The files were also linked to from a page on Github, but the company removed it fairly swiftly—despite having hosted plenty of hacked material in the past. It turns out that removal was not due to government pressure, but because the hacker or hackers behind the supposed breach were asking for cash to release more data.

"Per our Terms of Service (section A8), we do not allow the auction or sale of stolen property on GitHub. As such, we have removed the repository in question," Kate Guarente, from Github's communications team, told Motherboard in a statement.

Specifically, that section of Github's Terms of Service says, "You may not use the Service for any illegal or unauthorized purpose. You must not, in the use of the Service, violate any laws in your jurisdiction (including but not limited to copyright or trademark laws)."