Wikileaks on Twitter:pre-commitment 1: John Kerry

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For the record:

pre-commitment 1: John Kerry 4bb96075acadc3d80b5ac872874c3037a386f4f595fe99e687439aabd0219809

pre-commitment 2: Ecuador eae5c9b064ed649ba468f0800abf8b56ae5cfe355b93b1ce90a1b92a48a9ab72

pre-commitment 3: UK FCO f33a6de5c627e3270ed3e02f62cd0c857467a780cf6123d2172d80d02a072f74

Can someone elaborate a little on what this is? What's a precommitment?

Wikileaks shared the SHA256 hash of a file they will release in the near future.

When the file is released, people will be able to download the file from Wikileaks and verify their file has the same SHA256 hash as the one in this tweet.

One benefit of doing this is it prevents people from claiming to be Wikileaks and leaking fake files. If someone claimed to be Wikileaks and released a fake set of emails, readers will know they are fake because the fakes will have a different* SHA256 hash than the one shared in this tweet.

(* Note it may be possible to generate two distinct files with the same SHA256 hash however due to the design of SHA256 this is extremely improbable).

Another reason for the pre-commit is it proves they're in possession now - it can be used to show you had something as of a certain date, without revealing what the something is.

Thanks, that makes sense.

Ecuador? Is this related to the Democrat emails?

Hash? Key? What do we think this is?

Coulf be any number of things, but likely a hash. Something similar was done prior to the accusations surrounding Jacob Appelbaum.

https://twitter.com/puellavulnerata/status/73523010215444889...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commitment_scheme

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