WIKILEAKS history insurance.

nzshadownzshadow 5,518 Posts
edited November 2010 in Strut Central
http://erictric.com/2010/11/25/wikileaks-urges-public-to-download-insurance-file/

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.

Update: The WikiLeaks website has gone down.
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  Comments


  • S.C.A.M.

  • nzshadownzshadow 5,518 Posts
    How so?

    Wikileaks is not in the business of scamming, they leave that up to the Governments they expose.

  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,896 Posts
    Yeah. Hardly a scam. Looking forwad to this.

    Funny the government is telling their allies that we might be a bit pissed at them after this release.

    In some countries the US is already starting to lose favor as government are finding out the US has been spying on their citizens without the governments knowledge.

  • *crickets*

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,913 Posts


    Jokes aside, there seem to be very few, if any, real surprises amongst the stuff that's leaked so far. Russian government linked to the mob? China embarrassed by North Korea? Espionage is rife at the UN building (I mean, DUH - why do people think it's located in NY to begin with)? Hardly shocking, any of it.

    Also, much as the tin-foil hat brigade would like us to think otherwise, not everything kept out of the public eye is done so because of a compulsive desire by governments to hoodwink their citizens. Valuable as thoughtful and conscientious leaks can be, much of this looks like a massive breach of confidentiality and privacy. Crass indiscretion and true transparency of government are very different things. Assange doesn't seem to grasp this.

  • I read somewhere that Wikileaks refused to give a copy of the documents to CNN as they wouldn't sign a confidentiality agreement...

    Who said irony is dead?

  • DocMcCoyDocMcCoy "Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,913 Posts
    neil_something said:
    I read somewhere that Wikileaks refused to give a copy of the documents to CNN as they wouldn't sign a confidentiality agreement...

    Who said irony is dead?

    Yeah, that was fucking priceless.

  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,896 Posts
    hi??lar??i??ous

  • Assange is a douche right? I mean, I'm all for transparency and you can't really hate on the *spirit* of his site, but this dude seems like a clown.

  • nzshadownzshadow 5,518 Posts
    Sucks to be the Saudi king right about now...

  • luckluck 4,077 Posts
    I am all for public servants serving their constituents. I am in favor of the unmasking of those who would commit atrocities in my name. I believe in swift justice for war profiteers and government murderers. But I am not sure how revealing international strategies for actually attempting to reduce global terrorism - say, in Yemen - fall under this banner. The revelation of the images of Abu Ghraib was marvelous and necessary, because it detailed revolting abuses. Revealing to the world that Hamid Karzai takes anti-depressants or that Muammar al-Gaddafi travels with a buxom Ukrainian "nurse" is not information that falls under this category; it is merely the work of cum-4chan pranksters that want to get their names into history books. Julian Assange seems to care more about himself than the art of diplomacy, which is not merely a form of dignified lying, but is sometimes the art of halting war. It is sincerely ironic that the callous actions of one trickster might beget global hostility under the flimsy guise of preventing it.

  • dayday 9,612 Posts
    I'm all for exposing injustice and wrong doing, but this seems like stirring shit up because they have the info.

    and this...

    rootlesscosmo said:
    Assange is a douche right? I mean, I'm all for transparency and you can't really hate on the *spirit* of his site, but this dude seems like a clown.

  • luckluck 4,077 Posts
    nzshadow said:
    Sucks to be the Saudi king right about now...

    No - and this is what you and full-Wikileaks-backers (I honestly support the release of some of the WL documents), fail to see. It's not King Abdullah who looks bad - it's this country alone who looks bad for allowing its Classified and Secret documents to be revealed. Some of these leaks name entrenched, undercover human rights activists and journalists by name. It also gives the entire Western world less leverage against North Korea and Iran - countries that are respectively run by a corrupt personality cult and a corrupt theocracy. How willing do you think Yemen will be to halt actual terrorist groups assembled throughout its country after the release of these Diplomatic Op-Eds? It's not like they were doing a good job of that business in the first place, but at least we had open communication lines with these guys. Now, who knows?

    I understand that there are people on this very board who do not actually believe that there is such a thing as terrorism - only a justified fight to be liberated from oppressors. I believe that despite the overuse of "terror" or "terrorism" or "insurgents" or even "enemy combatants" into utter meaninglessness, there are actual people that mean to do this country harm by targeting its innocent citizens.

    I am typing this message from Portland, Oregon. at around 6:15 on the day after Thanksgiving, I was driving through a crowded Pioneer Square en route to a pizza parlor across town. Had a lone man-boy actually talked to the right people more than half a year ago regarding his misguided goals, I might not be anything but lying in situ in preparation for cremation along with my woman. I mean these words. I'll rephrase: before any of you pick up your mouse to respond with derision to what I now type, please consider that you would not actually be responding to anyone if deluded people like Mohamed Mohamud - a poor soul who'd had some chips fall in the wrong places - had linked up with the same people who honestly have more power now that before. It's hard to escape this.

    Again: this is not Abu Ghraib. This is a Facebook flame war writ large.

  • nzshadownzshadow 5,518 Posts
    The Guardian's coverage is great: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/the-us-embassy-cables

    Luck, i understand your points but i think the safety and security of your country and its inhabitants have been far more compromised by arrogant bullyboy foreign policies and the clusterfuck that is the so called war on terror than with the release of these notes.

    WMD and preemptive strikes anyone?

  • ITALIAN Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is "feckless, vain and ineffective as a modern European leader", whose "frequent late nights and penchant for partying hard mean he does not get sufficient rest".

    GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel "avoids risks and is rarely creative".

    IRANIAN President Mahmoud Amhadinejad is compared to "Hitler".

    TURKISH Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is said to govern with "a cabal of incompetent advisers".

    NORTH Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il is a "flabby old chap" who suffers from "physical and psychological trauma".

    AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai is "driven by paranoia" and "an extremely weak man who did not listen to facts but was instead easily swayed by anyone who came to report even the most bizarre stories or plots against him".

    ZIMBABWEAN Prseident Robert Mugabe is dubbed a "crazy old man".

    RUSSIAN Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is an "alpha dog" while Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is "pale and hesitant" and "plays Robin to Putin's Batman".

    LIBYAN leader Muammar Gadaffi is "strange" and "accompanied by voluptuous blonde Ukranian 'nurse'".

    FRENCH President Nicolas Sarkozy "has a thin-skinned and authoritarian personal style" and is an "emperor with no clothes".



    Australia is described as a "rock solid" and have great beaches but mostly they are uninfluential.

  • nzshadownzshadow 5,518 Posts
    pimlicosquirrel said:



    Australia is described as a "rock solid" and have great beaches but mostly they are uninfluential.

    Oz in a nutshell.

    ;)

  • nzshadownzshadow 5,518 Posts
    luck said:
    I am all for public servants serving their constituents. I am in favor of the unmasking of those who would commit atrocities in my name. I believe in swift justice for war profiteers and government murderers. But I am not sure how revealing international strategies for actually attempting to reduce global terrorism - say, in Yemen - fall under this banner. The revelation of the images of Abu Ghraib was marvelous and necessary, because it detailed revolting abuses. Revealing to the world that Hamid Karzai takes anti-depressants or that Muammar al-Gaddafi travels with a buxom Ukrainian "nurse" is not information that falls under this category; it is merely the work of cum-4chan pranksters that want to get their names into history books. Julian Assange seems to care more about himself than the art of diplomacy, which is not merely a form of dignified lying, but is sometimes the art of halting war. It is sincerely ironic that the callous actions of one trickster might beget global hostility under the flimsy guise of preventing it.

    I missed this post when i scanned the thread before. bloody well written.

  • luckluck 4,077 Posts
    nzshadow said:
    The Guardian's coverage is great: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/the-us-embassy-cables

    Luck, i understand your points but i think the safety and security of your country and its inhabitants have been far more compromised by arrogant bullyboy foreign policies and the clusterfuck that is the so called war on terror than with the release of these notes.

    WMD and preemptive strikes anyone?

    It's clear that you do not understand my points. The material unveiled here - you know, what I have actually been talking about - has nothing to do with WMD and preemptive strikes. Nothing. That would fall into the category of Abu Ghraib and the Iraq War, neither of which I supported, dispite my (I suppose) sin of merely living in this country. Do not dare paint me and millions of others like me with that brush.

    More to the point: will you pledge to pay respects in the future on the occasion of the funeral of Pakistani operatives - not even Americans, much less any nation's Government officials, mind you - who are presently unmasked and in danger for their efforts to reduce a potential release of nuclear material into the wrong hands? How short-sighted of people to shake hands with glory-mongers. Have you read this list of potentially affected global conflict sites? This is far beyond George W. Bush.

  • luckluck 4,077 Posts
    NZS: I just read your most recent post above. I'm glad that we're now on the same level of understanding.

  • good points. wikileaks organised all this months in advance, i very much doubt any operatives in the field will be directly affected, everyone involved has been tipped off. and bearing in mind this is was available on a system that 3million people already had direct access to, it doesn't seem like much thought went into classifying this properly in any case, i'm sure most of these foreign governments have already read most of them. there are few revelations here which are earth shattering, most of them have been speculated about in the media. Its nice to have it all in black and white, a fascinating insight into the working methodology of US foreign policy, which it appears is about as spit-and-polish as it gets.

    Having read the first 200 releases, the gossip quotient seems not nearly as high as the media are harping on about. of course they're going to distill half a million cables into a bunch of sensational soundbytes, thats what they do. Some are fascinating some are dishwater dull. I enjoyed the one on understanding iranian ideology, the "persian aversion" sounds like a rhyme off the new kanye album.

  • nzshadownzshadow 5,518 Posts
    Im still in two minds here,

    I cant decide if this is a good or bad thing, my initial response was 'THIS IS A GOOD THING' BUT AFTER INGESTING SOME OF THE NEGATIVE COMMENTARY PLUS lUCKS POST QUOTED BEFORE (WHICH IS SUPERIOR TO A LOT OF THE WRITING I HAVE READ) i cant decide.

    (sorry about capslock)

    i just saw a news ticker indicating that some poltician is calling for wikileaks to be branded a terrorist organisation...

    The big question is how the hell can the most powerful nation on eath be so fucking lax in its security that this type of communication can be swiped and published?

  • ReynaldoReynaldo 6,054 Posts
    SO JUICY

  • the guardian have a ticker for all opinions / statements about the leak from local media and governments around the world

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2010/nov/29/wikileaks-us-embassy-cables-live-updates?intcmp=239

  • nzshadownzshadow 5,518 Posts
    Ulysses31nicholas said:
    the guardian have a ticker for all opinions / statements about the leak from local media and governments around the world

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2010/nov/29/wikileaks-us-embassy-cables-live-updates?intcmp=239

    The Guardian absolutly owns this story, every other news organisation is its bitch right now.

    Oh, and Luck, you might find this correspondance between wikileaks and the US government interesting.

    This collection of world headlines is telling...


  • nzshadownzshadow 5,518 Posts
    OK, made up my mind, this deserves to see the light of day.

    Freedom of information batches.

    No lives are at risk from this, almost 3 million had access in the 1st place, and if other nations' intelligence services are 1/2 as good as the Americans, then they should know all of this anyway.

    its just egg on face, the rest of the world is having a giggle as the big kid just pissed his pants in front of the class, but its no biggie, he can still kick all our asses.


    full site with all documents here: http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/

  • I know I'm being a bit optimistic, but I think wikileaks might force the gubment into a more transparent age...perhajs they will realize that in the 21st century "classified" is a state that is very very difficult to maintain and perhaps they will be more forthcoming with the truth and/or stop doing as many sinister things(pipedream related I know, but a dude can hope)

  • This quote from Prince Andrew made me laugh:

    "The Americans don't understand geography. In the UK, we have the best geography teachers in the world."

  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,896 Posts
    I'm not for the outing of spies or putting journalist in danger. Maybe if the mainstream media did a better job of reporting things and were actually in the job of gaining access to information that was relevant and reporting that, there wouldn't be a need to wikileaks.

    Shit like this. http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2010/11/28/16351291.html

    As a Canadian citizen, I want to know why.

    It goes both way... And I do see some media doing the reporting that needs to be done. Like this...

    http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Canada+asked+firms+help+kill+green+policies/3898044/story.html


    I would prefer more of that, than say breaking news on the Kardashian.

    And while I agree that Julian Assange is douchey. He has made it well known that it's his job to be. He wants to take as much negativity from wikileaks and have it on him.

    The hypocrisy of the media attack on Wikileaks:

    http://www.politics.co.uk/comment/culture-media-and-sport/comment-the-hypocrisy-of-the-media-attack-on-wikileaks-$21385948.htm

  • DB_CooperDB_Cooper Manhatin' 7,823 Posts
    DOR said:
    I'm not for the outing of spies or putting journalist in danger. Maybe if the mainstream media did a better job of reporting things and were actually in the job of gaining access to information that was relevant and reporting that, there wouldn't be a need to wikileaks.

    Shit like this. http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2010/11/28/16351291.html

    As a Canadian citizen, I want to know why.

    Probably just didn't want you dudes to feel left out.
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