A lot happened in the wake of WikiLeaks’ flurry of activity in 2016, enough that it’s easy to lose track of even the most interesting things. One of those things was a promise by Julian Assange to publish a million documents about three countries before the end of the year. A few weeks later, WikiLeaks revealed they were the U.S., the U.K. and Ecuador. But the documents never appeared and when the insurance files silently vanished from WikiLeaks’ website, everyone was too distracted to notice the dog that didn’t bark.
The story begins on the 4th of October, a day most known now for Roger Stone’s failed prediction of an October Surprise. But some interesting promises from Julian Assange about upcoming publications have come to my attention. According to Assange, the organization planned to publish weekly releases totaling about one million documents related to the U.S. election and three governments, which would focus “on war, arms, oil, Google, the U.S. elections and” even himself. A few days later, WikiLeaks fulfilled Assange’s promise of an imminent initial batch and began releasing the Podesta emails.
On October 16th, WikiLeaks tweeted a trio of pre-commitment SHA256 hashes labeled John Kerry, Ecuador, and UK FCO. At the time, many people were confused by the hashes and mistook them for a deadman’s switch or code to unlock files, despite the tweets labeling them each as a “pre-commitment.” Once people were no longer convinced that Assange was dead, the connection was naturally made to his internet being cut at the embassy. While that might have been tied to the timing of the pre-commitment tweets, it wasn’t what ultimately prompted them.
WikiLeaks was attempting a difficult schedule, one they ultimately wouldn’t quite keep up with. On October 4th, Assange said they hoped “to be publishing every week for the next 10 weeks … and it’s a very hard schedule, all the U.S. election-related documents to come out before November 8.” According to a staffer, it “was a real crunch.” On November 6th, they released the second part of the DNC emails, and on the 7th they made previously published Podesta emails available for download. The final part of the Podesta emails wouldn’t actually be released until November 9th.
While they rushed to finish their election publications, they prepared for what was supposed to come next. On November 8th, they tweeted a trio of links to torrents for insurance files labeled November 7th and U.S., U.K. and Ecuador. The file for the U.S. was the largest, at 3.19 GB, the U.K. followed at 1.39 GB with Ecuador trailing at 545 MB. On the 16th they clarified the hashes were for the decrypted files. On the 18th they accused John Kerry of pressuring Ecuador into ‘stopping Assange from publishing’ and on the 27th they Quote RTed the insurance files, encouraging users to download the files. After that, WikiLeaks only mentioned the files once more.
On November 10th, the “WikiLeaks staff, including Sarah Harrison” held an AMA. In the AMA and on Twitter, they said they had “contingency plans in place to keep publishing.” In one question, they were asked about the insurance files. Their answer is worth quoting in its near entirety (lightly edited for clarity and readability, emphasis added):
The encrypted files we released a few days ago are insurance files. We have done this before. Insurance files are encrypted copies of unpublished documents submitted to us. We do this periodically, and especially at moments of high pressure on us, to ensure the documents can not be lost and history preserved. You will not be able to see the contents of any of our insurance files, until and unless the we are in a position where we must release the key. But you can download them and help spread them to ensure their safe keeping. … We publish as fast as we can. The insurance files contain the publications we are working on, as soon as they are ready we will publish them. However, we are under many attacks at this moment and so, to ensure they are not lost, whatever happens to us, we put out these insurance files.
WikiLeaks staff AmA, November 10, 2016. Answer Part One, Two
And that was it. The New York Times mentioned it in 2019, connecting it to Assange’s internet being severed. They also referred to former WikiLeaks insiders that said the Ecuador files were real. The NYT briefly speculated about what they might have been, but without any thought for releases focusing on John Kerry and the FCO, or the U.S. and U.K. as a whole. Beyond that, there’s only been silence on the topic.
But WikiLeaks strangely went a step further than silence. Between March 29th and April 5, 2017 the files were removed from WikiLeaks’ public index of torrent files. The actual files for all three disappeared sometime between January 17, 2018 and February 28, 2019.
And just like that, the files were gone and their contents have never been published or acknowledged by WikiLeaks since.
There were a handful of releases before the end of the year, but none of them line up Assange’s description of the materials and the insurance files. Certainly none met the weekly publication schedule that Assange had predicted.
On November 25, WikiLeaks released 500 files as part of the Yemen Files. One could certainly say this is about war, and the press release mentions John Kerry, but it’s impossible to estimate the actual size of the files because WikiLeaks didn’t offer a batch download, and the files they do present aren’t the originals. On November 28th, they published “more than half a million diplomatic cables” (the number of actual cables was 322,997), all of which were already public. On the 29th, they republished the HBGary emails, which were also public. On December 1st, the published the BND-NSA Inquiry Exhibits, which was certainly relevant to mass-surveillance but totaling 90 gigabytes. And on December 5th, they republished Berat’s Box.
Setting aside the fact that less than 3,000 of those files were being made public for the first time (and public files don’t require any sort of insurance) and using the most generous count provided by WikiLeaks still left the number of documents well under 700,000. And none of them fit either the publication schedule, the size requirements and the descriptions of the data from the insurance packages.
Beyond Assange’s promise that some of the files related to him, and him being an obvious common denominator between the U.S./John Kerry, the U.K. FCO and Ecuador, there are endless possibilities to what the data could have been. It’s easy and fruitless, if not counterproductive, to speculate. But as WikiLeaks’ website crumbles and their documents disappear en masse, it’s worth a look at when they walked back a trio of publications, especially ones that would’ve expanded their library by ~10% and apparently counted Assange himself among their topics.
- September 19, 2016 – Date of raw email files for Podesta emails
- September 26, 2016 – John Kerry allegedly attempted to make a side deal re: Assange with Ecuador during FARC negotiations
- October 4, 2016 – Press conference announcing 10 weeks of releases/1 million documents on the election and three different states
- October 6, 2016 – WikiLeaks tells media partners Podesta emails will be published next day
- October 7, 2016 – First Podesta emails release
- October 15, 2016 – Ecuador severs Assange’s internet
- October 16, 2016 – Pre-commitment hashes for John Kerry, Ecuador and UK FCO
- October 18, 2016 – WikiLeaks accuses John Kerry of pressuring Ecuador during FARC negotiations
- November 6, 2016 – WikiLeaks releases DNC emails part 2, Podesta mbox is prepared
- November 7, 2016 – Date of torrent files for U.S., U.K. and Ecuador insurance files
- November 8, 2016 – Date of upload and tweet for U.S., U.K. and Ecuador insurance files
- November 9, 2016 – Final Podesta emails release
- November 10, 2016 – Assange’s internet is still down, WikiLeaks staff holds AMA, says they have contingency plans to publish and are working on the documents from the insurance files
- November 25, 2016 – WikiLeaks publishes Yemen files
- November 27, 2016 – Quote RT of US, UK and Ecuador insurance files
- November 28, 2016 – WikiLeaks republishes declassified cables
- November 29, 2016 – WikiLeaks republishes HBGary emails
- December 1, 2016 – WikiLeaks publishes BND-NSA Inquiry Exhibits
- December 5, 2016 – WikiLeaks republishes Berat’s Box
- March 29 -April 5, 2017 – Insurance file torrents removed from visible listing on file.wikileaks.org subdomain
- January 17, 2018 – February 28, 2019 – Insurance file torrents removed from file.wikileaks.org subdomain entirely
