WikiLeaks Posts Mysterious 'Insurance' File

Originally posted by de Thor
Has anyone read the book Digital Fortress by Dan Brown?

This hacker has incriminating info about the government and he posts an encrypted file online. NSA tries to crack it with their huge supercomputer but come to realize that they actually downloaded a virus and now he has access to all of the NSA's top secret files.

Could be a stretch, but something to think about?

This is EXACTLY what I was thinking. That would be a perfect excuse for Obama to shut down the internet. "Our most secret files have been stolen so we need to take immediate action by taking down the web. This will only be temporary" Just speculating but a very interesting thought none the less

just downloaded the file and I can't open it or read it. any suggestions?

reply to post by jacktherer


It's encrypted,meaning you CANT open it unless you have the encryption password. I suggest you either call Assange or call the NSA to get it

Originally posted by jacktherer
just downloaded the file and I can't open it or read it. any suggestions?

Try this link, it will tell you all you need to know.
NSA Encryption - Decryption

i was able to open it in a wordpad document (Microsoft Office trial expired )
and it looks like a bunch of code that i just can't understand and its responding on and off. Looks like a whole lot of pages though. . .i'll try to make sense of this


edit: wordpad is going bonkers over this. don't know why.

[edit on 31-7-2010 by jacktherer]

For all the people wanting to try to decrypt that file, there are some notes on that.
First, we don't know if the encryption used on the file was symmetric or asymmetric, so i'm going to describe the symmetric-case approach: remember that all the attempts and assumptions will be as "shooting in the dark" and we are (likely to be) trashing our time.

Keep in mind that encrypting with a symmetric key is worst, from a security perspective, than asymmetric encryption, but if someone can come up with a way to determine whether or not the scheme used for this file was asymmetric or not... well let us know

So, let's assume the encryption is symmetric and the cyphering type being used is the one specified from the file extensions, aes256: there are variations of this (CBC/OFB/CFB), but i choose the CBC since i presume this could be the one being used, with the openssl tool (ubuntu 10.04 here) you would do:

openssl enc -d -aes256 -in insurance.aes256 -out insurance.dec

You'll be prompted to enter the password and, if you are very lucky, no error messages will appear

Just my 2cents

Whatever is in that file is already known by the people to whom it will affect. AES is not the strongest encryption by any means, the NSA doesn't even use it for documents above top secret...

Maybe back in the early days of cracking you could get away with this, but after the government learned that you can recruit crackers/hackers/phreakers/etc... not much on the internet is actually "new" nor crack proof.

My guess is the person who encrypted the file knew that it would be cracked and read, hence the title of the document....

The people talking about brute force attacks made me laugh.

Originally posted by jacktherer
i was able to open it in a wordpad document (Microsoft Office trial expired

)
and it looks like a bunch of code that i just can't understand and its responding on and off. Looks like a whole lot of pages though. . .i'll try to make sense of this

Get back with us ASAP as soon as you find out anything!

Originally posted by jacktherer
i was able to open it in a wordpad document (Microsoft Office trial expired

)
and it looks like a bunch of code that i just can't understand and its responding on and off. Looks like a whole lot of pages though. . .i'll try to make sense of this

Again,its an encrypted file. sure you probably can open it but all of the pages are going to be random numbers,letters and symbols so its pointless unless you are a hacker and can decrypt it. See the guys post above yours to understand what we are saying

Does it really matter *what* is in the file?
Let's say that we, on ATS or other truth-seeking forums, have been right all along. Let's take it a step further and say that even the *really* fringe elements are right. Stargates, Human/Dolphin hybrid super soliders, the Anglo-Saxon Mission, synthetic beings, galactic war involving 57 races of aliens (all of which i assume are used to make Heinz 57 sauce), all of it true. And all of it proven, without a doubt, in this file. Handwritten letters, audio recordings, video... the whole game laid out on the table in front of us. Maybe even a photo of the top puppeteers, forever caught in a mid-air group high five.
Would the majority of the general population be ready, or even able, to accept it? Even if it was more down to earth - TBTP are turning us into slaves for their own enrichment. They don't care about our lives and will kill us if we try to take our shared humanity back - would people be willing to accept that? even if the people accepted it, would they be willing to, rightfully, rise up to take back our future?
I've already seen how the MSM and a lot of the population has responded to the Manning leaks. With indifference. Or worse, focusing on the leaks and not what they contain. Dismissing Manning as a 'disgruntled soldier' when, from the chat transcripts i've read at least, he seems more like a young kid heartbroken and overwhelmed by what is actually going on.
What about the fact that information written for public consumption, whether newspaper/magazine or television, is written for people with no more than a sixth grade education? Would those people be able to understand, or have any interest in trying to understand, the contents of hundreds, if not thousands, of pages of densely and/or obtusely written political and military documents?

If the information really is explosive, Assange should release a taste (the first hit is free) in a way that gets as much attention as possible. Then give the Identifying information for additional damning files and say to the public 'Here's the names of the documents you need to demand the government account for and explain, but it's up to you as a people to stand up, put aside your petty differences in political affiliation or religious ideology and unite to force the truth out"
I mean, I don't buy into Assange and Wikileaks being part of the system, regardless, at some point we have to cut the cord and start demanding answers and information for ourselves instead of relying on others to gift it to us.

just did a google search for 'assange', first hit was a news article with the title "Julian Assange: is 'Wikileaker' on a crusade or ego trip?'
So, could someone outside of the truth/rationalist community with a passing interest in 'who is this Assange guy?' not enter the same search, see the top hit, and then conclude 'oh, he's just some ass that wants to be famous by breaking the law' and then move on to their next distraction?

boondock's dictionary meaning of the word insurance:

action verb: to spend 3 years deciphering by brute
force only to find out when you open the file there
is another file decrypted once again.

Omg boondock that would be..... Very discouraging
Lastly, as previously posted, opening it in word pad etc is pointless. It's only worth downloading so that if a key becomes available, you have the real file. (or, astonishingly, it gets broken)



[edit on 31-7-2010 by fraggdya]

Ok i downloaded the file....

insurance.aes256 and managed to type in a key and extracted a file which appears to be another insurance.aes256.aes file within a file



[edit on 31-7-2010 by StealthKix]

Originally posted by NewPrometheus

Originally posted by MemoryShock
Chess begins...second line.

No, not chess, poker.

I would add a few comments for your consideration.

1) Assange is playing a very dangerous game. The conventional assumption is that this file contains information embarrassing for the US government or possibly even harmful to US national security interests. Accordingly, it may serve as an effective "insurance policy" against any adverse action on Assange or WikiLeaks by the US government, but the US government is not the only player at this table of high-stakes poker with an interest in the final disposition of this information. There may be unseen players (i.e. rogue nations and even private parties) at this table that perceive the risk/benefit of inducing the release of this information as compelling whether the conventional assumption is true or not.

2) The file may not necessarily be encrypted using (only) AES 256.

Assange co-invented "Rubberhose deniable encryption", a cryptographic concept made into a software package for Linux designed to provide plausible deniability against rubber-hose cryptanalysis,[16] which he originally intended "as a tool for human rights workers who needed to protect sensitive data in the field".[17]

Source: en.wikipedia.org...

See also, deniable encryption: en.wikipedia.org...

Just curious...if our government has the tech to open this file can other, more modern, governments also open it? Or is it written in encryption only our gov. Can access?

Thanks I don't know much about hacking...


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

Originally posted by muzzleflash
And no one can decrypt it?

Why?

Because you don't decrypt military encryption,
military encryption decrypts you!

This proves someone is giving him the Cipher from the inside.

The only way someone could be giving him this is from like the NSA. Seriously this is messed up.

He must be a plant. Wikileaks must be a front. Obviously with NSA level decryption abilities. (He has top secret Ciphers)

Or...Not.

He has sources from the inside helping him and Wikileaks out...an example is the hero soldier who helped to expose the video showing the slaughter of unarmed civilians by US military.




Doesn't mean anyone is a "plant" or wikileaks is a "front." Just means Assange has personal connections to folks who are willing to expose the truth.

Honestly, and this is just me, if I was going to put out a file like this, it would be 100% impossible to brute force it using a dictionary attack.. Why? Because I would use a GUID/UUID as the keys and stack one encrypted file inside another.

I guess we can't know for sure, but it is intriguing.

Originally posted by sandman441
If you hover over the insurance file name it says straw glass and bottle. Anybody know what that is? I know when I searched for that the only thing I found was a site called alibaba selling glass straws I think. But maybe the password is open sesame? that would be kinda funny if it was.

maybe a play on rock paper scissors?

I don't know if this has been posted but I think the "straw glass bottle" reference is a clever analogy...www.thekeyboard.org.uk...

it would be really funny if tons of time and effort were put into opening this file and it turns out being some kind of inter office memos from geiko or progressive hahaha