[LINK] The Wikileaks Password

[Roger Clarke]

><http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-1109.html>

[A nice short story about a long passphrase and how it became insecure]

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>
>       Unredacted U.S. Diplomatic WikiLeaks Cables Published
>
>It looks as if the entire mass of U.S. diplomatic cables that WikiLeaks
>had is available online somewhere.  How this came about is a good
>illustration of how security can go wrong in ways you don't expect.  It
>seems that the encrypted file WikiLeaks gave to the Guardian got loose
>in the wild, and then the Guardian published the encryption key in their
>tell-all book about WikiLeaks.
>
>  From pp 138-9 of "WikiLeaks":
>
>      Assange wrote down on a scrap of paper:
>      ACollectionOfHistorySince_1966_ToThe_PresentDay#.  "That's
>      the password," he said.  "But you have to add one extra word when
>      you type it in.  You have to put in the word 'Diplomatic' before
>      the word 'History'.  Can you remember that?"
>
>I think we can all agree that that's a secure encryption key.
>
>Memo to the "Guardian":  Publishing encryption keys is almost always a
>bad idea.  Memo to WikiLeaks: Take better care of your encrypted files.
>
>The detailed story.
>http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,783778,00.html
>
>Finger-pointing between the Guardian and WikiLeaks:
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/01/unredacted-us-embassy-cables-online 
>
>or http://tinyurl.com/3g3zktq
>http://www.wikileaks.org/Guardian-journalist-negligently.html
>
>The book:
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0057D9LJG/counterpane/
>
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-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
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Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University