WikiLeaks Urges Public to Download ‘Insurance’ File

[Turborama]

This is interesting, to say the least. Whistle-blowing organization Wikileaks is urging the public to download their ever-so-famous “insurance” file from The Pirate Bay, according to a recently transmitted tweet. This file, nearly 2GB in size, is said to contain thousands of secret U.S. documents aimed at embarrassing the nation’s government, and potentially causing harm to the United States’ relations with allies.

The file has been around since this Summer and is heavily encrypted (AES-256). In the event of Wikileaks’ founder’s (Julian Assange) death (or some other unspecified reason), the secret key would be released — exposing the documents to all who have downloaded and obtained the key.

We’re not sure as to why Wikileaks is now urging users to download the file, but it just may be that they’re soon planning to release the key.

This is a developing story. Stay tuned.

http://erictric.com/2010/11/25/wikileaks-urges-public-to-download-insurance-file/

And this from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptome">Cryptome, the precursor to Wikileaks:

26 November 2010. A sends:

However, in the Goodman interview, when asked to explain the file, Assange stated:
“Well, I think it’s better that we don’t comment on that.” He then followed that with a thought-provoking comment: “But, you know, one could imagine in a similar situation that it might be worth ensuring that important parts of history do not disappear.”

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/295597#ixzz16PdfFV00


______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

26 November 2010

Wikileaks History Insurance

The Wikileaks tweet yesterday on downloading "history insurance" with a link to the Pirate Bay Torrent does not necessarily mean only the "insurance.aes256" uploaded on July 28, 2010.

The novel phrase, "history insurance," not heretofore advertized by Wikileaks, may refer to another Wikileaks protective measure or it may be a pointer, code word or passphrase, even one of the likely multi-level passphrases for the "insurance.aes256" file.

Those adept at openSSL -- apparently used to encrypt the insurance.aes256 file -- might want to try the phrase and its variations as password.

A search of torrents turned up a handful of hits on "history insurance," but none appear to be related to recent actions of Wikileaks. However, shrewdly, Wikileaks could have pre-postioned a slew of protective measures before the bombshell campaign started, perhaps as early as the initiation of Wikileaks in late 2006 if not well before then by Assange and collaborators to create a secret "historical" air-gap between the measures and the public venture. These would be unveiled as necessary commensurate with threats unveiled, but never fully revealed despite rubber-hose interrogation -- "rubber hose" an Assange nick for an encryption program.

More: http://cryptome.org/0003/wikileaks-history.htm

The original OP about it in LBN from the end of July: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4486591&mesg_id=4486591">WikiLeaks founder uploads mystery 1.4GB "Insurance" file

[ConsAreLiars]

1. If clicking that link doesn't work, try

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5723136

If you don't know how to access/download .torrent files, ask for more information.

[Ghost Dog]

2. Why does it have to be a .torrent?

Why not also a standard compressed archive for straight download?

I am reluctant to install a filesharing client on this computer.

[bemildred]

3. Two Gig takes a long time with a single connection.

Torrents multi-route for more bandwidth IIRC. But I share your reluctance. Maybe someone could burn some DVDs and sell them for a nominal price. I'd pay $5 just to have a copy to store in the closet.

[HipChick]

4. Too trackable..

I'll pass

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

48. BitTorrent is reliable and secure. Linux distributions and PC game updates are distributed with it.

http://www.bittorrent.com/btusers/download

[bemildred]

49. And hard to trace too ...

I know that's redundant, but that's what onion routing is all about.

[Turborama]

5. My ISP has blocked to*rrents and any related sites to all subscribers

I can't even type the word and post this (I tried 4 or 5 times and it just hung), hence adding the *, I kid you not.

They've even blocked the UK version of Google, too. All because someone apparently downloaded something from the UK.

I used to love being able to download TV shows I can't watch here.

I'm changing ISP as soon as my subscription runs out.

[girl gone mad]

7. Get a new isp.

[Turborama]

57. I intend to.

They said they had no choice, orders from above apperently, and it would only be temporary. I have given them 1 1/2 months and, if it isn't sorted before, they can come and pick up their satellite equipment next week when the next payment is due.

[Poll_Blind]

12. My God, may I please inquire as to who your ISP is? That is freaking atrocious.

:puke:

PB

[Odin2005]

15. Jesus! What's the ISP?

:grr:

Mine cut off my internet access until I "apologized" for downloading stuff off the Azerus Vuze torrent I used. Fuckers.

[Turborama]

58. It's a small provincial one which is about to lose a lot of customers and possibly go bankrupt

Idiots.

[Bodhi BloodWave]

9. i'll post the same thing i wrote in the other identical topic

Since some people who support wikileaks are of the opinion that all information should be known.

I will not download the file since I do not know what is in that file, nor do i trust what is in that file until wikileaks post an exact count of everything that is within it, after all, why are they keeping the information of the file hidden?

[Eddie Haskell]

26. DHS is shutting down the sites

[Pavulon]

29. Would be interesting if they were shutting down the players..

waiting for these guys to go to far and get stamped by someone. Not assange, all of them in an afternoon. For the people they are poking in the eye it is just a matter of exposure vs damage they are doing.

[Ruby the Liberal]

6. Does anyone have a non-torrent link to this file?

[Poll_Blind]

8. Don't worry, after this is released Wired or somebody will pop it up.

You might even want to wait a little bit till an SQL database version comes out. I'm looking forward to lighting-quick searches and cross-references from RAM with this baby.

Usual suspects Wired.com, check SlashDot threads- it'll be going up on FTP/HTTP.

PB

[Ruby the Liberal]

13. Ooooh. A dB version of this would be awesome.

I would volunteer in a heartbeat for a project like that.

[Poll_Blind]

14. Do you know how to write a script to filter and import this into SQL and the...

...understanding of architecting the DB for these kinds of records? Presumably they're short diplomatic cables which are going to have lots of header information which would best be parsed pretty heavily and those things indexed for searches.

If you do, assuming this doesn't come out in an easily searchable/cross-referencable form, just uploading the Perl script someplace so people could locally process the data would be super useful.

PB

[Ruby the Liberal]

18. What format are they in?

pdf could be a challenge as there are no reliable optical scans publically available that are worth a crap.

I do indeed do SQL scripting and also code OOP php. If someone could figure out how to load the data to MySQL, I would be more than happy to optimize the tables and write the php interface then toss it out onto a domain for easy access (or make the dB and interface files available for those who want to load php/MySQL locally).

[Poll_Blind]

22. I'm thinking we're talking about raw ASCII records. I dunno tho.

I imagine in such a system- there's a special system diplomats have been using since the 90's for these kinds of transmissions, which have to be encoded and decoded, possibly several times- that what's going to come out from a dump is going to be a buttload of ASCII records. Maybe UTF-8, but since we haven't adopted metric yet as a country, somehow I doubt it.

:rofl:

But still, lots of unkonwns and also unknown is how much work the various WikiLeaks partners have done, which could be extensive and possibly make some of this moot. I'm just a local-search kinda guy. :)

PB

[Ruby the Liberal]

25. I have donated to them in the past, so am on their mailing list

I'll reach out for technical details if they will supply them.

[Posteritatis]

43. Well, it'd have to be decrypted first. (nt)

[kgnu_fan]

10. Julian's safety is at risk. And he knows this possibility.

[Poll_Blind]

11. This is his "job", though, and one he takes on willingly, to his credit.

He takes the heat so that the leakers don't have to. The more attention on Assange, the better! In fact, there's even this sort of pseudo-meme that I see in some comments as though WikiLeaks actually goes and hacks this information out themselves, which couldn't be farther from the truth, of course.

But all of this, all of it, acts as a distraction away from the leakers. Which is exactly why WikiLeaks, exists.

PB

[sabrina 1]

16. Clever of Wikileaks to have that insurance.

I don't have a clue though about technology so really don't understand how it would work. If eg, the governments who are angry at Wikileaks really wanted to stop them, couldn't they take down the 'insurance' also? Not sure how eg, the 'key' would work if the governments involved were aware of it and could eg, scramble everything.

[Incitatus]

39. The file has already been distributed to enough people. that even if the government could stop

distribution, the people that already have it will be able to read it as soon as the key is released. The key is much, much smaller than the 2 gb file and would be impossible for the government to prevent it from being disseminated.

[Posteritatis]

50. Basically the idea is for it to be too spread out to deal with

If I have a sheet of paper containing Embarrassing Secrets on it, someone can take said page and lock me up or fire me into the Sun or whatever and nobody'll be able to hear about the contents.

If I read the contents of said piece of paper on live national television, on the other hand, there's nothing that can be done to prevent it from remaining out in the open.

The key to decrypt the file is basically graven in stone; it can't be changed and the type of encryption in particular is the sort of thing that, say, the entire computer collection owned by all DUers could work on cracking for a couple hundred years before having a reasonable shot at breaking it. (I'm not exaggerating. Modern encryption is ... potent.) If I had a copy of it on my computer, or on a USB key in my attic or whatnot, there isn't anything that could be done to deal with it, and I'd be able to open it whenever I wanted to if I got a hold of the key.

Making the insurance file publicly available is sort of the equivalent of reading the piece of paper on national television - there's copies of it all over the place now, utterly impossible to reliably destroy. Of course, we can't read them yet, but one utterance of the decryption key in the right place would have the same effect.

[truedelphi]

17. President Obama has already stated that anyone downloading the Wikileaks file

May at some time in the future be considered a terrorist against the state.

Source: Video of Daniel Ellsberg, shown on C Span, with Ellsberg stating that Obama is trying to get the same penalties for Wikileaks founder Assange that the man would face in Britain under the Official Secrets Act (Even though the USA doesn't have an Official Secrets Act.

This indicates that many of us are now Enemy Combatants.

As Ellsberg stated that Obama wants some tough penalties for those of us who downloaded the Wikileaks files.

So far he hasn't made the "You are either with us or against us" speech, but I find his statement quite chilling.

[Ruby the Liberal]

19. Why do you think we are expressing reluctance about using bittorrent technology?

Thanks, but I have no need for P2P software on my system just to get a zip/rar file.

I would much rather SSH and run the rar through that download method.

[truedelphi]

23. PM sent.

Hoping you will help.

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[truedelphi]

21. Pavalon,.there was a time in the not so distant past,

when people asked for references in a kind and polite way.

I don't like your tone at all.

However rather than being a potty mouth, perhaps you could peruse the vast library over at C span and look for the Assange/Ellsberg video which was recorded by C Span on Oct 23 2010.

once at the Video Library site of C Span, the date and the library search function should get it for you.

You can also visit YouTube and look at the wonderful interviews offered by Ellsberg and Assange.

These two men are Truth Speakers, and in my book, they are heroes.

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[truedelphi]

31. The link is the words that came from the mouths of the

Two document leakers: Daniel Ellsberg and also Mr Assange.

If you' re concerned that Common Dreams or that I am making this stuff up, then please go look it up yourself. Terms on Google: C Span + video + library + 10-23-2010

It is a video with these men talking about this.

And FWIW, I too worked to get the elections to be free, non-stolen elections, so that the debacles of 2000, and 2004 would not be repeated in 2008. I worked for Mr Obama's election.

The fact that he immediately got into bed with the same ol same ol: NAFTA, (Rahm Emanuel) and Wall Street interests like Geithner, and Monsanto interests like Velsick and like Mijke Taylor, means that the only way I can keep my sanity is to work hard for the good of my country (I'm a country over party person) so we have New People like Feingold and Grayson on the Dem ticket come 2012.

[sabrina 1]

41. No, no one owes anyone anything when it is demanded in a disrespecful way.

As a matter of fact, I thought incivility was now against the rules here.

And I agree with the commenter you are attacking. Those two men are heroes.

[Pavulon]

45. All depends on who you allign with.

the east german police had lots of fans too. the poster never backed up their purported obama statement. They may not have meant to say he was calling us all criminals, but they did.

Hey since you agree can you post up the words coming out of obama's mouth? Of course you cant, cause it never happened.

[flyarm]

61. I was just in East Berlin, in fact at Berlin's Topography of Terror museum

the exibition's first several rows had a common theme, How did Hitler gain the power he did and how did the Reich win power.

It was won the Exibit proves , by destroying the RULE OF LAW, which in turn destroyed the Democracy known in Germany pre Hitler.

Hitler took over the police. He took over the police with the Gestapo, and propaganda. He took the power away from the local police.

The reich and Hitler broke RULE OF LAW repeatedly, until it no longer existed for the police state.

[jberryhill]

69. That exhibit is a little weird

I was there a couple of weeks ago, and the protrayal of Hitler is as if he is some sort of comical character.

The thing conveyed to me a view that some kind of aliens landed, screwed up Germany, and then departed in their spaceship. Germans had little apparent involvement in what happened in the meantime.

If you kept along the wall route, that Trabant Tour place on the corner has some incredible vehicles - the stretch Trabant rules.

[flyarm]

70. I nor the people i took there on a tour thought it was weird at all! In fact when we all walked out

of there..most were silent..for several minutes and when everyone did resume talking they all agreed..we are seeing the same stuff going onin our country today! Frightfully so!

And all agreed, that every American should see this exhibit..they would shutter at what is going on here at home with these comparrisons..they would all come back home and throw everyone out of our government and start the hell over!

[tavalon]

38. You can ask for a link

without behaving badly. We're on the same team, here.

[PeaceNikki]

28. That statement was about the release of the documents, not the downloading of them.

[truedelphi]

32. Not according to Ellsberg.

And I will go to my grave trusting in Daniel.

[PeaceNikki]

33. So Ellsberg stated that Obama may, at some point, consider downloaders

terrorists against the state? Obama didn't state such a thing at all. Which is what you said.

[flyarm]

62. as will I ! eom

[ChiciB1]

24. Kicking This So I Can Come Back & Check This Out Later... n/t

[herbm]

30. Could this be downloaded onto a flash drive?

[JesterCS]

35. Yes,

I copied mine over to my flash drive and scrubbed it from my harddrive. planning on taking it to a few friends house that dont have internet and storing it there =D with their permission of course

[herbm]

37. I actually feel like this is important work.

[cbdo2007]

34. better idea - just one person download the file and tell the rest of us what it says...

when the time comes.

It's not like none of us are going to find out when the info is leaked. It'll be front page news all over the world.

[Posteritatis]

44. Currently people can only download it, not view its contents, which are profoundly encrypted. (nt)

[Shandris]

36. Wasn't Pirate Bay the site that was purchased by an FBI front?

[Hissyspit]

40. The Global Gaming Factory non-acquistion?

They are centered in Sweden. What evidence do you have that it was ever purchased by an FBI front?

[Independem]

42. What If?

I see that the War on Terror is really an illegal War of Trade. Osama bin Laden was dead and buried even before the shock and awe over the skies of Baghdad was over. He died on the 15th of December 2001 in Tora Bora of kidney failure, and his body was flown out over night and buried the next day in the family plot in Saudi Arabia. It was in all the Arabic language newspapers. Funny how it never appeared in the New York Times, even though you all knew about it through Al Jazeera.

http://www.philipbrennan.net/2010/08/02/editorial-marc-a-thiessen-calls-for-the-arrest-of-julian-assange-of-wikileaks/

Will WikiLeaks unravel the American 'Secret Government'?

NATIONAL SECURITY STATE AND 'DEEP POLITICS'

That the imperatives of running a 'national security state', which was envisioned in 1947, led successive governments and secret agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to carry out hundreds of covert operations across the globe is quite a banal piece of information. Documents declassified dozens of years after the events have shown daring, ruthless and diplomatically unjustifiable actions undertaken by the government and secret agencies in the past

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/86057/20101126/wikileaks-secret-documents-us-state-department-julian-assange-manning-iraq-afghanistan-cia-jfk-kenne.htm

[Pavulon]

47. This is why i hate wikidick. it feeds MIHOP

and tinfoil insanity with data out of context. Assange is feeding stupidity, globally.

[flyarm]

63. orrr....You are. eom

[Rex]

46. The Admiral and his TIA mainframe await to count the downloads

and track their IP addresses with frothy glee! I hear he rented a spot in Cheney's bunker.

[Posteritatis]

51. Not that that would do much

IP addresses are hardly the computer equivalent of DNA evidence, and are utterly trivial to obfuscate.

[Rex]

52. Yes and how many normal people are gong to spoof their IP?

None, no one will they will just download the information like it was a video online at YouTube.

[Posteritatis]

53. Most "normal people" aren't likely to download this in the first place

And I don't mean spoofing an IP, I mean downloading the thing from an unsecured wireless network, or a school, or whatever else there is among the options. And that's before getting into the fact that even the "correct" IP address isn't a perfect reliable pointer to a specific person and machine these days, or even necessarily close to that.

[Rex]

54. Look, the TIA machine can tell all and see all.

It is already in use predicting future crimes!

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

59. Ahhh, now I see who you're spoofing.

The Herald of Infallibility!

[Rex]

65. Exactly!

You must know the known unknowns so a fool can never get fooled again. Shame on him! :hi:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

67. And content. Don't forget content. -nt

[MaynardGeeKrebs]

60. So how do I "Spoof" my IP Address???

I've been reluctant to download from Wikileaks because of traceability concerns.

[howard112211]

66. Look here:

http://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en

Easy to use. Just download and execute. Works for anonymously accessing websites, but does not spoof bittorrent traffic.

[Posteritatis]

68. Or just use a connection other than the home one

Obviously if I download that from my house at least the general neighborhood can be pinpointed, but if I drive across town, sit in a cafe and suck down the file from an open wifi connection across the street...

[EFerrari]

55. Good! I hope those 100,000 leads keep him busy.

lol

[Rex]

56. They all lead to porn sites

the download is EPIC! :hi:

[ConsAreLiars]

64. Done.

The more the merrier.

[Turborama]

71. THIS must be why he wants everyone to download it....

...they're releasing them in stages and might be "stopped": http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9647592