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The final Wikileaks release

I have seen 636 Wikileaks torrent releases, from cablegate-201011301013.7z to cablegate-201108300212.7z. The release of the final one was done in a less straightforward way.

Filename date and torrentfile creation date

These releases have names like cablegate-201108300212.7z that include a timestamp (here 2011-08-30 02:12, with time in GMT), and the corresponding torrent files like cablegate-201108300212.7z.torrent have an internal field creation date. Presumably these are indications for the starting and finishing times of the torrent creation process. Over this series, as the size of the releases increased, the difference between the date in the name and the creation date in the torrent file increased from 1 minute to a day and a half. The creation date field in cablegate-201108300212.7z.torrent is Wed Aug 31 13:42:43 2011 GMT.

Encrypted version

This final release was not published right away, but the file was encrypted and made available as sDgo3FDksdGwsrkrS.enc (584670400 bytes). The file sDgo3FDksdGwsrkrS.enc.torrent has creation date Wed Aug 31 17:03:21 2011.

Release

It was announced Aug 31, 17:04:28 in the tweet
ANNOUNCE: Bit Torrent download this encrypted file:
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:X2MREUTR5XGAHBBOMNLTIXANR6K3MFDB
and Aug 31, 17:05:16 in the tweet
ANNOUNCE: Bit Torrent download this encrypted file:
file.wikileaks.org/file/sDgo3FDksdGwsrkrS.enc.torrent
and Aug 31, 17:19:31 in the tweet
ANNOUNCE: Use a "magnet" compatible Bit Torrent client
to download the following encrypted (cont) tl.gd/cptu7b
that refers to the twitlonger message cptu7b
ANNOUNCE: Use a "magnet" compatible Bit Torrent client
to download the following encrypted file:

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:X2MREUTR5XGAHBBOMNLTIXANR6K3MFDB

A torrent file is also available at
http://file.wikileaks.org/file/sDgo3FDksdGwsrkrS.enc.torrent

The decryption key will be released at the appropriate moment. 

Someone uploaded this encrypted file 2011-08-31 19:59:33 GMT to thepiratebay.

Decryption

Decryption instructions were given on pastebin (dated Sep 1st, 2011)
sDgo3FDksdGwsrkrS.enc
Wikileaks full cable archive

-------------------------------------------------------

If you downloaded the wikileaks file sDgo3FDksdGwsrkrS.enc yesterday via
this tweet: https://twitter.com/#!/wikileaks/status/108948277667446786

-------------------------------------------------------

Decrypt it with the following:

% openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc -in sDgo3FDksdGwsrkrS.enc -out cablegate-201108300212.7z -k
'Gw0whe$PfehwH{W%$%0sfwFGOENqi24yHSFP{NKFwekqzcxGPAEGMq32pfewkjnwrHN}#%Fwedqkdg?WM43\hgwr#$JhowdnwqQELFDWmenhwREWKwqeq$'

It should contain
301650 files, 359 folders

Which is every single cable from cablegate

-------------------------------------------------------

Seed the decrypted file (cablegate-201108300212.7z) with this magnet:
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:AUHKVFRXREM7DCVK54MBDBGHQNPHLG5J

Vote

On Thu Sep 1 2011 01:00:46 GMT, WL organized a dog & pony show vote via the tweet
Global vote: should WikiLeaks release all US cables in searchable form? tweet #WLVoteYes or #WLVoteNo  Why:
www.wikileaks.org/Guardian-journalist-negligently.html
On Sep 1, 02:06:17 they tweeted
Current vote is over 100 to 1 in favor of release.
On Sep 1, 02:07:30 they retweeted approvingly:
RT @trotskiiiiiii: #WLvoteYES Release the cables and get on to other juicy leaks!
There are tons more of them out there!
and 02:07:38:
RT @pacific_justice: #WLVoteYes What IS reckless and insane is ongoing corruption,
potential bankruptcy & wars created by the USA. Full ...
and 02:07:46:
RT @infil00p: #WLVoteYes If the data is already available via torrents/usenet,
it should be available to everyone regardless of technica ...
On Sep 1, 05:02:27 they tweeted
The WL vote will continue until there is a global consensus.
It is necessary to act urgently, but the debate is defining.
and 05:05:57
Given that the full database file is downloadable from hundreds of sites
there is only one internally rational action.
and 05:08:17
Most WLVoteNo statements, however, look a layer above, at the media dynamics,
our perceived, as opposed to actual, integrity and strength.
and 05:10:05
It is a moment to educate people of the world about knowledge, spin, and
perceived, as opposed to actual, moral actions.
I have not seen a result announced. Via topsy I find today about 700 tweets with both WLVoteNo and WLVoteYes, about 200 with only WLVoteNo, and about 1200 with only WLVoteYes. Several WLVoteYes voters voted many times. Probably WLVoteYes came out ahead, but certainly not by a 100 to 1 margin. Many WLVoteYes voters thought they were voting for the unredacted release of all cables.

Altogether, this was not an especially successful episode for Wikileaks.

@eigensinn83

Strange - the #WLVoteNo seems to go up, while the #WLVoteYes seems to go down.
#Astroturf, maybe...?
and @Asher_Wolf
@eigensinn83 as I said earlier - there was sock-puppeting/manipulation
on #WLVoteYes - ppl "voting" multiple times. #WLVoteNo

Plain version

On Sep 2, 01:19:25 GMT the release was announced
Shining a light on 45 years of US "diplomacy", it is time to open the archives forever. wikileaks.org/cablegate/

The decryption key was given Sep 2, 01:20:05 in the tweet

AES256CBC:
Gw0whe$PfehwH{W%$%0sfwFGOENqi24yHSFP{NKFwekqzcxGPAEGMq32pfewkjnwrHN}#%Fwedqkdg?WM43\hgwr#$JhowdnwqQELFDWmenhwREWKwqeq$
with the instruction
openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc outfile
together with the warning
Note the files are compressed with 7zip. They unpack to 60 GB of material.

The unencrypted cablegate-201011301013.7z was given on Sep 2, 01:53:46 in the tweet

Full, unencrypted, Cablegate2 archive:
Cut and paste the following URL into a "magnet" compatible Bittorrent (cont) tl.gd/cqpvpp
that refers to the twitlonger message cqpvpp
Full, unencrypted, Cablegate2 archive:

Cut and paste the following URL into a "magnet" compatible Bittorrent download client:

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:AUHKVFRXREM7DCVK54MBDBGHQNPHLG5J

Or for older Bittorrent clients:

http://88.80.16.63/torrent/cablegate/cablegate-201108300212.7z.torrent

The files are compressed with "7zip"(http://www.7-zip.org/) and unpack to 60Gb.

If you have 60Gb or more of web-server space, unpack the material
and tweet a link to it, prefixed by #wlmir

IF you downlaoded the encrypted file we announced previously,
you don't have to download the unencrypted torrent
Instead, decrypt the encrypted file, name it cablegate-201108300212.7z
and put it into your torrent client's download directory.
Then tell your client to add the torrent at
http://88.80.16.63/torrent/cablegate/cablegate-201108300212.7z.torrent
and it will be automatically seeded.

The cablegatesearch history page mentions

Thursday, 1 September 2011 23:24 UTC: 1,127 added, 1,459 modified
Torrent magnet for cablegate-201109012324.7z: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:AUHKVFRXREM7DCVK54MBDBGHQNPHLG5J
but I don't know where they got this filename from. The magnet is that of cablegate-201108300212.7z.

Someone uploaded this deciphered version (584670375 bytes) 2011-09-02 02:02:58 GMT to thepiratebay.

Of course, as discussed here, this is not an unredacted version. In fact it has lots of problems. On Sep 7 cablegatesearch replaced one of the broken cables. On Sep 8 cablegatesearch replaced all 7414 cables that had been redacted by WL.

Thursday, 8 September 2011 13:29 UTC: 7,414 modified
From: http://cryptome.org/ (integrated into database on 2011-09-8 13:29 UTC)
Thus, the present situation is that the official WL site is still broken but other sites, like cablegatesearch and mrkva have the unredacted contents from cables.csv, and moreover allow one to compare the redacted and unredacted versions.