks.
I can't tell if that's a typo or not. :/
If you want a "focused government" then you are no real American. Hell, you don't even comprehend the founding principles of the Constitution and certainly have no grasp of the Declaration of Independence. If you had you would realize the error of your desires.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
I don't give a fuck how many women Bill Clinton and Anthony Wiener have sex with. As long as it's between two consenting adults, it's not my problem. It would only becomes my problem if they started asking for government benefits because of their sex lives.
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?
Also, the bigger the chunk, the more easily corrupted, and the corruption takes out the possibility of decrypting the whole thing?
If only there was some kind of error-correcting software that divided files into chunks for transfer; a way to download torrents of bits, if you will.
For now they stick to harassing the people involved. Still holding up a front of respectability.
Fuck I'm glad there's always a partisan idiot like you around to frame every situation in terms of Republican or Democrat.
From the perspective of the rest of the civilised world, both are utterly fucking barking mad.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Gays and women are humans, so therefor human rights apply and their is no need for any special rights. To label human rights based on gender or sexual orientation is a clear sign that things are not as they should be for all.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
How can I know if there is anything illegal in there if I can't read it? Or would I be guilty of potentially distributing confidential papers or exporting munitions if it's just a bunch of random bits?
Well that's just weird. I read what you wrote and interpreted it as what you meant, without even noticing the difference.
Right, because gays aren't humans.
Change the word gay for "Jewish", "minority" or any number of things and see how much of a pathetic little bigot you are.
The rights of any group are a litmus test of the rights of all. We're just as human as you, thanks.
Well done - you were so eager to empty your spleen on someone that you completely missed the point. AK Marc is simply pointing out that suffrage from women is a fundamental issue as well. Not instead of.
I don't want to put words in his mouth but it seems he may have been suggesting that universal suffrage is probably 101 for societies looking to grow up. For nations without universal suffrage, this may be a more appropriate gauge of their progress than gay rights. Like most things, AK Marc's comment was merely a mirror for your own prejudices.
Gay rights, freedom of religious choice, freedom of speech .. these are all 102 challenges for a society as backwards as, say, Saudi Arabia.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Shortly after Snowden escaped the U.S., one of the NSA's agents specifically stated that he got out with detailed architectural designs of their entire operation. This might be the payload he was talking about. That agent stated that the U.S. should handle Snowden with kid gloves and offer to forgive and forget in exchange for destroying that data. However, congress did not listen and instead had a knee jerk reaction by going on a witch hunt for him instead.
to what people are willing to give up for a good cause.
I seriously doubt that any government would be swayed from taking action against Wikileaks due to the existence of an insurance file. Even if it has damning information, and the government knows it has damning information, the government is too big and proud to care. The only way the insurance file could affect decisions is if it revealed misconduct by specific high-ranking politicians, and these politicians know that their personal ass is on the line. It's human nature. In this case, Wikileaks should drop some hints such that these politicians know that Wikileaks knows, but without spilling too many details.
Agreed. Either the info should be published because it's "whistleblower-worthy", or the information should not have been leaked. The middle-ground of "insurance" is really just attempted blackmail.
...but one downside (to Snowden/Wikileaks) of them giving interested government parties the key is then they will know exactly what can be used against them, and can then mitigate against the damage. Right now, the government is just being caught in a snare of lies; each subsequent release of information exposes the prior release's damage control efforts.
It's probably not documents, it's probably SSL keys.
We know the NSA has been collecting passwords. Probably using the SSL keys, but also we know they are collecting them directly by sending men in dark suits to visit site admins. Maybe it's all the user accounts for every senator. It's not really a wikileaks thing to post what porn senators are into, but it could be there in the insurance file.
How about "hadicapped". Many places don'e have ADA-like laws. They have handicapped spaces in front of the bank with 2 flights of stairs to get up, but a "blacks-only" separate but equal entrance in the alley out back.
And Russia doesn't seem "so bad". Homosexuality is legal and has been for 20 years. The Russian people seem more hostile towards it, but the law makes it legal. Picking one "fringe" cause and using that as a litmus test misses the greater issue. The main problem with Russia at the moment is that nobody has free speech. A straight person supporting gay rights with speech only is breaking the law in some areas (depending on how they support it). That's not a gay rights issue, that's a human rights issue. Making it about gay rights misses the point. But, based on the rest of your post, you were deliberately missing the point.
Learn to love Alaska
Snowden has successfully incentivized the Russians to kill him.
By murdering Snowden the FSB gets:
* access to these remaining encrypted documents and any juicy details they may hold
* ability to blame the assassination on the USA. A major propaganda win across the board. Sours relations between USA and EU. Increases US citizens distrust of intelligence agencies, further hobbling their collection capabilities. Angers Russian public against USA.
* sets an example for any Russians planning similar leaks: talk and end up brutally dead.
* neatly ends any simmering diplomatic disputes in Russia's favor.
They have to balance their limited ability to vet people involved with the leaks against the public interest in knowing the contents of these documents.
They are doing the best they can in the circumstances, I'm not sure what more you could realistically ask for.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Not true. The Mafia's code of conduct does not provide for attacks on family members or other unrelated parties.
If conference calls can cause America to close embassies, piss away money like there's no tomorrow and spy on its own citizens then I think we have to conclude that the terrorists are winning.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
. Really? Link or it didn't happen...
This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
He didn't say WHAT the focus was. Probably "economic equality". http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/for-obama-50-years-after-historic-march-economic-equality-the-path-to-racial-justice/2013/08/17/de89ee5e-0682-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html
If conference calls can cause America to close embassies, piss away money like there's no tomorrow and spy on its own citizens then I think we have to conclude that the terrorists are winning.
When you add up everything US citizens have lost, its clear the terrorists have already won big time.
But in all the years of chasing Bin Laden, and all the other terrorists that have been killed or captured when have you ever heard of a conference call? Secret messages, couriers, double blind message drops, and encrypted text messages. Not once conference call.
If it happened at all, I'm sure it was orchestrated to see what effect it would have and to determine if the NSA was listening.
But the timing suggests it was totally contrived by the NSA in some sort of childish attempt at self justification with the administration playing along. What is odd, is the press is buying the whole act, they've stopped talking about Snowden. 7th graders could concoct a more believable one act play on a saturday afternoon. The CIA will probably have to pay some useful idiots to toss grenades into the empty embassies when it becomes clear that nothing else was actually planned, and the egg starts running down their collective faces.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
If you want to communicate securely you now have very large one time pads for secure key exchange.
It seems obvious to me... so do not try and patent it.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
What makes you think real americans are after said principles or have a grasp of declaration of independence?
What makes you think Real Scotsmen don't exist in a superposition of both true and untrue?!
Unpalatable as ever, I guess.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
It would be interesting if all this data is finally unlocked and accessible and we find out that this is the NSA's collective porn collection, something gathered in addition to all of the world's e-mails and phone calls and text messages.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
LOL, Murdoc and MacGyver? Shouldn't he be trying to kill you by now?
In all the history of recorded history, there have always been groups that were looked down upon by the general public of the time. People will be labeled until there are no people.left to label. Acknowledging that isn't a bad thing. Ignoring it is.
Learn to love Alaska
Maybe its just me, but someone who displays a lack of integrity in their personal lives (ie, by breaking marriage vows / trust) seems to be a poor candidate for holding a lot of political power.
If this is an attempt by WikiLeaks to blackmail the U.S. government into backing off it would only be effective if the decryption key was quietly given to the government so they could verify that these files are legitimate and not a compilation of their favorite MP3s. However, I suspect this will be counterproductive. The government is going to strike back and strike hard. I wonder what they're going to do. I have some ideas.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
I'd not be surprised if it was a massive cache of steganography-embedded or metadata-embedded child-porn. Most abettors would be unwitting and even those who purged the data would still have forensic residue on their boxes. Hopefully not case, but not implausible.
For the Children
http://www.salon.com/2010/10/17/wikileaks_7/
“did not disclose any sensitive intelligence sources or methods”
"“there has not been a single case of Afghans needing protection or to be moved because of the leak.”"
Other than that you have a country with a number of local people trying to translate for or help foreign troops.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The personality traits that make someone enter a personality contest to be one of less than 600 people who can determine the direction of the mist powerful empire coincide with those which underpin amoral choices.
I started typing because I really didn't care, but now I realize these are the least desirable candidates.
Once in office, however, personal choices validate their election, at least according to the current electoral system.
They immediately lose credence as a candidate, but gain as a duly elected leader. It remains irrelevant.
i'm just saying, if i'm a country that is unfond of the USA and had near limitless funding, plenty of ASIC designers, access to the latest IC manufacturing technology and all the warehouse and power needed, how long would it really take to crack open one of these files? i mean, how many would it take, a trillion ASICs, a quadrillion? these numbers are not out of the reach of the chinese government.
but considering it's china, with all their _successful_ hacking, they probably have most of the information already.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
So consider how the US treats mentally ill? Then we are one of the worst. Or how the EU treats mobility impaired people, where I've seen many modern buildings that want a old look that are handicapped inaccessible (or, at best, have a "separate but equal" back-alley entrance). Everyone's horrible when you gauge them based of the worst treatment anyone receives. Then you have to gauge based on government treatment or private citizen treatment. Being gay is legal in Russia, but as frowned upon as being Gay in Texas in the 1990s (where someone I had met was kidnapped from a gay bar and killed, no prosecutions in the case, they had better things to do than hunt down people doing us a favor). And, sometimes the treatment is sporadic. It wasn't that long ago where gay-based killings were common in Texas, so does that count? Or are we changing the rules to get the answer you like?
Learn to love Alaska
Ding - Just goes to show true motivations. It has nothing to do with openness and everything to do with Wikileaks' own personal agendas.
They have nothing to fear. Assange is in fucking England and we didn't do shit to him. Its hard to argue who's more of our bitch, England or Canada, but the Canada's does it so they can avoid doing all the nasty crap we do for them (like protecting them by proxy). If he really had anything to fear, England would have been just about the dumbest place he could have went short of flying directly to some stupid senators personal police force.
But he's still there. Still alive, which again, if we wanted to do something to him, he would have just turned up dead mysteriously some morning and our response would have been something like 'yea, thats tragic! (snicker)' but he didn't.
America doesn't need to discredit wikileaks, they are masters of doing it themselves, the only people to say otherwise are the sheeple that follow them.
People are not wrong for wanting to believe in wikileaks, the idea is just. People who believe in wikileaks are wrong however, The implementation, like all things by humans, is sorely flawed in every way and is nothing more than a political group who spends its time trying to undermine peoples confidence in their leaders, regardless of reason.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I suspect they will expend a lot of hours working with outside entities to redact the documents of information that would threaten their sources or private citizens or anyone's life before releasing them, and getting their fans to mirror encrypted files is an "Insurance policy"
The do, more or less EXACTLY what the spy agencies do, except they are random people, from random countries around the world, themselves doing everything in secret and telling us how its for our own good.
Why is it, you're so eager to believe Wikileaks over the NSA when Wikileaks behaves EXACTLY like the NSA. Wikileaks IS a spy organization for fucks sakes. They just suck at it.
Why do you magically trust Wikileaks but not someone else?
I get not trusting the government, but its rather stupid to blindly trust Wikileaks to be anything different than another political party using a different set of tactics ... propaganda tactics that anyone from the cold war has seen for 60 years.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Sorry, but you're wrong on this. The phrase, “sensitive intelligence sources or methods” specifically refers to spy satellites and signals intelligence. The Wikileaks disclosures were still a compromise of intelligence sources, just not the ones being referred to by that phrase. It was still a bad thing.
As to “there has not been a single case of Afghans needing protection or to be moved because of the leak.”" - The Taliban made it clear that they would hunt down anyone identified in the leaks. What isn't clear is if any of the spokespersons making claims that nobody was harmed were actually in a position to really know anything, or if they can actually personally attest to the safety of everyone on the list. I doubt that they can.
Afghans are not simply translating, they are turning against the Taliban. That is kind of dangerous. The Taliban have been known to hang 7 year old children suspected of being informants (or simply as revenge), when they aren't beheading people for dancing at weddings.
I note that you reference Greenwald. He doesn't really seem to be interested in stopping the barbarism of al Qaida and the Taliban.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The passphrase is "James Clapper is a weenie!"
There have been a bunch of attacks in Pakistan and Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria and even India for the last 5 years. Its a daily occurrence, and you would have had to be on a rafting trip down the Amazon for the last several months not to have known this has been going on for years.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
We're demanding equal treatment under the law.
Thats cute. If they actually wanted to stop it, they'd have executed a few key people long ago. Hard to argue Checkmate with an extra couple of holes suddenly appearing in your head
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Well, I'd like to live in a world where we focus on real crimes against humanity instead of what are, relatively speaking, inconveniences.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
They're torrents.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
"I won't release it if you do what I say. I will release it if you don't do what I say."
Sounds a whole lot like blackmail to me.
Given that... lends more credence to the assertion that the terrorists were put up to it by the government(s) as a mandate for widespread surveillance of the population, erosion of civil liberties, etc.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Wikileaks are non-profit, and risking personal safety to get this stuff out. The US Government and cronies are very much FOR profit.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
What can they do to "prepare"?
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
"It was still a bad thing." - yes the clearance level on diplomatic gossip was low and now the press worked that aspect out.
As for you spying link vs "personal vendetta" some more info on the use of http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/30/world/asia/drone-war-in-pakistan-spurs-militants-to-deadly-reprisals.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 use of tracking chips (electronic tracking devices) for later drone strikes.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
This is what I got when I searched the Pirate Bay
http://thepiratebay.sx/torrent/5728614/
Not Found (aka 404)
You're looking for something that does not, has not, will not, might not or must not exist ... ... but you're always welcome to search for it.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Wikileaks are non-profit, and risking personal safety to get this stuff out. The US Government and cronies are very much FOR profit.
You really think there is noone to profit from Wikileaks' work, and that Wikileaks isn't about profit? The foundation itself may be non-profit, but there are entities outside Wikileaks who will stand to profit from whatever they reveal - or profit from notoriety or from writing books and casting various media about the subject --- there will be winners and losers, AND the people who have some notion about what Wikileaks will reveal may be positioning themselves to be financial winners, and people who think they will be the winners may be helping Wikileaks.
It's not as simple as Government = supporting profit, and Wikileaks = supporting no profit.
Of course destroying profit or having no profit is anti-capitalist, anti-urban, and pro-agrarian and substinence farming society.
To that I say... if you don't like profits: then run out to the wilderness, and build yourself a farming commune, in which nobody owns anything.
As for the rest of us... we live in a world where economic gain influences every activity in life -- including political activism, and including organizations such as Wikileaks.
Hint: If you know Wikileaks is about to release something damaging to some enterprise... then foreign investors can enter into various options, futures positions, and other trades, that will net them billions if Wikileaks discloses the right thing on the right day.
The conference calls are very real. NSA has since released the following intelligence:
Intel
Just hide it under a rock in Yosemite, microSDHC cards are waterproof.
Thank goodness they are accountable to voters in the event they do something that results in a massive loss of life or is damaging to the country. You wouldn't want them to be both unaccountable and above the law now, would you? Isn't pretty much everyone here supposed to hate lack of accountability and being above the law? I seem to remember it being the theme of some posts. I suppose there will always be the "Wikileaks exception" - it's bad if anyone else but Wikileaks is like that.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
They rushed to close embassies on the slimmest of evidence and are hoping desperately that there will in fact be some actual attacks.
This. They thought they could draw media attention away from Snowden and turn public sentiment back to uninterestedly issuing blank checks for the executive when it comes to terrorism. Recall that just earlier that week (or perhaps it was earlier the same day), some poll results found that more Americans were concerned with the domestic surveillance program than with terrorism.
There's something to be said about the timing. But there's even more to be said about the reaction. That it was so over-the-top pretty much made it clear that the right people were getting worried.
I wouldn't be surprised if some 9/11 consipracy-style event was to occur real soon, that it's in the works even now. After all, the FBI could have a president assassinated, and then have congress cover it up afterwards. What's a few hundred or thousand civilians, killed by a religious radical whose source for the raw materials could never be found? And then there'd be no debate about domestic surveillance anymore.
Eisenhower warned us. We did not listen.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
There would only be evidence if they had gotten caught by someone in the chain from spy to leaker.
Except they probably won't stoop to murder, at least not of random citizens because they couldn't be sure of how those families might react, and how far they would push demands for investigation.
But with all those embassies sitting empty, don't be surprised if one or two get ransacked. That supplies all the "See, we told you so" moments they would ever need.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
That's fucking retarded.
Nice to get 400 GB of encrypts. It makes the keys easier to drop. But to work as "insurance", Mr Snowden either must trust other individuals with the keys. Or machines. Somebody/thing must act when he may not be able.
Under certain circumstances (nologin for a week, too many hits on "Snowden arrested|dead") then the individuals or machines spam out the keys. Potentially in waves if the big block has sub-blocks with different encryption keys.
That's a very naive point of view. People are perfectly and demonstrably capable of leading multiple lives, and acting in diametrally opposite ways in each of those lives. About the only problem with Mr. sleepin' around is that it's an exploitable weakness. You don't want someone high up the pooping pole who is so damn easy to be completely pwned.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Newsflash: there are groups who will profit from anything. The guys running wikileaks and risking their lives to get this info out aren't making any money out of it.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
I read a good article saying that while a dead-man's-switch helps protect Snowden from the USA, it actually makes him a target for anyone who wants the information released. So, terrorists, some foreign government probably would be happy to kill him and get the documents released.
Great. Plausible Deniabilaty.
It wasn't us, it was those damn terrorists.
Who do you suppose dreamed up that gem?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Or we could just bloody stop discriminating people in our own countries before preaching to others to stop.
A societies worth is determined by how they treat it's least powerful members.
I downloaded it and tried the password 12345.
The file didn't open, but oddly my luggage did.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Actually, it might be a good test of whether NSA has the ability to beat AES encryption. In that case, the decrypted files have information that will lead to some obvious action from NSA or Government at large, which will prove they beat encryption without the key.
I think NSA can't beat AES, but how can I be sure?
Confirming that will be a great service to mankind.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
That's a freedom of speech thing, not a homosexual thing. You can't say stuff without getting thrown in jail. That's speech. They look at what you said (presumably) so that's not strictly a gay thing.
You can go to jail in the US for drawing a cartoon about homosexuals minors.
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Hi,
the poster "spins" untrue details
1.) Edward Snowden did not work with wikileaks togethers, he worked with a journalist (G. Greenwald)
2.) Assange glued himself in a very slimy way to Ed Snowdens purpose, to stay within the media
I see. Guess they're as bad as the government, then. Another childhood illusion lies in pieces...
If only there was some kind of error-correcting software that divided files into chunks for transfer; a way to download torrents of bits, if you will.
You mean like something RAR? ;-)
I feel so sig.
You mean like something RAR? ;-)
Grammar not strong the morning in...
I feel so sig.
The guys running wikileaks and risking their lives to get this info out aren't making any money out of it.
How do you know this? Perhaps they are, but have not told you about it.
Surely they must believe they are getting some benefit out of it, or advancing some agenda that they believe benefits them; otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.
so if I down loaded this in the uk, I could be sent to prison for not giving the authorities the password that I don't have... http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_lawt
I've been on some conference calls that make me want to do some damn distasteful things too.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
There have been far more Presidents than not that were faithful to the vows they took before their wives that didn't have huge scandals while President. But I guess that doesn't serve your weak argument, so we'll let that slide on by...
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
They say that a good man is hard to find. I'd wager that finding 537 of them and sending them all to Washington DC is impossible.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Crazily enough, I was in Poland the other week, and needed to buy some new luggage. I bought one of those wheeled things that everyone has. One of its *features* was that it had a lock that could be easily opened by the TSA without them needing to know the combination.
As a non-American in non-America - fuck you America if you think this is a good thing!
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
You know, if I tried to become perfect in a subject before trying to teach my children about it, I'd be guilty of letting them grow up ignorant of everything rather than giving them a jumping off point with merely my own faults.
Quite. Especially as a relative fraction of society. Looking at minority rights can provide one with interesting case studies, but looking at majority rights will tell you about the big picture.
There is probably nothing in those files if they were ever decrypted....I Love Lucy re-runs or some such garbage or maybe just random bits to bedevil the NSA's decoders.
That is crazy huge with my lowsee cable internet upstream it will take a week for someone to download that from me lol.
http://thetechnologygeek.org/
icebike,
This article puts a recent spate of drone strikes in the same story as the closings. Don't know what that means - draw your own conclusions. http://m.theday.com/article/20130809/NWS14
It may be boring junk in terms of not telling us things we don't already strongly suspect, but getting real confirmation is a big deal, hard evidence is important.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Snowden exposed the glaring issues in domestic security. He was a contractor who not only had access to data he shouldn't have, but he handed vindication to all the super paranoid people around the world, and that made him a media icon.
The real question is... if they aren't using the information against you, why exactly does it matter? Have they silenced your freedom of speech? Or exposed your search results to an employer? THEY HAVEN'T?!
I'm a geek, but I also consider myself a logical, red blooded American. Here are the facts. Uncle same has been monitoring our communications for decades. Look up carnivore and omnivore. So now they are getting Internet meta data. Surprised!?
WHY does it matter if they have your information? The only reason you have for " privacy" is if you are a criminal. Period. Or are you afraid that your coworkers will find out that you are taping up rodents and inserting them anally?
The need for privacy is an age old social stigma that grew out of the church decrying things like sexuality, freedom of speech, freedom of thought. A taboo that does nothing but protect those who are easily offended while stigmatizing people because they like to be different. There is nothing positive and nothing to gain by living like this. If anything it is stunting our social evolution.
All you privacy nuts live in a more and more open world every day. If you want to live your life behind closed doors scared of what other people think of you... Go ahead. I enjoy my life.
You act like they are treated as slaves. I attended the wedding of my brother-in-law to his now-husband just 4 weeks ago, right here in the good ol' United States. I don't recall either of them being tied up with chains (although, he did wear a rainbow feather boa at one point...).
No, the "tied up with chains" part was after the wedding.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
There is a huge difference between maintaining your vows and not getting caught.
Just because you think the world is out to get you, doesn't mean that it isn't.
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
... right after Area 51 is admitted to exist. And there were lots of redactions....
Or, who knows, maybe it includes things like Cheney leaked Plame to the papers....
mark "swing low, sweet UFO, comin' for to carry me home!"
Can't help but think that the NSA is tracking everyone who downloads or mirrors wikileak files in order to do a massive round up one night when everyone least expects it and the files (where ever they are found) disappear forever with everyone who ever copied it.
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
Just a random thought (not exactly OT for this subthread, but I had to find somewhere interesting to tack this on)
The cracking time today is irrelevant. How many years until a reasonable sized quantum computer comes out that can decode it in seconds? 10? 20 at the most?
The only way we can do that is to break the system. Fat chance really. The beginning of the downwall (in this respect) started with the advent of the lobbies. We really need to curb that if not even eliminate it, but _some_ good does come out of lobbying so some one with greater political acumen than I should tackle that.
Of course no one can read it, if there are insurance info on how they scammed their people as per the cliche hollywood movies dictate we are, they would have encrypted it. My assumption is that this is a move by an individual that might be holding this file hostage and be asking for money or else they will release the decryption info and voila, end of story.
Why put an encrypted file on the leaks without being able to open it, unless it just a show of how far you would go to get what you want. I am going to follow this one for sure though as I would be greatly interested in knowing how bad insurance companies have been scamming us.
Wouldn't that also put his life in danger though?
Surely there are parties that want to get these information and a simple murder would be an easy way to gain access (along with everyoen else).
All depends on how you look at it. Their goal and what we SAY their goal is are two different things.
They want to convert us to Sharia- which has less freedoms, which is basically the summed up version the American people were given, that they want to restrict/remove our freedoms. It's not wrong, it's just not specific enough.
Their stated goal has not been achieved- but our freedoms HAVE been impacted, so while they're not winning, the American people are still losing. Still... thought of them ever achieving their TRUE goal would be terrifying. Thank god it's never gotten that bad.
Not entirely true- I was listed as a reference for a friend of the family who was applying for work with the TSA, and they did call us to double check and hear said reference...
After they'd already hired him, mind you, but still.
When you are in a group of 20 people and someone says "someone in Houston tied a gay to the back of his truck and dragged him to death" and the first response from someone is "again?" I'd classify that as "common" even if it wasn't daily, weekly, or even monthly.
Learn to love Alaska
bingo
"Their hiring will become much more difficult"
Hmm, don't think so. Letting go those they did will reduce risk they harbored badthink. New hires will be particularly screened for goodthink. For every one who doesn't apply - or qualify, there will be plenty wanting in - it's a decent GS-grade job in a bad market, comes with good government benefits, and amongst a significant portion of the populace, it's a position with a certain prestige, even cachet, even for a lowly sysadmin - even if, according to some, they're not allowed to say specifically what they do or for which "government department." Security measures notwithstanding I don't guess it's an onerous work environment either.
Policies regarding procedure, tasking, compartmentation, auditing, and managerial oversight, OTOH, is where I imagine most effort is directed.
I suspect it's more an "Excedrin headache #[classified]" than a setback.
I wonder how long it takes before the NSA or CIA raids the guys who make the PROVOST CYPHR encryption software they have used...
Come now, are you really saying that you've no powers of inductive reasoning and/or imagination?
Simply put, foreknowledge of what the archives contain allows the bad actors to put out pre-emptive FUD.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The cracking time today is irrelevant. How many years until a reasonable sized quantum computer comes out that can decode it in seconds? 10? 20 at the most?
A quantum computer of sufficient size would be a disaster for RSA, but not AES -- the quantum crypto attacks against AES essentially halve the key length, so AES256 becomes like AES128.
I expect it will be 50 years or longer, before AES256 today is reduced to a little less than what the strength of what AES128 is today.
Unless you are a nation state, it will be 100 years before you could crack it; without stealing or being given the key.
The "conference call" story was bullshit. http://harpers.org/blog/2013/08/anatomy-of-an-al-qaeda-conference-call/
Quelle surprise.
Sent from the iPad I found in your car.
Sorry not to have moderation points, but you hit the nail in the head.
I bet the 400GB are nothing but the result of:
(cat $HOME/docs_and_pron/super_duper_secret_document.txt
Either that or the usual WL stuff that seems to come straight from the Secret ARtic Base of Captain Obvious.
-- 29A the number of the Beast
There is enough data in these files to hold like 1000h of average quality 480p video plus the full text of the english wikipedia.
If this file is made of sensitive information, why not get a bit more selective and only keep the good bits. It would have made the sharing and usage easier.
I think doing it this way is purely strategic. Not only can they play the "plausible deniability" game as the Govt does. "Oh, it was an accidental public key release" but you also ensure the data is successfully transmitted to the masses.
The alternative being what happened last time with the cables release and that is the Govt aggressively shutting down servers and replacing them with nasty place holders and installing honeypots, etc.
Women currently have MORE rights than males in America.
What right does a woman have that a man does not?
Equal Rights. Period. Not women rights, not gay rights, not black rights. Equal fucking rights. That is what makes a good litmus test: Equal Rights.
And the US fails quite poorly on that. Fewer riots than some other places, but worse disparity of rights.
Learn to love Alaska