There’s an embedded archive file called all.7z which contains thousands of additional emails and files.
The 7zip archiver in which this is stored uses 256 bit AES encryption. It’s a tough nut to crack.
“FOIA” chose this most likely because there are no effective tools for 7zip, while there seem to be many for standard .zip and .RAR files.
From their website: http://www.7-zip.org/7z.html
“7-Zip also supports encryption with AES-256 algorithm. This algorithm uses cipher key with length of 256 bits. To create that key 7-Zip uses derivation function based on SHA-256 hash algorithm. A key derivation function produces a derived key from text password defined by user. For increasing the cost of exhaustive search for passwords 7-Zip uses big number of iterations to produce cipher key from text password.”
The password can be 2047 or 8191 characters long, depending on your operating system.
I’m doubtful this password will be cracked anytime soon, maybe DoD could do it. Chances are that “FOIA” chose a very long password, that could take years to crack by a brute force attack.
“FOIA” is holding this in reserve, making it known that it is there, ready to pull the firing pin. I expect we’ll see it sooner than later as the reaction so far from RC and the Team is continued arrogance.
Julian Williams in Wales has an interesting take:
Maybe the passphrase is so complex to be uncrackable; is that possible? Surely after having sat on this material for two years FOIA would have made a decision how he is going to play this, and it just makes no sense to put most of the material behind a crackable passphrase.
But supposing he then sent the passphrase to Phil Jones and M Mann with a threat; Resign now, get the hell out, otherwise this passphrase goes online to the general public. That is a strategy that might push FOIA’s enemies out without completely disgracing the “scientific community”
Just another way of looking at what might motivate FOIA.
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FOIA is good, very good. The authorities have been trying to track him since Climategate 1 with no success. It is therefore highly unlikely that the passphrase is trivial and vunerable to a dictionary attack. As other posters have said AES256 is to all intents immune from a bruteforce attack and will be for many many years yet.
So why is FOIA releasing the ZIP file, Thinking Scientist has it right, it provides plausible deniability for having an encrypted file on your computer. Under UK law the Police can demand the password for any file and it is a serious criminal offence not to comply. It also means that you do not have to transport the data on physical media across international borders which is risky.
So why did he not release the full archive un-encrypted? Again this would be highly risky for FOIA as this could contain information which could reveal his identity. Just simply knowing the start and end dates of the file dumps would be useful to the pursurers.
His concern isn’t that if discovered he would be subjected to some kind of Black Ops disappearance, rather that he gets some serious jail time. You only have to look at the treatment of recent script kiddies to realise why our friend is cautious. Whatever you think of his motives and morality, he clearly has broken laws, and is unlikely to get much sympathy from the authorities.
As to what is in the remaining e-mails, we can have fun guessing, while hopefully our friend gets on with his data mining.
As I said he is very good, trust him.
FOIA is becoming a bit of a legend,
what next FOIA T-shirts, single, book, interview with face blacked out and actors voice,
the easiest random number is 3.141592…. etc etc, just choose your length ?
sounds like FIOA is a Brit (`old school` of course)
regards
Just a thought, if the UEA etc has nothing to hide……why don’t they “trump” the FOIA leak and publish the E-Mails?
cross-posted from ClimateAudit-
Running “all.7z” in test mode reveals some interesting results. Apparently, the passphrase isn’t required for this function.
There are 220247 email files and 1 readme.txt file. There are no subfolders, so no additional tranches requiring different passphrases. This is the Full Monty.
The email file names are 9 or 10 digit Unix timestamps.
Oldest email is 636048969.txt dated 26 Feb 1990 16:16:09 GMT. Interestingly, The next email in the sequence is dated Mar 08 1996 8:02:01 GMT- 6 years later.
Newest email is 1258124051.txt dated 13 Nov. 2009 14:54:11 GMT. This moves the dossier acquisition up one day, from 12 Nov 2009.
From Duke C. on November 26, 2011 at 12:13 pm:
Run in test mode? I get all that on my Debian Linux box by running Archive Manager without the correct passphrase. Except the count is 220246 numbered text files and one readme, all empty, and their directory. It also takes a very long time to wipe all 220248 objects off of the hard drive, more than 3 to 4x the attempted unpacking, so I’ve given up trying. Maybe three attempts an hour with pronounced system slowdown? I don’t need the hassle.
Try just unpacking one file (ie read me) instead of the whole archive. GK
I’m wondering about Kendall. If not an outright miracle, still, good people can get inspired. As Kim noted, Kendall would appear to have the ability, reason, and courage. Read his story through the emails here.
Whatever.
I think it would be a good idea to think about a plan of action, as to how best to cope with 220,000 emails.
how about just googling the password, could be hidden in plain view, so the owner can find it whenever they want?
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
November 26, 2011 at 2:39 pm
My Linux version is command line only. It was quicker to use a Windows machine w/ 7z File Manager; click on the “Test” icon.
FWIW, here’s a link to a zip file containing a spreadsheet that lists “all.7z” email file sizes, file names, and last modified dates:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18009262/all7zEmailDirectory.zip
It’s not hide_the_decline
it seems that Phil Jones and the rest of the crew are not phased by these emails or the threat of the ones not published, they know themselves that there are another 200,000 + ready to go.
I feel that if there were worse to come they would be running for the hills .
If i knew I had done some cover ups and it was there in print and this was about to come out i would not be taking it so casually.
I think they have already taken stock of what is there and know they can weather the storm as the MSM will just keep quiet.
they have spent the last two years preparing for this scenario.
all the emails should have been released at once and swamped everything.
always strike with the clenched fist not the spread hand, I learnt this from General Manstein.
not to worry though, the world cannot afford this madness so is backing off, the politicians pushing this were also pushing the euro.
Dumb and Dumber.
sorry for my hogging of the comments box, i am done and will sit back with my glass of wine.
“Over 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day.”
“Every day nearly 16.000 children die from hunger and related causes.”
“One dollar can save a life” — the opposite must also be true.
Why the quotes? Perhaps one or more of them are a “treasure map” of sorts to the pass phrase. That’s what I’d do — include the phrase in the archive, but somehow transformed.
The first quote comes from givewell.org
The second quote comes from save-life.org
The third quote comes from a variety of websites, but why the editorial comment following it?
Perhaps the “save a life” quote is a mnemonic to help remember that the pass phrase is some text from the Save-Live website (i.e., the quote), and “the opposite” is a clue to remember the transformation. Or maybe it’s a word substitution. Or maybe the quotes are just to get people like me to waste a few minutes time on a slow day. 😉
For those interested in trying to guess the pass phrase, just use the 7zip file manager and double click a file, then paste in the phrase. Takes a few seconds per try.
As to why release the archive — keep your enemies guessing. No one can possibly remember every email he wrote over that many years. It vastly limits one’s ability to counter what has been released not knowing what else is there. Doubly true if you know for certain something is there, but FOIA hadn’t happened to find it.
BTW, FOIA stands for Freedom of Information Act, a bit of US legislation, even if he does use a . for a , as a thousands separator. Either could be a clue planted to confuse the trail.