Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Earthquake Damage]

Anyone else curious what's in the encrypted doc he's threatening to release if anyone really fucks with him? Is 256-byte encryption like psychotically advanced?

If it works at all like I suspect, then it uses a pair of large prime numbers as keys.  How large?  256¹²⁸-1 (possible values, obviously not all of which are prime) is big enough to make it damned hard to decrypt, since you have to brute force it.

[ChairmanPoo]

Anon is taking action against the companies that are fighting Wikileaks.

Which is to say, DDoSing random websites a few script kiddies think have something to do with "stopping" WikiLeaks, and emailing overblown Anon-Army recruiting videos to NBC.

I always love watching these dopes act all important.  It's so heartwarmingly tragic.

It's a bigger deal than usual. Paypal relies on conducting transactions, so if their servers are down, they lose money. Also I read around that the swiss bank that blocked assange's account was having trouble operating, as well as some visa and mastercard online services:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11935539

http://pandalabs.pandasecurity.com/tis-the-season-of-ddos-wikileaks-editio/

[nenjin]

If this turns out like it might, I call the troll decker with the assault van.

[Vactor]

back to the publishing of afghan civilians names:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130600687

is an article that mentions that wikileaks did in fact publish afghan civilian's names.  The Taliban had also released a contemporaneous statement saying they would be combing through the documents to punish collaborators. 

[alway]

Anyone else curious what's in the encrypted doc he's threatening to release if anyone really fucks with him? Is 256-byte encryption like psychotically advanced?

If it works at all like I suspect, then it uses a pair of large prime numbers as keys.  How large?  256¹²⁸-1 (possible values, obviously not all of which are prime) is big enough to make it damned hard to decrypt, since you have to brute force it.

Popsci did an article on it actually.
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-12/how-secure-julian-assanges-thermonuclear-insurance-file

It is, in short, a tremendously badass form of protection.

[nenjin]

Good read, thanks.

[Tsarwash]

This is a link to ten of wikileaks finest moments according to the Telegraph, a right wing paper in the UK.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/8070253/Wikileaks-10-greatest-stories.html

There are certainly some worthy bits of information there that should not be secret. I particulary like the scientology one.

[Aqizzar]

Popsci did an article on it actually.
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-12/how-secure-julian-assanges-thermonuclear-insurance-file

It is, in short, a tremendously badass form of protection.

Yet more evidence for why Assange turned himself in - by making a public scene of his arrest, he's probably in the safest place he can be, in terms of the leak fiasco.  He's in plain sight, under a government's responsibility to protect him.  That makes it considerably harder for him to disappear for some coercion, whatever form that might be.  That said, he pulled one heck of an insurance ploy; the material is out there, anyone in the world can have it, they're just waiting for a key.  Even if the the key is wrangled or bought out of him, that doesn't make the files disappear.  It's a weird and new form of information-hostage - he handed away his bargaining chip, but he can still kind of use it, by virtue of still being the only guy who can release it.

And hey, link to the torrent.  Aw'right.

[Leafsnail]

That information hostage thing is... woah.  Christ.

And that Telegraph article is interesting, although the BNP members one is gonna open another can of worms.

[Sowelu]

I'm sure it's on a dead-man's trigger.

[Aqizzar]

I'm sure it's on a dead-man's trigger.

In a very literal sense, it's just a matter of time.  The information exists, and is publicly available.  Nothing can be done about that.  The question for the "government", namely America, is how to keep him from releasing the key, so that the information at least isn't opened in this lifetime.  That said, if Assange is anywhere near as smart as he likes to act, he couldn't possibly be the only person with the key.  Heck, as a 256 character binary string, unless he has it tattooed on him, Assange's corpus or cooperation is essentially irrelevant.

How much would anyone like to bet that the key is part of some completely innocuous file already floating around all over the Internet, just waiting for a WikiLeaks member to identify it?

[nenjin]

I'm guessing people are authorized to contact his lawyer, and when his lawyer gives the go ahead, the key will be released. I.e. the first time he's prevented from talking to his client or he shows signs of duress.

That said, Assange is clearly in this for the long haul. Until it's discovered what's in that file, he's not going anywhere. If he threatens to release the key to gain his freedom, depending on what's in there, if they call his bluff it will be hard to make the case against espionage. He's given them all the ammunition they need to keep him in prison indefinitely, once the rape allegations are sorted through. 

Heck, as a 256 character binary string, unless he has it tattooed on him, Assange's corpus or cooperation is essentially irrelevant.

How much would anyone like to bet that the key is part of some completely innocuous file already floating around all over the Internet, just waiting for a WikiLeaks member to identify it?

He's already said a few core wikileaks members have the key. They won't release it without his say-so though.

The only thing saving Assange from real persecution from all sides was the nature of the releases. If he's smart there's no military data in there that can do actual harm to troops in the field. If there's any of that kind of stuff in there, regardless of whatever else comes to light, he's going to lose sympathy in most quarters I think.

[Sowelu]

Man, that is just waiting for sudden massive simultaneous arrests.

[Urist Imiknorris]

How much would anyone like to bet that the key is part of some completely innocuous file already floating around all over the Internet, just waiting for a WikiLeaks member to identify it?

Aqizzar? Conspiracy theories? I never thought I'd see the day.

[SalmonGod]

Yet more evidence for why Assange turned himself in - by making a public scene of his arrest, he's probably in the safest place he can be, in terms of the leak fiasco.  He's in plain sight, under a government's responsibility to protect him.  That makes it considerably harder for him to disappear for some coercion, whatever form that might be.

As I said a few pages back, if he had been caught outside of the public eye, they could have done anything they wanted to him and made up any kind of story to justify it.  Sure, people would be highly suspicious to outright condemning of the disappearance, but the damage control would be completely in the hands of authorities who are quite capable and experienced in dealing with such things.