Wikileaks bitch-slaps the world in the nuts...

[browneyedgirl]

Good Lord, his threat makes you wonder what it is he does know! Or maybe he's bluffing?

[bockrocker]

I know that non-coms (and higher ranks) get security clearance, but I'm not sure 100% how overall rank ties in with the Army's security clearance policies.

AFAIK, it's not about the rank, it's about the security clearance you have. If everything works right in the system, you can't have an access to the documents above your clearance. I also highly doubt that a simple soldier would have an access to the State Department documents, but with enough computer knowledge and a crappy security everything is possible. Hell, part of my army service was as a computer technician, and we knew every password to every system on the base and could get everywhere - including base commander's personal computer and human resources database with a data about every soldier on the base, no matter the clearance. I wasn't even an officer, I finished my service with a rank of staff sergeant.

So the guy who actually leaked the documents may have been working with someone above him but with enough determination he could've gotten to the documents by himself. As it looks, the computer security was really shitty.

If I recall the story correctly, the soldier claimed to go to work everyday with a CDRW, and pretend to be lip syncing to Lady Gaga all day while he downloaded documents. Then in super sneaky fashion he disseminated the documents in internet chatrooms under the name Bradass87 - after literally seconds of research the army found an intelligence analyst named Brad born in 1987

[Carcass]

And hang on, didn't he already disclose the whole lot to 5 newspapers?

Yes, but apparently WikiLeaks omitted names and details.

The 1.3-gigabyte file, distributed through file-sharing services this summer and protected with an unbreakable 256-bit encryption key, contains full versions of all the U.S. documents received by WikiLeaks to date – including those that have been withheld from publication or have had names and details removed in order to protect the lives of spies, sources and soldiers.

Mr. Assange’s lawyer Mark Stephens warned that if Mr. Assange were to be brought to trial on rape accusations he faces in Sweden, or for treason charges that have been suggested by U.S. politicians, he would release the encryption key. The tens of thousands of people who have downloaded the file would instantly have access to the names, addresses and details contained in the file.

[browneyedgirl]

well, according to the latest news Assauge has given himself up to UK authorities. Maybe he thinks he will get more lenient sentence, or something?

[miditek]

Is any code unbreakable? Even a '265-bit encryption key'?

Probabably a 256-bit Triple DES key (very common on Cisco, Juniper, and similar VPN connections)on the network, and the data set itself being encrypted with a key of similar strength.

Stealing the key(s) by compromising the certificate server (from the inside) would be far simpler than trying to crack the key with brute force or similar methods.

[NeverendingAbyss]

Is any code unbreakable? Even a '265-bit encryption key'?

Probabably a 256-bit Triple DES key (very common on Cisco, Juniper, and similar VPN connections)on the network, and the data set itself being encrypted with a key of similar strength.

Stealing the key(s) by compromising the certificate server (from the inside) would be far simpler than trying to crack the key with brute force or similar methods.

Either way, I'm seeding the file.

There should be a leak of the code. A secret within a secret. An IDEA!



I N C E P T I O N

[AAAAAAAAAA]

Either way, I'm seeding the file.

I dunno, Pablo.
I really don't think Julian Ass-ange is doing us a big favor by leaking confidential government documents. Its really naive to write this off under the pretense of an "open government".

This half-wit needs to be held behind bars...and believe me, I'm not suggesting you caress him in an English pub.

[NeverendingAbyss]

Either way, I'm seeding the file.

I dunno, Pablo.
I really don't think Julian Ass-ange is doing us a big favor by leaking confidential government documents. Its really naive to write this off under the pretense of an "open government".

This half-wit needs to be held behind bars...and believe me, I'm not suggesting you caress him in an English pub.

I dunno, Geraldo.

It's not about leaking confidential government information, but rather shutting down a domain simply because of exposing the truth. Think about it. An internet without leaks or torrents is apocalyptic. The gov't has NO right to control the internet (except for Net Neutrality). No gov't owns the entire internet. So... fuck them.

[AAAAAAAAAA]

Poor, misinformed Pablo.
The US government did not shut down wikileaks; amazon.com stopped hosting the site, which is well within their rights.

PS: How the hell do you know my name? :pissed5:

[bockrocker]

The US government did not shut down wikileaks; amazon.com stopped hosting the site, which is well within their rights.

Well no one thought the site was being hosted by the U.S. government, but whether Amazon terminated hosting by their own accord or at the behest of the government (in which case, we definitely won't find out...until it's leaked ). Amazon said they don't host sites the break the law or such, AFAIK Assange/wikileaks has not been charged with anything in the U.S. yet.

[AGAG]

Amazon is back!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004EEOLIU

[JensJohansson]

Is any code unbreakable? Even a '265-bit encryption key'?

It is unbreakable. (Let's set aside any ideas about quantum hardware, multiple universes, waiting until the heat death of the universe, harnessing the energy of a trillion suns to run the world's biggest Pentium-III computer ever, etc etc)

It's 256-bit AES, I assume properly salted, and I also sort assume they picked a good strong key.

I'm assuming the CIA / Mossad / anyone else who'd want to kill Assange will not need to break the cipher. I'm assuming Assange already shared the key with them so they could take a peek at the contents themselves. That is what I would do.

[adrian9]

Is any code unbreakable? Even a '265-bit encryption key'?

It is unbreakable. (Let's set aside any ideas about quantum hardware, multiple universes, waiting until the heat death of the universe, harnessing the energy of a trillion suns to run the world's biggest Pentium-III computer ever, etc etc)

It's 256-bit AES, I assume properly salted, and I also sort assume they picked a good strong key.

I'm assuming the CIA / Mossad / anyone else who'd want to kill Assange will not need to break the cipher. I'm assuming Assange already shared the key with them so they could take a peek at the contents themselves. That is what I would do.

so...unbreakable it is..huh?

[NeverendingAbyss]

amazon.com stopped hosting the site

Because of Gov't pressure. Same with Paypal.

[NeonVomit]

Fantastic article by Henry Porter

WikiLeaks may make the powerful howl, but we are learning the truth
WikiLeaks has offered us glimpses of how the world works. And in most cases nothing but good can come of it

I have lost count of the politicians and opinion formers of an authoritarian bent warning of the dreadful damage done by the WikiLeaks dump of diplomatic cables, and in the very next breath dismissing the content as frivolous tittle-tattle. To seek simultaneous advantage from opposing arguments is not a new gambit, but to be wrong in both is quite an achievement.

Publication of the cables has caused no loss of life; troops are not being mobilised; and the only real diplomatic crisis is merely one of discomfort. The idea that the past two weeks have been a disaster is self-evidently preposterous. Yet the leaks are of unprecedented importance because, at a stroke, they have enlightened the masses about what is being done in their name and have shown the corruption, incompetence – and sometimes wisdom – of our politicians, corporations and diplomats. More significantly, we have been given a snapshot of the world as it is, rather than the edited account agreed upon by diverse elites, whose only common interest is the maintenance of their power and our ignorance.

The world has changed, not simply because governments find they are just as vulnerable to the acquisition, copying and distribution of huge amounts of data as the music, publishing and film businesses were, but because we are unlikely to return to the happy ignorance of the past. Knowing Saudi Arabia has urged the bombing of Iran, that Shell maintains an iron grip on the government of Nigeria, that Pfizer hired investigators to disrupt investigations into drugs trials on children, also in Nigeria, that the Pakistan intelligence service, the ISI, is swinging both ways on the Taliban, that China launched a cyber attack on Google, that North Korean has provided nuclear scientists to Burma, that Russia is a virtual mafia state in which security services and gangsters are joined at the hip – and knowing all this in some detail – means we are far more likely to treat the accounts of events we are given in the future with much greater scepticism.

Never mind the self-serving politicians who waffle on about the need for diplomatic confidentiality when they themselves order the bugging of diplomats and hacking of diplomatic communications. What is astonishing is the number of journalists out there who argue that it is better not to know these things, that the world is safer if the public is kept in ignorance. In their swooning infatuation with practically any power elite that comes to hand, some writers for the Murdoch press and Telegraph titles argue in essence for the Chinese or Russian models of deceit and obscurantism. They advocate the continued infantilising of the public.

Nothing is new. In 1771, that great lover of liberty, John Wilkes, and a number of printers challenged the law that prohibited the reporting of Parliamentary debates and speeches, kept secret because those in power argued that the information was too sensitive and would disrupt the life of the country if made public. Using the arcane laws of the City of London, Alderman Wilkes arranged for the interception of the Parliamentary messengers sent to arrest the printers who had published debates, and in doing so successfully blocked Parliament. By 1774, a contemporary was able to write: "The debates in both houses have been constantly printed in the London papers." From that moment, the freedom of the press was born.

It took a libertine to prove that information enriched the functioning of British society, a brave maverick who was constantly moving house – and sometimes country – to avoid arrest; whose epic sexual adventures had been used by the authorities as a means of entrapping and imprisoning him. The London mob came out in his favour and, supplemented by shopkeepers and members of the gentry on horseback, finally persuaded the establishment of the time to accept that publication was inevitable. And the kingdom did not fall.

Over the past few weeks, there have been similarly dire predictions from sanctimonious men and women of affairs about the likely impacts of publication, and of course Julian Assange finds himself banged up in Wandsworth nick, having neither been formally charged with, nor found guilty of, the sex crimes he is alleged to have committed in Sweden. Making no comment about his guilt or innocence, or the possibility of his entrapment, I limit myself to saying that we have been here before with John Wilkes; and the reason for this is that authorities the world over and through history react the same way when there is a challenge to a monopoly of information.

It is all about power and who has access to information. Nothing more. When those who want society to operate on the basis of the parent-child relationship because it is obviously easier to manage, shut the door and say "not in front of the children", they are usually looking after their interests, not ours.

I don't argue for a free-for-all, regardless of the consequences. In the WikiLeaks cables, knowledge and the editing and reporting skills found in the old media, combined with the new ability to locate and seize enormous amounts of information on the web, has actually resulted in responsible publication, with names, sources, locations and dates redacted to protect people's identities and their lives.

America is sore and naturally feels exposed, but the state department would have had much less cause for regret if it had listened to Ross Anderson, the Cambridge professor often quoted here in relation to Labour's obsession with huge databases of personal information. His rule states that it is a mathematical impossibility to maintain a large and functional database that is also secure. Hillary Clinton must rue the day that the Bush administration built a great silo of cables that could be accessed by three million staff. The Chinese and Russians would never have been so trusting.

There has been more than a hint that China and Russia have empathised with the Americans. The unseen affinities of the powerful may also be responsible for the unforgivable behaviour by Amazon, which pulled the plug on hosting WikiLeaks, and PayPal, Visa and MasterCard, which unilaterally stopped customers making donations to WikiLeaks. There was not the slightest consideration of principles about free information or the freedom of their customers to make up their own minds. What next? Will these corporate giants be blocking payment to the New York Times and the Guardian? It is hard to feel much regret over the cyber attacks on their websites because, in the end, they did not seem much better than Shell and Pfizer, the companies that appear to be running so much of Nigeria like the worst type of imperial powers.

Nothing but good can come from revelations about these companies, and in this brief moment when we have a glimpse of how things really are, we should relish the fact that publication of the cables, as well as the shameful reactions to it, have brought light, not fire.

[bockrocker]

Cool little documentary series put on youtube last week, has a lot of information about the players in wikileaks besides Assange that you don't usually hear about, very intriguing watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhTfOL9_HBE