Wikileaks Encryption Use Offers 'Legal Challenge'

[Hissyspit]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/technology-11026659

Wikileaks encryption use offers 'legal challenge'
19 August 10 08:58 ET

By Chris Vallance
BBC News

A novel use of encryption by whistle-blowing website Wikileaks could "challenge the legal system for years to come," according to an influential observer of the hacking community.
Emmanuel Goldstein, editor of 2600 The Hacker Quarterly magazine, made his comments in reference to an encrypted file recently posted on the site. Some suspect the file - as yet unopened - contains further sensitive material. It has been reposted around the web and is available for anyone to download.

"If you release it in encrypted form, nobody really knows if you've released it or not - or even what the material is," Mr Goldstein told BBC News. "Then, if something happens to you, all it takes is the revelation of a simple spoken phrase known by a select group of people and everyone who has this mystery file now has all of the secrets."

- snip -

Now it seems the site may be using encryption as insurance against legal and other threats to the information it holds. The insurance.aes256 file has been posted alongside the already published leaked war logs and can be downloaded by anyone. From the file name it is believed that it has been encrypted using the AES256 algorithm - described as "extremely strong" by Professor Whitfield Diffie, of the Information Security Group at Royal Holloway University, London. Prof Diffie also believes that AES256, which he says has been "extensively studied" could prove too tough even for US intelligence agencies to break.

While no-one knows what the insurance file contains, this has not prevented the contents becoming a matter of considerable speculation. Some suspect the file contains a further leaked US military video, others another tranche of US military logs, perhaps this time from Iraq. Or it could be just an imaginative bluff. Even the name of the directory in which it is held - "straw-glass-and-bottle" - has prompted discussion and debate online.

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[wtmusic]

1. Nice of them to hand over the algorithm like that.

Certainly Prof. Diffie realizes that even US intelligence is smart enough not to waste time on an obvious diversion.

[Hissyspit]

2. Oh, really?

Sure they are... :)

[no limit]

3. You really think it's a diversion? Wikileaks has a rep to keep

if there really is nothing in that file then that reputation could be damaged.

[wtmusic]

4. That's just a little nerdy cryptanalyst humor.

If you're serious about keeping something secret you don't hand over the encryption algorithm by appending it to the filename.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. It could also be a taunt or a red herring

I use a little misdirection in the forensic test machines I set up