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WikiLeaks Posts Mysterious ‘Insurance’ File

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Re: WikiLeaks Posts Mysterious ‘Insurance’ File

#41

Post by _politicalist »

NathanKP wrote: post #5

Is anyone else getting just a little bit sick of WikiLeaks? The basic concept of providing transparency is good, but I think they are taking things way too far. I hadn't even thought of the issue of the Taliban being able to read the records themselves to find out who the informants are. Just because something is a secret doesn't mean it has to be exposed, and I think that is the fundamental problem with Wikileaks. S…

From Assange:

"Now we contacted the White House as a group before we released this material and asked them to help assist in going through it to make sure that no innocent names came out, and the White House did not accept that request."

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2010/s2968342.htm

Re: WikiLeaks Posts Mysterious ‘Insurance’ File

#42

Post by _politicalist »

philwelch wrote: post #25
maika wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you don't need to continue your litany without context. I here a lot of bleating about national security, good of the state, and all, but that is used far too often as a blanket justification to cover up anything. Restriction, or manipulation, of information is what gave rise to the powers that your examples had to counter. For example, if all information relevant to the public, was public, then the Afghan/Iraq w…

"How can you have a democracy that includes censorship?" If it wasn't for censorship, democracy wouldn't have survived the 20th century. There are concrete, non-hypothetical secrets democratic states did keep during the 20th century which safeguarded their continued existence and the reestablishment of democracy throughout much of the world. Everything you say can and has been applied to every power of the state--the…

Well, groups like Wikileaks aren't wanting to apply anarchist ideals haphazardly; but rather in a reasoned way to help achieve a more bottom-up democratic world, which of course requires a better-informed populace. Among other things.

For example, Wikileaks did try to work with the White House to remove names of innocents. (I cited it elsewhere on this thread; you can read how they went about it.)

Each of the state powers you mention can be used for helpful things, but usually aren't. Take for example law enforcement. Any society will need some measure of protection from sociopaths taking over. However, the US goes wild with it, using it to achieve by far the world's hugest incarceration rate!

And war requires the highest bar of justification. Needless to say, the US government doesn't come close to meeting it, illusions aside.

Re: WikiLeaks Posts Mysterious ‘Insurance’ File

#43

Post by gwern »

mishmash wrote: post #35
maika wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah n would be bigger, but if you limit the key to a composition of characters (alphabet, letters, funky characters %^&*, etc), would that drastically reduce the search space?

Oh good point. Would it then be 95 printable ASCII characters by 32 (for the effective key size in bytes)? If so, that gives a laughably large number: 1937114844585011541643853683619338993862294591963291168212890625 Another question, and I'm way over my head here (also time for bed), but considering this snippet below, is it possible the NSA or another group would have an undiscovered attack against it? "NSA was embr…

I don't think it matters whether the NSA can decrypt it. The 'insurance' is a contingency for releasing information to the general public and mainstream media; there is almost surely nothing of value in it as a weapon against Wikileaks. Any organization or group which will decrypt it but not release it doesn't count.

Random bloggers or citizens, on the other hand, might release it if they decrypted it - but this seems secure against them.

Re: WikiLeaks Posts Mysterious ‘Insurance’ File

#44

Post by sgift »

derefr wrote: post #12
NathanKP wrote: post #5

Is anyone else getting just a little bit sick of WikiLeaks? The basic concept of providing transparency is good, but I think they are taking things way too far. I hadn't even thought of the issue of the Taliban being able to read the records themselves to find out who the informants are. Just because something is a secret doesn't mean it has to be exposed, and I think that is the fundamental problem with Wikileaks. S…

But who decides what "has to" be exposed, and what doesn't? The problem is that there is no third party at all trustworthy enough to bear the responsibility of "filtering" through all the world's dirty laundry to just find the "morally reprehensible" parts. So, there must be some (transparent) strategy set in advance: they either release nothing (most news agencies), everything (Wikileaks), or use some other pre-defi…

The filter is already build into WL (and similar organizations): They can only publish information they get from informants. The informants are the filter.

Re: WikiLeaks Posts Mysterious ‘Insurance’ File

#45

Post by gaius »

Rod wrote: post #36
philwelch wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sixty to seventy years ago, the following information was kept secret by Western governments: -How to build an atom bomb -How to build effective radar systems to detect incoming bombers -The fact that German and Japanese encryption codes had been compromised -The US Navy's awareness of Japan's intention to attack Midway Island -The fact that Patton was actually removed from command, and that his travels around Italy…

Both Ellsberg and Assange have claimed that they do believe that there are legitimate secrets (e.g., cyphers, nuclear technology, and the like). Your argument is based on the assumption that WL sees all secrets as being born equal, which is utter nonsense. Do you honestly believe that: - the Afghan war diaries contain secrets of the same magnitude as, say, U.S. radar tech 70 years ago? - Pakistan does not know that t…

the release of the documents contains very little the enemy does not know about

They didn't know about this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1560565

Re: WikiLeaks Posts Mysterious ‘Insurance’ File

#46

Post by vaksel »

NathanKP wrote: post #5

Is anyone else getting just a little bit sick of WikiLeaks? The basic concept of providing transparency is good, but I think they are taking things way too far. I hadn't even thought of the issue of the Taliban being able to read the records themselves to find out who the informants are. Just because something is a secret doesn't mean it has to be exposed, and I think that is the fundamental problem with Wikileaks. S…

frankly I'm a little surprised at the number of people that just plain don't hold government accountable.

Collateral damage video? No outrage over killing the civilians, Full outrage that they dared to add labels to a video.

This thing? No outrage over the fact that innocent people are getting killed...full outrage that WL dares to release information.

Seems like a lot of people are just plain authoritative and have full faith that anything they aren't being told is for their own good...when in reality it's just people covering their ass.

Without full transparency, they leave it up to sites like wikileaks to make decisions about things that might have military value, since they don't know 100% whether the thing they are reading is being censored because it's actually important or because the gov't just doesn't want bad PR.

The whole "these guys are assholes for releasing information about our bad deeds" just sounds like bs to me. Don't want bad PR? Don't commit atrocities.

Democracy can't function if the populace isn't fully aware of all the details.

Re: WikiLeaks Posts Mysterious ‘Insurance’ File

#47

Post by philwelch »

Rod wrote: post #36
philwelch wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sixty to seventy years ago, the following information was kept secret by Western governments: -How to build an atom bomb -How to build effective radar systems to detect incoming bombers -The fact that German and Japanese encryption codes had been compromised -The US Navy's awareness of Japan's intention to attack Midway Island -The fact that Patton was actually removed from command, and that his travels around Italy…

Both Ellsberg and Assange have claimed that they do believe that there are legitimate secrets (e.g., cyphers, nuclear technology, and the like). Your argument is based on the assumption that WL sees all secrets as being born equal, which is utter nonsense. Do you honestly believe that: - the Afghan war diaries contain secrets of the same magnitude as, say, U.S. radar tech 70 years ago? - Pakistan does not know that t…

I was responding to what riffer said, not what I think Assange's opinions are or to this leak in particular.

Re: WikiLeaks Posts Mysterious ‘Insurance’ File

#48

Post by philwelch »

todayiamme wrote: post #32
philwelch wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't disagree with me; you agree with me and disagree with the idealist, quasi-anarchist view that state secrets shouldn't exist at all. Note that all (but perhaps one) of the secrets I listed is now well documented public knowledge. I think this example should be followed.

I don't want to agree or disagree with anything. All I want to agree with is that innocent people have the right to exist without getting shot in the middle of the night. You know what's the biggest problem over here? It's okay if someone from country ABC kills people living in XYZ. That's collateral damage, but as soon as a few ABC civilians get killed it's war. It's like somehow everyone in this world have agreed t…

It's facile to assume a moral equivalence between one side accidentally killing civilians in situations where it's extremely difficult to isolate the enemy, and the other side hijacking jetliners and flying them into office buildings.

Re: WikiLeaks Posts Mysterious ‘Insurance’ File

#49

Post by philwelch »

Rod wrote: post #34
faramarz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to agree with you. I think if there ever is a downfall to the Wikileak initiative, it will be due to the gloating and the drama they perpetuate. Julian and his gang need to stop with the commentary and just release the documents. leave the opinions to be formed by the people. The twitter account is going to come back and bite them in the ass if they keep pushing commentary out. I fully support the need for an…

"Leave the opinions to be formed by the people." Yes, because the average American surely has the time to read 100s of classified documents. The goal of the release is to attain reform, and if drama stokes discussion and catalyzes reform, so be it. What's the problem with drama exactly? The more notorious Assange gets, the harder it will be for the powers that be to get rid of him. Do you honestly think that drama le…

It seems self-defeating to argue there's a shortage of people who are capable of dramatizing leaked information on the one hand, while on the other hand arguing that the entire news industry is solely interested in entertainment.

Re: WikiLeaks Posts Mysterious ‘Insurance’ File

#50

Post by mishmash »

gwern wrote: post #43
mishmash wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh good point. Would it then be 95 printable ASCII characters by 32 (for the effective key size in bytes)? If so, that gives a laughably large number: 1937114844585011541643853683619338993862294591963291168212890625 Another question, and I'm way over my head here (also time for bed), but considering this snippet below, is it possible the NSA or another group would have an undiscovered attack against it? "NSA was embr…

I don't think it matters whether the NSA can decrypt it. The 'insurance' is a contingency for releasing information to the general public and mainstream media; there is almost surely nothing of value in it as a weapon against Wikileaks. Any organization or group which will decrypt it but not release it doesn't count. Random bloggers or citizens, on the other hand, might release it if they decrypted it - but this seem…

No doubt, I'm sure there's something quite damaging to war effort or administration in that archive. My interest in the NSA angle was only due to the technical side.
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