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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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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
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.
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."