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Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#81

Post by oxide »

imron wrote: post #34
oxide wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't the Russians just recently quietly changed gears? i.e. stopped denying it and changed the rhetoric to "why does it matter who leaked it?" I doubt there is concrete, independently verified evidence, but I'm not sure how much more fishy the Kremlin could possibly be about the whole thing. I usually don't mind giving the benefit of the doubt to people, but I don't tend to feel the same way about governments.

> changed the rhetoric to "why does it matter who leaked it?" No. That's been consistent with their response since the DNCLeaks.

Originally it was a flat out denial IIRC. The sudden recent mention of who cares is what raised a red flag for me, it didn't seem consistent with the original statement at all.

I could be wrong, but honestly, "who cares who did it" is a fishy enough govenrment response that it's hardly any wonder the Russians are being looked at funny.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#82

Post by Kenji »

astn wrote: post #71
mbreedlove wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The insurance files are public. They just have to release the keys. 3.6GB - http://wlstorage.net/torrent/wlinsurance-20130815-A.aes256.t... 49GB - http://wlstorage.net/torrent/wlinsurance-20130815-B.aes256.t... 349GB - http://wlstorage.net/torrent/wlinsurance-20130815-C.aes256.t... 94GB - https://file.wikileaks.org/torrent/2016-06-03_insurance.aes2... I don't know why they would put out a few hundred gigabytes of fak…

>I don't know why they would put out a few hundred gigabytes of fake files. Looks like you can check it now. The keys went public: pre-commitment 3: UK FCO f33a6de5c627e3270ed3e02f62cd0c857467a780cf6123d2172d80d02a072f74 pre-commitment 2: Ecuador eae5c9b064ed649ba468f0800abf8b56ae5cfe355b93b1ce90a1b92a48a9ab72 pre-commitment 1: John Kerry 4bb96075acadc3d80b5ac872874c3037a386f4f595fe99e687439aabd0219809 https://twitte…

I speculate that these are only SHA256 hashes of keys or documents that will be released in the future. It's pre-commitment. I didn't try decrypting one of the files with a key yet, though. I'm busy with other things (like browsing HN, aaah).

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#83

Post by appleflaxen »

countingteeth wrote: post #46
mbreedlove wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The insurance files are public. They just have to release the keys. 3.6GB - http://wlstorage.net/torrent/wlinsurance-20130815-A.aes256.t... 49GB - http://wlstorage.net/torrent/wlinsurance-20130815-B.aes256.t... 349GB - http://wlstorage.net/torrent/wlinsurance-20130815-C.aes256.t... 94GB - https://file.wikileaks.org/torrent/2016-06-03_insurance.aes2... I don't know why they would put out a few hundred gigabytes of fak…

"Bluffing." It takes zero effort to distribute a a few hundred gigabytes of encrypted random data, relative to the amount of investigation and speculation as to what if anything is in those files. They are called "insurance." Assange/Wikileaks wanted to deter actions being taken against him. Seems to me as likely as not that there is nothing really there.

the good news is that you don't even need to encrypt your data, if they are random to start with.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#84

Post by imron »

oxide wrote: post #81
imron wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> changed the rhetoric to "why does it matter who leaked it?" No. That's been consistent with their response since the DNCLeaks.

Originally it was a flat out denial IIRC. The sudden recent mention of who cares is what raised a red flag for me, it didn't seem consistent with the original statement at all. I could be wrong, but honestly, "who cares who did it" is a fishy enough govenrment response that it's hardly any wonder the Russians are being looked at funny.

What is recent?

The top results for a Google search for Putin on DNC Leaks is an article from a month and a half ago (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/putin-interview-dnc-ha...) with Putin denying it was the Russians and also saying does it matter who did it.

I recall similar news from when the DNC leaks broke and people were blaming Russia then too.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#85

Post by seanhunter »

AvenueIngres wrote: post #72
seanhunter wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? Here's the Ecuadorian Embassy: https://goo.gl/maps/gtwjXtGrv9p Note that it's not in the middle of nowhere, it's right behind Harrods (ie 100 yards away from one of the busiest shopping streets in one of the world's largest and most diverse cities, with 1000s of people walking by every minute carrying cellphones). Do you honestly think anyone could storm such an embassy and not have a massive media footpri…

1. Calm down. No one is saying this is what happened. No need to get on your high horses. 2. At the time the Internet got cut-off it was 6:40am in the UK. Pretty early. 3. The British government has the power to issue DA-notice to media outlets. 4. "Storming" the Ecuadorian embassy would not take a lot of manpower. This isn't a raid of a Mexican cartel. There is no resistance to expect, the adversarial repercussions…

Many people have their internet service go down from time to time (I know I do) and most of the time it isn't caused by state-sponsored action/governments storming their place of residence.

I've already said why I think such a storming would provide evidence that even state-sponsored actors would not be able to suppress. The Brompton Road and Sloane street both have plenty of pedestrians and vehicular traffic at 6:40am (I'm speaking as someone who used to bicycle down them every day around that time).

Given no evidence to the contrary, a much better hypothesis that fits the known facts is that there was some sort of standard ISP snafu or similar tech problem.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#86

Post by appleflaxen »

imron wrote: post #16
AvenueIngres wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that this might be US backed action I doubt the USG is involved in this. They have a pretty solid track record of both respecting human rights and due process. Keep in mind the US government is the most ethical government in the world. Assange, on the other hand, is a rapist and a Russian puppet trying to hijack the US election. He probably is a Trump supporter in disguise and a closeted systemd committer. If that…

Don't worry about the downvotes AvenueIngres, I'm guessing those people fell victim to Poe's law.

or they did, and are of the opinion that sarcasm is noise.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#87

Post by rtpg »

pilif wrote: post #80
Kenji wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He needs good friends who host VPNs for him. TOR would also be a good thing. Maybe a combination of both. Of course, those friends would have to visit him in person and give him some public keys or something to verify their identity.

> He needs good friends who host VPNs for him then the state actors would just bug that good friend.

which would require infecting the VPN machines themselves? Just wiretapping isn't sufficient because of public key encryption

Assuming the nodes themselves are not compromised (big ask) and identity can be confirmed(like via key exchange), state actors can listen as much as they want to the wires, they won't be getting much.

Except if some private key were out there...

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#88

Post by rtpg »

Pilfer wrote: post #3

Rodger Stone (who may have back-channel communications with Wikileaks staff [0]) shared two tweets suggesting that this might be US backed action. Note these tweets are still unconfirmed. At time of writing I have not yet seen this information corroborated elsewhere. 1) "John Kerry has threatened the Ecuadorian President with "grave consequences for Equador" if Assange is not silenced @StoneColdTruth" [1] 2) "Reports…

Or it could be that Stone is making stuff up/greatly exaggerating? Isn't Stone basically an Alex Jones type?

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#89

Post by the_duke »

Kenji wrote: post #82
astn wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't know why they would put out a few hundred gigabytes of fake files. Looks like you can check it now. The keys went public: pre-commitment 3: UK FCO f33a6de5c627e3270ed3e02f62cd0c857467a780cf6123d2172d80d02a072f74 pre-commitment 2: Ecuador eae5c9b064ed649ba468f0800abf8b56ae5cfe355b93b1ce90a1b92a48a9ab72 pre-commitment 1: John Kerry 4bb96075acadc3d80b5ac872874c3037a386f4f595fe99e687439aabd0219809 https://twitte…

I speculate that these are only SHA256 hashes of keys or documents that will be released in the future. It's pre-commitment. I didn't try decrypting one of the files with a key yet, though. I'm busy with other things (like browsing HN, aaah).

The tweets are just hashes of the insurance files to confirm their validity, not the decryption keys (yet).

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#90

Post by calgoo »

harry8 wrote: post #21
AvenueIngres wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that this might be US backed action I doubt the USG is involved in this. They have a pretty solid track record of both respecting human rights and due process. Keep in mind the US government is the most ethical government in the world. Assange, on the other hand, is a rapist and a Russian puppet trying to hijack the US election. He probably is a Trump supporter in disguise and a closeted systemd committer. If that…

I nearly bit. Well played.

Im on my first coffee of the day, and it did not click :) I wish people could add a /s or we could add a new voting button to mark something as sarcasm / a joke?
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