Friday, September 02, 2011

Wikileaks drops the bomb

Wikileaks has dropped the bomb, releasing the key to its "insurance file" after it was apparently leaked earlier this week. If you're curious, its

Gw0whe$PfehwH{W%$%0sfwFGOENqi24yHSFP{NKFwekqzcxGPAEGMq32pfewkjnwrHN}#%Fwedqkdg?WM43\hgwr#$JhowdnwqQELFDWmenhwREWKwqeq$
Instructions on how to decrypt the file are here. Or you could just get the unencrypted version over BitTorrent; I doubt the NSA will be sending strike notices for it (especially since the US government claims its all fake anyway).

So, now we live in a world without secrets. Some people will probably be hurt from this. Hopefully some of them will be politicians. But now its out there, we just have to live with it (and do the best we can to protect the innocent and punish the guilty).

As for Wikileaks, Cablegate has effectively destroyed them as an organisation. Its a shame, because they did a lot of good work, work that stopped when they became fixated on this. I understand the desire to change the world, to end secrecy, to publish the stuff corrupt and evil governments didn't want us to see or know. But there has been a cost to that editorial decision to focus on the US, and while it uncovered crimes, others stayed hidden as a result.