There's a reason Assange specifically announced -- on the Web -- that there is a 256-bit key encryption code that only a few trusted associates know that will unleash the contents of the 1.4 gigabyte-size file.
"He's saying don't even bother trying. It will take you so long to succeed that by that time, it will be too late," Nigam said. "Most of the time, you see a 56-[bit]key encryption. That's considered secure. When you are using 256, you are sending a message: 'I'm smart enough to know that you will try to get in.'"
Assange has repeatedly said that stopping him would not stop WikiLeaks.
Demonstrating the democracy of the internet, supporters with $35 for a domain name and a basic knowledge of HTML are giving WikiLeaks an assist.
Julian is saying 'I've calibrated this so that no matter how many ways you try, you're never going to be able to deactivate it.'
--Hemu Nigam, cyber security expert on Poison Pill file
--Hemu Nigam, cyber security expert on Poison Pill file
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Hundreds of Web sites have popped up which appear to have copied WikiLeaks' data for display on "mirror sites." Some sites are offering a how-to guide on mirroring.
While that's happening, an anonymous group of hackers apparently hacked PayPal, one of the service providers that cut off service to WikiLeaks. Smaller tokens of support could be found on Time magazine's site. As of Thursday afternoon, Assange was leading against more than 25 other candidates to be the magazine's Person of the Year with more than 320,000 votes cast online.
Ben Laurie, a London-based computer security expert who has reportedly advised WikiLeaks in the past, said Assange is nothing if not exacting.
"Julian's a smart guy, and this is an interesting tactic," Laurie told reporters. "He will hope it deters anyone from acting against him."
Years to crack code
It could take an incalculable number of years to figure out the combination of letters, numbers and symbols comprising the 256-bit key code.
It's anyone's guess what's in the file labeled "insurance.aes256."
But few doubt that it's interesting.
That massive file size is big enough to hold the contents of all of the group's leaks since July: 90,000 secret intelligence documents about the Afghanistan War; 400,000 pages of classified intel about the Iraq War, and purportedly more than a quarter million cables authored by U.S. diplomats.
Assange has said in previous interviews that Bank of America leaked him a hard drive, and he's warned that WikiLeaks is planning a major leak about a large bank, according to Forbes.
Assange has also claimed to have files on oil giant BP.
Reports of the "poison pill" file containing any sort of "nuclear bomb of information are completely over exaggerated," Jennifer Robinson, one of Assange¹s lawyers, told CNN.
Assange has hinted that whatever information he has, it's unredacted.
Russia has suggested that Julian Assange should be awarded the Nobel peace prize, in an unexpected show of support from Moscow for the jailed WikiLeaks founder.In what appears to be a calculated dig at the US, the Kremlin urged non-governmental organisations to think seriously about "nominating Assange as a Nobel Prize laureate".
"Public and non-governmental organisations should think of how to help him," the source from inside president Dmitry Medvedev's office told Russian news agencies. Speaking in Brussels, where Medvedev was attending a Russia-EU summit yesterday , the source went on: "Maybe, nominate him as a Nobel Prize laureate."
Russia's reflexively suspicious leadership appears to have come round to WikiLeaks, having decided that the ongoing torrent of disclosures are ultimately far more damaging and disastrous to America's long-term geopolitical interests than they are to Russia's.
The Kremlin's initial reaction to stories dubbing Russia a corrupt "mafia state" and kleptocracy was, predictably, negative. Last week Medvedev's spokesman dubbed the revelations "not worthy of comment" while Putin raged that a US diplomatic cable comparing him to Batman and Medvedev to Robin was "arrogant" and "unethical". State TV ignored the claims.
Subsequent disclosures, however, that Nato had secretly prepared a plan in case Russia invaded its Baltic neighbours have left the Kremlin smarting. Today Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Nato had to explain why it privately considered Russia an enemy while publicly describing it warmly as a "strategic partner" and ally.
Nato should make clear its position on WikiLeaks cables published by the Guardian alleging that the alliance had devised plans to defend Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia against Russia, Lavrov said.
"With one hand, Nato seeks agreement with us on joint partnership, and with the other, it makes a decision that it needs to defend. So when is Nato more sincere?" Lavrov asked today. "We have asked these questions and are expecting answers to them. We think we are entitled to that."
Lavrov said his attitude towards the leaked US state department cables was "philosophical". "It is interesting to read, including what ambassadors write to provide a stream of information to their capitals," he admitted.
Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's hardline ultra-nationalist ambassador to Nato, also today voiced his support for the embattled Assange. He tweeted that Assange's arrest and incarceration on Monday at the City of Westminster magistrates' court demonstrated that there was "no media freedom" in the west. Assange's "fate" amounted to "political persecution" and a lack of human rights, the ambassador said.
In London, meanwhile, Russia's chargé d'affaires and acting ambassador in the UK, Alexander Sternik, said relations with Britain had improved since the coalition came to power. He complained, however, about the hostile reaction in the British media after Fifa's executive committee voted that Russia – and not England – should host the 2018 World Cup.
In a briefing to journalists this morning, Sternik said: "While the English bid was technically a strong one, the Russian bid was in line with the well-known Fifa philosophy of opening new frontiers for world football. The vote result was therefore quite logical, and while the disappointment of many in England is understandable, the media outrage was a step too far. It's not cricket, as the English say."
