"Bluffing." It takes zero effort to distribute a a few hundred gigabytes of encrypted random data, relative to the amount of investigation and speculation as to what if anything is in those files. They are called "insurance." Assange/Wikileaks wanted to deter actions being taken against him.

Seems to me as likely as not that there is nothing really there.

There was a link on HN not too long ago to a quote from Assange, stating that part of the strategy is to sow uncertainty and doubt among the players to increase the secrecy tax. A multigig encrypted dump could have that effect.

That said he can't really play that card too often.

>I don't know why they would put out a few hundred gigabytes of fake files.

Looks like you can check it now. The keys went public:

pre-commitment 3: UK FCO f33a6de5c627e3270ed3e02f62cd0c857467a780cf6123d2172d80d02a072f74

pre-commitment 2: Ecuador eae5c9b064ed649ba468f0800abf8b56ae5cfe355b93b1ce90a1b92a48a9ab72

pre-commitment 1: John Kerry 4bb96075acadc3d80b5ac872874c3037a386f4f595fe99e687439aabd0219809

https://twitter.com/wikileaks

> I don't know why they would put out a few hundred gigabytes of fake files.

To trick people like you? `dd if=/dev/urandom` is much easier than finding a comparable quantity of actual info.

I don't know enough to have much opinion on the odds that's the case, vs them being real, though.

> I don't know why they would put out a few hundred gigabytes of fake files.

The same reason a stick-up man might put their hand in their pocket to mimic the shape of a gun. If you have no weapon, it's still often useful to make people think you have one.