Following the disclosure that the British National Party’s membership list has been leaked for the second time in twelve months, Scrapbook can reveal that the BNP had used encryption in an attempt to better secure the database. The Microsoft Excel files, believed to be which are in the possession of the Wikileaks website, had been encrypted using PKZIP archive software.
Speculation has been mounting on Twitter as to the identity of the as yet unnamed “peer” cited by The Guardian a BNP member. Scrapbook’s source indicates that the prospective member of the House of Lords is not the phony “Lord Adam Murray” appearing on a previously leaked database.
Guardian journalist Helen Pidd – who incidentally has excellent taste in satchels – has tweeted that the name checks out as a genuine member of the House of Lords. The paper are now awaiting a confirmation or denial from the peer, who resides “in a shire county”. If the listing is genuine this would give the BNP their first ever Westminster parliamentarian.
Stay tuned.
UPDATE: The membership database is spread across approximately nine spreadsheets. These may correspond with the different grades of membership (standard, family, Gold etc) offered by the party.
UPDATE II: Techie tweeter @ariehkovler has given the following helpful insight in to the encryption used: ”PKZIP includes strong encryption since 2003. Strong=nearly unbreakable. But just adding a password won’t do, bet they did that … you have to choose to use the strong encryption. If they did then whoever leaked it also leaked the password … Final thought: they could have used superstrong encryption but with a guessable or dictionary-attackable password.”
UPDATE III: One of the far right’s holding lines appears to be that ”It hasn’t been leaked again, it’s the same bloody document according to that link that’s doing the rounds. Who cares, every bloke and his dog has seen the old one.” This is obviously bollocks as The Guardian have confirmed existence of new names.
UPDATE IV: Nick Griffin’s official response posted.
One Comment
This seems to be a step up from ordering your bestest enemy a pizza or membership of a satanic sex circle.
12 Trackbacks
@kellylouiseholt It's new. Some info here –> http://is.gd/4rwFQ
[...] 00:30 Political Scrapbook is reporting that in an attempt to secure their membership list, the BNP have used the PKZIP archive software to [...]
UPDATED –> The BNP membership list is spread across nine spreadsheets –> http://is.gd/4rwFQ
@ariehkovler Have blogged your info here so thanks – http://is.gd/4rwFQ
Possible new BNP membership list >> http://alturl.com/n7ub #BNP
UPDATE –> Membership leak post updated with the BNP's (bollocks) holding line –> http://is.gd/4rwFQ
Exclusive: Guardian awaiting response from peer named on encrypted …: Following the disclosure that the Briti.. http://bit.ly/1qfhsn
RT @psbook: New post –> Exclusive: Guardian awaiting response from peer named on encrypted BNP list http://cli.gs/H5W3q
[...] website today. The Guardian say it shows the BNP had 11,560 members as of April this year. Political Scrapbook confirms that the file had been encrypted to make it harder to access the data. Meanwhile a group [...]
Exclusive: Guardian awaiting response from peer named on encrypted BNP list | Political Scrapbook http://ow.ly/vobI
RT: @June4th Exclusive: Guardian awaiting response from peer named on encrypted BNP list | Political Scrapbook http://ow.ly/vobI
Thanks to everyone who visited Scrapbook today. These BNP stories have made it the busiest so far –> http://is.gd/4sURY http://is.gd/4sUQS