WikiLeaks Posts 'Insurance' File on Its Website

(Aug. 2) -- WikiLeaks, the source of some 90,000 leaked military documents, has uploaded a mysterious file marked "insurance" on its website.

The contents of the encrypted file aren't yet known, but those following the federal investigation into the leaks are speculating it could contain previously withheld documents, perhaps as a way to ensure the safety or freedom of WikiLeaks' leadership.

"It's not known what the file contains but it could include the balance of data that U.S. Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning claimed to have leaked to [WikiLeaks editor Julian] Assange before he was arrested in May," reported Wired.com's Threat Level blog, which broke the news of Manning's arrest.

Manning, a 22-year-old Army private, is suspected of leaking classified military documents to WikiLeaks, including a video of a U.S. helicopter gunship attack in Iraq, which WikiLeaks released earlier this year. WikiLeaks' more recent release of the Afghan War Diary has garnered attention and condemnation from senior U.S. officials, including President Barack Obama.

WikiLeaks hasn't provided any explanation for the newly posted 1.4-GB "insurance" file, and the encryption doesn't appear so far to have been cracked. "The file might be junk, or the family jewels," according to Cryptome, another website that posts secret government information.

Whatever the file contains, it could be used as leverage in what now appears to be a probe that is expanding to include not just Manning, but other people associated with WikiLeaks. Jacob Appelbaum, a U.S. citizen and computer programmer associated with WikiLeaks, reportedly was detained for several hours on re-entering the United States last week and had his cell phones confiscated.

FBI officials then showed up at a conference Appelbaum was attending over the weekend to question him, according to CNET.

Assange, an Australian citizen, has not entered the United States since the latest documents were released. He did not respond to a request for comment from AOL News on the insurance file.

The WikiLeaks story has fast become a complex thriller, revolving around three central figures: Assange, the white-haired mysterious leader of WikiLeaks; Manning, the young Army intelligence analyst accused of leaking the documents, and Adrian Lamo, the controversial hacker who takes credit for turning Manning in to authorities.

Stories about the three have concentrated on everything from Manning's suspected sexual orientation to the psychological state of Lamo, who says he suffers from Asperger's syndrome.

Among the odder details uncovered: Assange and his mother helped organize an unsuccessful "bikini protest" against Islamic radicals. A recently unearthed archived version of Assange's website includes long, typo-riddled discourses on everything from politics to dieting.

"My advise to anyone who wants to loose weight; deny yourself no complex food that primitive man would eat (vegetables, red meat, including organs, fish, eggs, fruit, nuts, all simply prepared)," he wrote. "Your lobster knows how to be respond to those foods."

In the meantime, the story of how Lamo came to turn in Manning has also grown more complex. A self-styled citizen spy organization called Project Vigilant has entered the WikiLeaks story. Over the weekend, the head of the secretive cybervigilante organization took credit for pushing Lamo, one of its volunteers, to turn in Manning.

Chet Uber, the director of Project Vigilant, said it was he, not Lamo, who first thought of going to the authorities. "I'm the one who called the U.S. government," Uber said, according to Forbes.com. "All the people who say that Adrian is a narc, he did a patriotic thing. He sees all kinds of hacks, and he was seriously worried about people dying."

Lamo did not respond to an e-mailed request to comment on the issue.

On its website, Project Vigilant describes itself as "using all legal means of monitoring the observable activities around the globe, especially those that happen on the networks around the globe." The organization boasts an intelligence division that monitors Internet traffic designed to spot and identify domestic terrorists.

Manning remains in solitary confinement at a military detention facility in Quantico, Va..