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>Investigators at first believed Mr. Martin might be the Shadow Brokers, who had posted their first announcement of their auction of N.S.A. hacking tools a half
by rl3 8y ago
>Investigators at first believed Mr. Martin might be the Shadow Brokers, who had posted their first announcement of their auction of N.S.A. hacking tools a half-hour after Mr. Martin blocked the two Kaspersky workers on Twitter. They found the same N.S.A. exploits in Mr. Martin’s vast collection of stolen material.
>But the Shadow Brokers continued to post taunting manifestoes and stolen software for months after Mr. Martin was jailed.
The truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.
Also, I wouldn't doubt that the guy really was just an eccentric hoarder, Russian intelligence knew about it, and set about framing him via the Kaspersky/Twitter angle as a means to sew confusion as cover for their Shadow Brokers heist.
Has he ever actually admitted the Twitter activity was him? It's not a stretch to imagine his home network being compromised just for that purpose. Forensically undetectable frame jobs are very possible if it's a nation state actor doing the framing.
If USG really believed his intention was the sale of secrets, there would be no plea deal, and he'd probably be rotting in Florence ADX for the rest of his life.
- renholder 8y ago>...and he'd probably be rotting in Florence ADX for the rest of his life To be fair, if he really was either in the sale of secrets and/or a turned agent working for the USG, one of two other possible considerations could be made: 1. They could've turned him to use him for catching the interested buyers. 2. Sent him off for "a wonderful retreat" in GITMO. I agree, the guy probably was a genuine hoarder. It isn't a stretch to go from hoarding tangible things (files, newspapers, etc.) to hoarding the intangible (computer files). Also, I do find it relatively suspicious that this guy worked in a prestigious security tools area of the NSA and the FBI easily "traced" the Twitter account to him. That part definitely sounds like, as you suggest, the Russians showing off - but, might I add, it also sounds like one of the other 5I's saying, "you bunch of eedjits, look here!", you know, because "allies aren't supposed to spy on allies".