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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... :|
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
Wikileaks is now just a government pawn, setting up to record the ip addresses of anyone downloading this honeypot.
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.
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.
I never heard that before, so I googled "field marshall baton napoleon" and found your first sentence, word for word, on the second link. Quote your sources dude. Don't take credit for someone else's words.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
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.
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.
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.
Astounding isn't it? The world is such a complicated place.
I miss Walter Cronkite.
Sniff.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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
Are you sure he isn't the original author?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
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?
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
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.
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
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.
The best gauge would be unique to each country. Gauge by whichever group a country treats the worst. Human rights includes all humans.
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.
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.
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.
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"?
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.
I was just being funny. Chill out.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
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.
...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.
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
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
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
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.
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?!
They're torrents.
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.
I know you crazy americans think the Russians are just bloodthirsty psychopaths looking for an excuse to murder people, but seriously, that post takes the cake.
Russia stands to gain FAR more from this politically by keeping him safe.
Most of the civilized world outside the US is sick to death of the bullshit.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
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."
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.
No, 4 crazy reasons were listed fro killing Snowden. Given that this "insurance" is to protect people like him, there's no reason to believe that killing him will give any of the puported benefits.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
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.
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
Then again be a hero or be a zero. What Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden have done for the people of the world will be remember for a very, very long time to come and remembered positively, long after pseudo celebrities, corrupt politicians and the rich and greedy have disappeared into by-lines remembered only for the worst things they did.
A reminder that secrets always have a way of coming out and being the hero that released them is far better than being another minion zero accessory skulking in the background waiting to take the fall for the benefit and profits of the lead conspirators.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen