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U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

64 points by dotBen 16y ago

frisco 16y ago
Everyone in the 2600 group on Facebook got a message from Adrian last week: Please take a moment to delete your ~/.purple/otr.private_key & re-key as soon as possible. Verify fingerprints in an out-of-band fashion, such as telephone. If practical, change PGP keys, and consider re-keying on a set schedule. Set the re-key time on your SSH sessions to 30 minutes or less. *wild guess* There is no specific reason for this. I'm just suggesting this as a friendly piece of advice. Please act as soon as you have the time. Post on the wall if you have any questions about how to do the above, or whether it applies to you. If you don't currently use OTR and PGP, look into them, especially OTR. If anyone here with some actual expertise in cryptography has advice, I'm welcoming it. *** Disable logging for OTR conversations. *** Have a nice day. It was strange (concerning?) enough to get that at all; now it has me wondering what else we're in for in the next few weeks.
lionhearted 16y ago
> “[I] listened and lip-synced to Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’ while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history,” he added later. ”Weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counter-intelligence, inattentive signal analysis… a perfect storm.” The voyeuristic, excited element of it is what got him caught. I have to think that if he'd been more solemn and reserved, saying he had to balance his duty to the American people with the oaths he took, then he'd come across a lot better. But he didn't. He didn't carefully, agonizingly release a video he thought relevant, he was talking about dumping all sorts of classified material - just to do it. Doing that haphazardly shows supply chains, movements, fortifications, investigations, counter-intelligence, logistics... it would be a gold mine for terrorists and insurgents not to just attack the armed forces, but also, maybe even more likely, to kidnap, torture, and kill civilians who are doing logistics, shipping, etc without a heavily armed escort. My view here will be unpopular I think, and I don't say this lightly, but I think this is a rare case of where charges of treason should be brought and the death penalty sought. He was putting tens of thousands of people's lives at risk and not just soldiers... and he seemed giddy and excited about it like a 15 year old figuring out the teacher's password and changing grades. I doubt they'll charge with him treason since it'd attract a lot of press they don't want, but his actions were incredibly reckless and despicable. For someone who has taken the military oaths to break them in such a care-free, unthinking way, lip-syncing Lady Gaga and being all jazzed up about it... it's crazy. He didn't even leak to a professional reporter who would use some discretion in what to release, he went to an anonymous website that'd publish anything. Again, I think my view will be unpopular, but I think he should face the firing squad for it. It remains to be seen whether he'll be painted as a sympathetic person by people who don't like the war or dislike American policy in general, but a lot of people stood to die violently as a result of this man's actions if he wasn't caught.
- pingou 16y ago
  I think you have some good points but I disagree with what you think this man deserves (disclaimer : I'm an opponent to death penalty and it's even illegal in my country), his actions will have very serious consequences, and he acted stupidly, but I don't think he did this in an evil way, it's very human once you have some power to misuse it, and I think a lot (well I mean a few percent) will have done the same thing, so I'm not even sure it's a deviant behaviour, it's not like he had directly murdered anyone, maybe some will die because of him, but to me he doesn't deserve the same punishment as a murderer. I think he's not the only one to blame, he shouldn't have access to all this sensitive data in the first place. And maybe at the end, all this leaked informations will have a positive feedback on the USA, like in christianity, confess your faults and you'll feel better. But I doubt it.
  - lionhearted 16y ago
    Thank you for the sincere comment and I respect your position - a lot of the usage of the death penalty is really morally questionable in my eyes, things like executing people who are barely mentally competent and making a big dog and pony show out of it. That sort of thing doesn't seem like it'd reduce crime or give any real feeling of closure to a victim, or really accomplish much at all. So I respect your position. If you think the death penalty is wrong, full stop, then I guess it's just agree to disagree because I think there are times when it's appropriate - though, like I said, I respect your position. But if you'll ask the question of, "If there's a death penalty available for prosecutors, when should they seek it?" I'm not convinced that the answer to that is just when the person does obviously horrifying things. Put like this - I have an expression that goes, "Satan urinates on toilet seats." I don't actually believe in Satan, mind you, what I mean is - I think evil originates less from bad motives like you see in the movies and more from people being careless, reckless, and leaving a mess. Most people are careful in a clean public bathroom, but once it gets a little messy, it gets really messy really fast. So I always imagined that, if there's a Satan, he goes around being the first one to pee on a clean toilet seat. Then all the decent people who would normally not make a mess both have to stay further away from the now-dirty bathroom, and care less if they make more of a mess. So by punishing this man for very casually, unthinkingly sharing very important information and risking lives, I think he's absolutely culpable. If there's any place where the death penalty could dissuade people, or get them thinking more, it's here. So a someone in military intelligence who thinks about leaking classified material has to ask themselves, "Is this important that I'm willing to die to leak it?" And thus, I don't think it'd suppress people who come across something really, really bad. But this guy was talking about dumping classified material wantonly on an anonymous server. People were going to die as a result of his actions. I wouldn't be for seeking the death penalty based on just the video of the helicopter incident, but all sorts of material just for the hell of it? And on top of that, he took specific oaths to protect his country and his fellow soldier. He wasn't conscripted. He wasn't a random kid playing around on the internet. He volunteered to join the armed forces, and then he was trained and instructed before he become an intelligence analyst. He would've had a choice if he wanted go into that role in the armed forces, and he would've been instructed repeatedly that sharing classified information could kill his fellow servicemen and women. I agree with you that there could be some much-needed security improvements as a result of his actions, but it's not like some kid was hacking around on servers from the internet, this is a man who carefully planned to bring materials into an area sealed off from the internet and sneak the information out. He's smart enough to steal classified information, but he's either reckless or ambivalent to the fact that people are very likely to die as a result of his actions. If you seek the death penalty for this, you send a clear message that risking a fellow serivemen's and innocent civillians' lives haphazardly for a thrill is considered the highest of crimes and deserves the highest of punishments. I respect your position on the death penalty in general, but if you have a death penalty, I think this is just about as bad of a crime as a member of the armed forces can commit.
rbanffy 16y ago
> Manning was turned in late last month by a former computer hacker with whom he spoke online. In the course of their chats, Manning took credit for leaking a headline-making video of a helicopter attack that Wikileaks posted online in April. What part of "trust no one" didn't he get? You simply don't take credit for something that pisses off the very people who can throw you in jail and misplace the key. It's a brave thing to do, the Right Thing to do, but it's also the thing you write in your memories, for publishing after you die.
- puredemo 16y ago
  Yeah, most 22 year olds probably don't get that.
kordless 16y ago
Brad worked for me at Zoto for about 6 months back in 2006 or so. I found him fiercely intellectual. He moved to Oklahoma from England where he said he had been living with his mom. Because the driving age is 17 there, he hadn't gotten his license yet. I took to picking him up from the house and then letting him drive my car to the office so he could log time for his driver's permit. One day he accidentally ran a stop sign, directly in the path of another car. I ended up shouting something like "Stop Brad!" at him, and reaching over and touching him on the arm as we squealed to a stop. What resulted was something I never had observed in a person before. He literally shut completely down, and for a about 5 minutes just sat there with his eyes closed, breathing. I tried getting his attention, but he was completely catatonic. I pulled the parking brake, and put the car in park because I had no idea what was going on with him. I ended up asking him to leave Zoto a few months later, because of this and other bizarre incidences, which I chalked mostly up to being a young kid coming from a split marriage. I'm still not exactly sure what caused his strange behaviors, but it makes me sad to see that he went and straightened his life out, only to have all this happen to him. :(
- rdl 16y ago
  I hope this came up during the interview stage of his TS-SSBI clearance application.
  - kordless 16y ago
    Yeah, no. They never called me.
    - rdl 16y ago
      Maybe because he was under 18 when he worked for you? I don't really know how the rules work for children. But getting fired from a job should ABSOLUTELY be investigated, and I'd assume "talk to the boss" is the standard for that. That's some negligence right there! (or, he left it off his application entirely, and they didn't do enough checking to verify employment at the time, and see the gap)

64 points by dotBen 16y ago

Everyone in the 2600 group on Facebook got a message from Adrian last week: Please take a moment to delete your ~/.purple/otr.private_key & re-key as soon as possible. Verify fingerprints in an out-of-band fashion, such as telephone. If practical, change PGP keys, and consider re-keying on a set schedule. Set the re-key time on your SSH sessions to 30 minutes or less. *wild guess* There is no specific reason for this. I'm just suggesting this as a friendly piece of advice. Please act as soon as you have the time. Post on the wall if you have any questions about how to do the above, or whether it applies to you. If you don't currently use OTR and PGP, look into them, especially OTR. If anyone here with some actual expertise in cryptography has advice, I'm welcoming it. *** Disable logging for OTR conversations. *** Have a nice day. It was strange (concerning?) enough to get that at all; now it has me wondering what else we're in for in the next few weeks.

lionhearted 16y ago

> “[I] listened and lip-synced to Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’ while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history,” he added later. ”Weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counter-intelligence, inattentive signal analysis… a perfect storm.” The voyeuristic, excited element of it is what got him caught. I have to think that if he'd been more solemn and reserved, saying he had to balance his duty to the American people with the oaths he took, then he'd come across a lot better. But he didn't. He didn't carefully, agonizingly release a video he thought relevant, he was talking about dumping all sorts of classified material - just to do it. Doing that haphazardly shows supply chains, movements, fortifications, investigations, counter-intelligence, logistics... it would be a gold mine for terrorists and insurgents not to just attack the armed forces, but also, maybe even more likely, to kidnap, torture, and kill civilians who are doing logistics, shipping, etc without a heavily armed escort. My view here will be unpopular I think, and I don't say this lightly, but I think this is a rare case of where charges of treason should be brought and the death penalty sought. He was putting tens of thousands of people's lives at risk and not just soldiers... and he seemed giddy and excited about it like a 15 year old figuring out the teacher's password and changing grades. I doubt they'll charge with him treason since it'd attract a lot of press they don't want, but his actions were incredibly reckless and despicable. For someone who has taken the military oaths to break them in such a care-free, unthinking way, lip-syncing Lady Gaga and being all jazzed up about it... it's crazy. He didn't even leak to a professional reporter who would use some discretion in what to release, he went to an anonymous website that'd publish anything. Again, I think my view will be unpopular, but I think he should face the firing squad for it. It remains to be seen whether he'll be painted as a sympathetic person by people who don't like the war or dislike American policy in general, but a lot of people stood to die violently as a result of this man's actions if he wasn't caught.

pingou 16y ago
I think you have some good points but I disagree with what you think this man deserves (disclaimer : I'm an opponent to death penalty and it's even illegal in my country), his actions will have very serious consequences, and he acted stupidly, but I don't think he did this in an evil way, it's very human once you have some power to misuse it, and I think a lot (well I mean a few percent) will have done the same thing, so I'm not even sure it's a deviant behaviour, it's not like he had directly murdered anyone, maybe some will die because of him, but to me he doesn't deserve the same punishment as a murderer. I think he's not the only one to blame, he shouldn't have access to all this sensitive data in the first place. And maybe at the end, all this leaked informations will have a positive feedback on the USA, like in christianity, confess your faults and you'll feel better. But I doubt it.
- lionhearted 16y ago
  Thank you for the sincere comment and I respect your position - a lot of the usage of the death penalty is really morally questionable in my eyes, things like executing people who are barely mentally competent and making a big dog and pony show out of it. That sort of thing doesn't seem like it'd reduce crime or give any real feeling of closure to a victim, or really accomplish much at all. So I respect your position. If you think the death penalty is wrong, full stop, then I guess it's just agree to disagree because I think there are times when it's appropriate - though, like I said, I respect your position. But if you'll ask the question of, "If there's a death penalty available for prosecutors, when should they seek it?" I'm not convinced that the answer to that is just when the person does obviously horrifying things. Put like this - I have an expression that goes, "Satan urinates on toilet seats." I don't actually believe in Satan, mind you, what I mean is - I think evil originates less from bad motives like you see in the movies and more from people being careless, reckless, and leaving a mess. Most people are careful in a clean public bathroom, but once it gets a little messy, it gets really messy really fast. So I always imagined that, if there's a Satan, he goes around being the first one to pee on a clean toilet seat. Then all the decent people who would normally not make a mess both have to stay further away from the now-dirty bathroom, and care less if they make more of a mess. So by punishing this man for very casually, unthinkingly sharing very important information and risking lives, I think he's absolutely culpable. If there's any place where the death penalty could dissuade people, or get them thinking more, it's here. So a someone in military intelligence who thinks about leaking classified material has to ask themselves, "Is this important that I'm willing to die to leak it?" And thus, I don't think it'd suppress people who come across something really, really bad. But this guy was talking about dumping classified material wantonly on an anonymous server. People were going to die as a result of his actions. I wouldn't be for seeking the death penalty based on just the video of the helicopter incident, but all sorts of material just for the hell of it? And on top of that, he took specific oaths to protect his country and his fellow soldier. He wasn't conscripted. He wasn't a random kid playing around on the internet. He volunteered to join the armed forces, and then he was trained and instructed before he become an intelligence analyst. He would've had a choice if he wanted go into that role in the armed forces, and he would've been instructed repeatedly that sharing classified information could kill his fellow servicemen and women. I agree with you that there could be some much-needed security improvements as a result of his actions, but it's not like some kid was hacking around on servers from the internet, this is a man who carefully planned to bring materials into an area sealed off from the internet and sneak the information out. He's smart enough to steal classified information, but he's either reckless or ambivalent to the fact that people are very likely to die as a result of his actions. If you seek the death penalty for this, you send a clear message that risking a fellow serivemen's and innocent civillians' lives haphazardly for a thrill is considered the highest of crimes and deserves the highest of punishments. I respect your position on the death penalty in general, but if you have a death penalty, I think this is just about as bad of a crime as a member of the armed forces can commit.

rbanffy 16y ago

> Manning was turned in late last month by a former computer hacker with whom he spoke online. In the course of their chats, Manning took credit for leaking a headline-making video of a helicopter attack that Wikileaks posted online in April. What part of "trust no one" didn't he get? You simply don't take credit for something that pisses off the very people who can throw you in jail and misplace the key. It's a brave thing to do, the Right Thing to do, but it's also the thing you write in your memories, for publishing after you die.

puredemo 16y ago
Yeah, most 22 year olds probably don't get that.

kordless 16y ago

Brad worked for me at Zoto for about 6 months back in 2006 or so. I found him fiercely intellectual. He moved to Oklahoma from England where he said he had been living with his mom. Because the driving age is 17 there, he hadn't gotten his license yet. I took to picking him up from the house and then letting him drive my car to the office so he could log time for his driver's permit. One day he accidentally ran a stop sign, directly in the path of another car. I ended up shouting something like "Stop Brad!" at him, and reaching over and touching him on the arm as we squealed to a stop. What resulted was something I never had observed in a person before. He literally shut completely down, and for a about 5 minutes just sat there with his eyes closed, breathing. I tried getting his attention, but he was completely catatonic. I pulled the parking brake, and put the car in park because I had no idea what was going on with him. I ended up asking him to leave Zoto a few months later, because of this and other bizarre incidences, which I chalked mostly up to being a young kid coming from a split marriage. I'm still not exactly sure what caused his strange behaviors, but it makes me sad to see that he went and straightened his life out, only to have all this happen to him. :(

rdl 16y ago
I hope this came up during the interview stage of his TS-SSBI clearance application.
- kordless 16y ago
  Yeah, no. They never called me.
  - rdl 16y ago
    Maybe because he was under 18 when he worked for you? I don't really know how the rules work for children. But getting fired from a job should ABSOLUTELY be investigated, and I'd assume "talk to the boss" is the standard for that. That's some negligence right there! (or, he left it off his application entirely, and they didn't do enough checking to verify employment at the time, and see the gap)