I think until there is satisfactory evidence that Assange is safe and still behind the wikileaks web, social media properties, etc. we should assume that they have been co-opted.
Publishing the hashes is meant to serve as a canary for this exact class of concern.
Furthermore we have not seen any public appearances from Assange since his Internet access was cut, nor has anything been signed with his pgp key.
edit: upon further consideration there might be alternative explanations, but we would still need more evidence furnished to believe wikileaks sources credibly. No explanation or acknowledgement has been provided for the checksum mismatches.
There was an attempt on assange in August. Some guy scales the wall, trys to get in the embassy. Luckily guards noticed him and warded the assailant off, didn't catch him. Assanges lawyers drop dead. John Kerry visits with authorities blocks from the embassy. Same day, bunch of security contractor vehicles outside, along with police. Internet in panic. Periscope live streams show up but after the cars are gone. Next morning, no word from assange, no journalists, just periscope streamers. RT.com shows up and covers the story, also reveals that the UK froze all of their bank and credit assets that morning. Wikileaks tweets possible warning shot at Kerry, tweets pre-commitment for several dumps, including one with Kerrys name in the title. Dyn DNS goes down, taking down access to twitter, word is assange has no internet still. No periscope streamers in 5 mile viscinity starting that day, lasting 3 days. I tried with proxies and tweeting at past streamers, no luck getting anyone to stop by. When DNS comes back up, there are over 20,000 tweets about Assange, the embassy, proof of life, etc, 4 different tweet templates, tweeted by thousands of accounts, two of them were videos of assange in the window from 2012. Was impossible to find anything relevant on twitter, like I had previously been doing, because there were too many bullshit tweets. Since then, 4/8ch investigation threads have been deleted repeatedly. 100 pages of investigation purged, and the archive.is backups of all of the wikileaks/4ch stuff were also deleted.(they endlessly load now). I only started looking into this, because I noticed the weirdest change in tone from the wikileaks twitter. That afternoon, the wikileaks account started tweeting in response, very informally. Something they had not done at all since I had been following them. They also took a distinct anti-hillary position, and even said yes we have a position. Absolutely no proof of life. Also that same day, wikileaks tweeted that 14 other people who work with assange/wikileaks, had lost internet connection, and their phones went out as well. Since then nothing at all meaningful has been dumped. I also think it is safe to assume he is no longer in control.
Rescued from his captivity by a grateful Putin? If we want to speculate wildly.
Which would mean that the KGB had conducted a fairly elaborate operation on British soil, something that would be inconvenient to air. So, Assange as a public figure would still be history, if that's the case.
I have a pet theory, I'm not sure if it's even close to the right one, but my guess is that WikiLeaks (and possibly even Assange's PGP credentials, etc.) have been puppeted for a while by some foreign intelligence agency (KGB? China? Someone more nefarious and less well-known?) with the express intent of helping to destabilize and erode trust in the US government. I highly doubt this was a US hit job, even considering that what's been released is largely US-centric.
Does Wikileaks periodically obtain new insurance files?
If not, how can they guarantee that the information/evidence contained therein is current enough to generate high impact?
Times change, and some of us once thought a businessman with a questionable past and unsavory connections would never be elected president. Which is to say: what the public gets outraged about today may not be much of anything tomorrow.
Basically the idea behind it is that this temporary empathy, followed by apathy and inaction by us after events is a political construct, to prevent the emergence of mass movements.
Publishing the hashes is meant to serve as a canary for this exact class of concern.
Furthermore we have not seen any public appearances from Assange since his Internet access was cut, nor has anything been signed with his pgp key.
edit: upon further consideration there might be alternative explanations, but we would still need more evidence furnished to believe wikileaks sources credibly. No explanation or acknowledgement has been provided for the checksum mismatches.