The Wikileaks "insurance.aes256" File

I imagine it to be the entire collection of cables, and any other documents they may have, as the cables are being released a few at a time, rather than all at once. It also ensures Mr Assagnes' safety.
 
ddt said:
This Fox article has Assange suggest it's the unredacted contents:
Click to expand...

So again, it seems he's threatening to release information damaging to a country in order to get something.

Blackmail.

However, the sad part is, that any damage that could be done to the US from release is likely already done. The only people that will be hurt by releasing unredacted documents are the informants that led to capture or killing of terrorists, insurgents and criminals.
 
Wrathernaut said:
So again, it seems he's threatening to release information damaging to a country in order to get something.

Blackmail.

However, the sad part is, that any damage that could be done to the US from release is likely already done. The only people that will be hurt by releasing unredacted documents are the informants that led to capture or killing of terrorists, insurgents and criminals.
Click to expand...

I'm wondering what all that talk about "damage" is based on. Which damage? That WikiLeaks published documents that thousands of people had access to already?

The only damage i can see is that it became a fact that all that data collecting and hoarding is done without thinking it through. I mean, really, the more data is collected, the higher the chances for a leak. Especially if lots of people have access to it through their work. Keep in mind that it was not WikiLeaks who extracted the data somewhere. It was someone who had access to it and made a copy.

The time when spies had to photograph each page of a document manually are over. Nowdays you copy tons of data to something like a Micro-SD card, smaller than a fingernail, in seconds. It gets easier and easier to gain access to huge amounts of data, and to duplicate them. If that happens, better have that data made public, so that _everyone_ can react accordingly, instead of it being sold to some rouge government only. It may help to bring some honesty and decency back into the political arena.

Oh, and don't forget: At least in the case of democratic governments, they are elected by the people. They are to work _for_ these people. They are to represent _us_, to work in _our_ best interests. One could argue that whatever kind of data such a government produces, it belongs to the people anyways.

Otherwise, what damage? That it is now plain to see for everyone that political figures are not really honest to each other? That they trash-talk others? Oh, what a surprise! Things like WikiLeaks are important, it shows that you can't rely on bad behavior going unnoticed anymore, especially if you like to keep records of such behavior.

Oh, and what informants do you mean? The ones that infiltrate places and then try to talk the people there into doing nasty things? Like this one here?

Greetings,

Chris
 
I used to think wikileaks was a good thing. It never hurts to air out the house from time to time. "As long as it doesn't hurt anyone (beyond hurt feelings), it's not a bad thing." I had thought. Well, Assuange proved me wrong today.

(Latest Wikileaks release story on MSNBC:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40526224/ns/us_news-security/

There's no way I can think of that can justify this. I just can't. What good can possibly come from releasing something like this? If this is a "lesson", what's the lesson? The only one that I can think of is "Don't give information to wikileaks, because they'll use it help terrorists."
 
There are two pronged question you have to pose yourself : 1) is this list really that secret ? 2) now that the general public or others knows, can something good come out of it?

For 1) I doubt this was an unknown list in some circle. For 2) I am not sure, as if independent security researcher don't know the place where they should look for, all you have is security by obscurity which is notably weak.

So yes, it could bring acknowledgment that those infrastructure are critical, and bring people to rethink security or alternative for them, which they might have not if it was only hidden.
 
Mister Earl said:
There's no way I can think of that can justify this. I just can't. What good can possibly come from releasing something like this? If this is a "lesson", what's the lesson? The only one that I can think of is "Don't give information to wikileaks, because they'll use it help terrorists."
Click to expand...

I think it is a good idea nowdays to first strip away the terror-hysteria from news articles. Once done, let's think about what has leaked there: a list of infrastructure points around the globe. Unless these things are normally hidden under some magic invisibility-thingy, everyone can look them up and find them. What's supposedly so special about that?

That it is a precompiled list? I seriously doubt that anyone who intends to attack something is unable to gather that information by himself. If not already done so anyways.

What good can come from it? Well, the places in question can be better protected by the respective governments, now that they are marked "important". Unless of course one would assume that this list did also serve the purpose of having a list of possible targets in case some country does not do what is wanted. Surely, pure speculation on my part, but a possible one i think.

The other good thing that can come from it: think about what datasets you store how, and to whom you give access to it. If you want it to be secret, don't put it into a system where thousands of people have easy access in the first place.

Somehow, whenever WikiLeaks published something, there was an uproar about how that would threaten the lives of others, how it would be no good to governments, how bad it is. However, so far it has never been shown that that was more than mere speculation. To me it looks a lot like fabricated hysteria. Want something? Just say it's because of terror. Think something is bad? Connect it to terrorism. Want to detain people? Accuse them of ties to anything terrorism.

So, what exactly is so secret about a list of critical things, that everyone with two brain-cells and an internet connection can figure out on his own? I really fail to see that.

Greetings,

Chris
 
ddt said:
This Fox article has Assange suggest it's the unredacted contents:
Click to expand...

Yeah, real mature guy there. Of course, he's on a holy crusade! CRUSADERS, GO!

Wrathernaut said:
So again, it seems he's threatening to release information damaging to a country in order to get something.

Blackmail.

However, the sad part is, that any damage that could be done to the US from release is likely already done. The only people that will be hurt by releasing unredacted documents are the informants that led to capture or killing of terrorists, insurgents and criminals.
Click to expand...

Most likely.

Mister Earl said:
I used to think wikileaks was a good thing. It never hurts to air out the house from time to time. "As long as it doesn't hurt anyone (beyond hurt feelings), it's not a bad thing." I had thought. Well, Assuange proved me wrong today.

(Latest Wikileaks release story on MSNBC:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40526224/ns/us_news-security/

There's no way I can think of that can justify this. I just can't. What good can possibly come from releasing something like this? If this is a "lesson", what's the lesson? The only one that I can think of is "Don't give information to wikileaks, because they'll use it help terrorists."
Click to expand...

Because information should be free, man. No matter if it's legal, free ma*SHOT*

Sorry, I let my dumbself get access to the computer. But it's heavily the principle that secrets are bad, and a tangential belief that democracies should be crystal clear. Which uh.. is kinda good in ideal, but bad in practice. Whether or not there are too much secrets, this is *not* the way to go about fixing it.
 
Wrathernaut said:
So again, it seems he's threatening to release information damaging to a country in order to get something.
Click to expand...
What do you mean, "again"? :rolleyes:

Wrathernaut said:
Blackmail.
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No, a life insurance policy.

Wrathernaut said:
However, the sad part is, that any damage that could be done to the US from release is likely already done. The only people that will be hurt by releasing unredacted documents are the informants that led to capture or killing of terrorists, insurgents and criminals.
Click to expand...
You know, with all the grandstanding of the US government that Wikileaks' publications are damaging and threatening lives, can you cite one reason why Wikileaks wouldn't publish the unredacted documents? I mean, when you hear the USG, the damage has already been done anyhow. :rolleyes: However, they've failed to yet identify a single person whose life would be threatened by the publications.

Personally, when confronted with such hypocrisy, I would be very much tempted to do just that.

Christian Klippel said:
I'm wondering what all that talk about "damage" is based on. Which damage? That WikiLeaks published documents that thousands of people had access to already?
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IIRC, the number of people with access to documents classified as "secret" is 3 million.
 
ddt said:
What do you mean, "again"? :rolleyes:


No, a life insurance policy.
Click to expand...

Blackmail.

You know, with all the grandstanding of the US government that Wikileaks' publications are damaging and threatening lives, can you cite one reason why Wikileaks wouldn't publish the unredacted documents? I mean, when you hear the USG, the damage has already been done anyhow. :rolleyes: However, they've failed to yet identify a single person whose life would be threatened by the publications.
Click to expand...

When attacking a dog, be grateful if it only barks.
 
Rika said:
Blackmail.



When attacking a dog, be grateful if it only barks.
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I see. You also fail to identify a single person whose life has been endangered by Wikileaks' publications. Which proves my point.
 
ddt said:
IIRC, the number of people with access to documents classified as "secret" is 3 million.
Click to expand...

Hi ddt,

which documents do you refer to? Right now i'm talking only about the recent stuff, the cables. Sorry that i did not made that clearer. From what i have heard and read so far, there are about five thousand people who have access to the network in which these documents are stored, and of course to the documents themselves. Could also be that this info is wrong, of course, because one media outlet puts out a number, and everyone else is copying that.

On a side-note: i think that if there really was a free and investigative press left, thinks like WikiLeaks would never have gained so much momentum. I'm not saying that the press is somehow controlled by others, i'm not into such conspiracy theories. But it definitely lost it's "bite", so to say, at least here in Germany.

Greetings,

Chris
 
Christian Klippel said:
which documents do you refer to? Right now i'm talking only about the recent stuff, the cables. Sorry that i did not made that clearer. From what i have heard and read so far, there are about five thousand people who have access to the network in which these documents are stored, and of course to the documents themselves. Could also be that this info is wrong, of course, because one media outlet puts out a number, and everyone else is copying that.
Click to expand...
I was thinking of the cables too. From wiki's page on the SIPRnet network:
Access is quite wide. A 1993 GAO report estimated more than 3 million U.S. military and civilian personnel had clearance.
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That's how many people have access to the network over which the cables were transmitted and stored. I was wrong saying all those people have access to all "secret" documents. But how well that network is secured and access compartementalized is not clear.

Christian Klippel said:
On a side-note: i think that if there really was a free and investigative press left, thinks like WikiLeaks would never have gained so much momentum. I'm not saying that the press is somehow controlled by others, i'm not into such conspiracy theories. But it definitely lost it's "bite", so to say, at least here in Germany.
Click to expand...
Ditto here. When I grew up in the late 1970s and early 1980s, there still was - but that was in times that still reverberated from 1968, and in a polarized political landscape, that since has morphed into one gray mass, and the media has followed suit.

I wonder if investigative journalism in the traditional sense will ever come back. Radio and TV have to battle for ratings, and print media have to cope with diminishing sales for competition from free news websites. I think organizations like Wikileaks will indeed take over this "market". The downside is that, as of yet, the "internet landscape" is not yet recognized as mainstream journalism and there isn't yet the experience for full-fledged investigative journalism. The upside is that information, once out on the net, cannot be suppressed, not even by incarcerating the responsible persons, like Franz-Josef Strauss tried with Der Spiegel and Rudolf Augstein. I've done my bit and set up a mirror of Wikileaks. :D
 
Insurance.aes256 was released like a year ago. No one has attempted to assassinate Assange yet. Why have I seen this pointless conjecture twice in one day?
 
And yet, no one has tried to kill Assange for the file to be released yet. Strange how that works.
 
So if he doesn't get killed by someone wanting the file to be released, you're right (but not yet), and if he does get killed, it was probably by someone wanting the file to be released (according to you), and you're right. Unbeatable.
 
Some fun facts about the file:

$ openssl enc -d -aes256 -in insurance.aes256 > out.dec
use ONION as password.

$ openssl enc -d -bf -in insurance.aes256 > out.dec
use ROUTER as password

ONION also works as password for blowfish. However, the result seems to be encrypted again. Got that from a quick peek here and here

Greetings,

Chris
 
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