Wikileaks Insurance!

Smart move.

Wikileaks, the well known whistleblower’s outlet website, has published a file called insurance.aes256 on it’s site. It just sits alongside all the other interesting files one can download showing who’s done what and shouldn’t have.

The thing about this file is nobody knows what’s in it, because it’s encrypted. The name suggests this has been done using the aes 256 bit encryption system, which is exceedingly strong. So strong that’s it’s doubtful even the American military could decrypt it. But all you need is the encryption key…

Speculation suggests that there is some very, very, nay, very interesting stuff stored in that file. It’s like lodging the plain brown envelope with your solicitor ‘in case anything happens to me’. Anyone can download it, although it’s a tad heavy at 1.4GB. I guess if anything happened to the personnel at Wikileaks then a few in the inner circle can utter a nice long but well-known phrase and we can cotton on that we have just been told the key. Then presumably, somehwere, a government will fall based on what’s in the file.

I don’t profess to understand the full implications of all this recent leaking of Afghanistan War documentation., whether it has endangered sources in the country. I think overall their idea is sound and necessary. Their server infrastructure is said to be sound in that no one government can shut them down. Julian Assange, their recent spokesman, is by all accounts a smart cookie in the world of internet tech, so he probably does need to be listened to by those that have something to worry about.

Nice one Wikileaks.