If you’ve been looking for some insurance news over the last few days then chances are you’ve read headlines about the so-called WikiLeaks insurance file. However, does this actually have anything to do with insurance at all?
The short answer is, “not really”. It has been dubbed an insurance file because it had been released just in case anything happens to the website or the editor-in-chief. It effectively serves as a “dead man’s switch” in that it is locked with a 256-AES encryption and can only be unlocked with a second decryption key which is held by WikiLeaks itself. So effectively it’s a back-up in case the US Government, or any other organisation, wants to try and prevent its publication.
So what is the file all about?
For now, this remains a mystery – we just know that the whistle-blowing platform has released an 88GB file on to the web ahead of what is expected to be some form of announcement. The content is unknown although there has been widespread speculation that it involves Hillary Clinton in some way.
The file was originally posted on June 17 and was accompanied by the following message.
“Protect our coming publications”.
The reason many are speculating that Hillary Clinton will be involved in some way is because the publication’s owner, Julian Assange, had previously referenced that it had “upcoming leaks in relation to Hillary Clinton”.
Irrespective however, until the second decryption key is released no-one other than Assange will know exactly what the files contain.
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