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Classified Ministry of Defence documents found at bus stop

143 points by georgecmu 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
SheinhardtWigCo 5y ago
Tinfoil hat time: it sounds like these “found” documents mostly contain information that MoD would want to leak. > "We have a strong, legitimate narrative", they said, noting that the presence of the embedded journalists (from the BBC and Daily Mail) on board the destroyer "provides an option for independent verification of HMS Defender's action". As does this leak, if you believe the provenance.
- azalemeth 5y ago
  Quite. It's very cold-war-esque. It has a definite soupçon of publicity about it, and mostly supports the government's narrative about them vaguely being competent – we did pre-plan a trip to navigate around Crimea [a place where the British haven't traditionally had the best time!] and we also plan to keep a toe in the fort in Afghanistan -- allies be damned. Conveniently, it also comes as Borris has just lost a Tory safe seat, his philandering and "hopeless" health secretary has just been forced to resign, and people across the political spectrum are fed up with him. I am 99% sure Russia would rather have the leaks that highlight the crippling lack of ability in Britain's armed forces, caused by austerity, or a true impact assessment of Brexit. I also think it's very odd that the only papers leaked were these two: it's a strange thing to specifically print out these reports. I also think it's downright odd that they're printed --- most high-level classified documents seem to exist on secure, airgapped, immobile computer systems.
  - alksjdalkj 5y ago
    > I also think it's downright odd that they're printed --- most high-level classified documents seem to exist on secure, airgapped, immobile computer systems. I think it's pretty common to print classified documents, since as you say the electronic copies normally live on specific airgapped networks. If you'll need them somewhere without access to that network (e.g. most meetings) printing is the easiest option.
    - ineedasername 5y ago
      But the printed copies are supposed to come with a cover page that says "Burn Before Reading".
      - dijit 5y ago
        That’s perhaps a US specific thing. GCHQ used to use banners and footers that said: SECRET//NOFORN There was a bunch of other classification criteria on the cover such as declassification date (if any) and under who’s authority it was classified.
        wrappingpaper 5y ago
        Another armchair classification expert? GCHQ (being a British intelligence agency) has never used NOFORN as that’s an American handling caveat. The old equivalent would be UK Eyes Alpha (UK nationals, no contractors or embeds) or it’s modern equivalent UK Eyes Only. And no the UK rarely writes “other classification criteria” on the front of documents. Again you’re thinking of the USA. Along with double slashing // also an American thing though occasionally used this side of the pond.
      - gpm 5y ago
        What does that mean? Light the cover page on fire before reading the document? Light the document on first instead of reading it? Try and read it while it is burning? Pack it in a pile of pages, light them on fire, and read it after it burns (surprisingly, that actually sort of works)?
        ineedasername 5y ago
        I suppose any of those would work, but I like that idea of lighting it and frantically trying to read it while it's burning. Or maybe a sophisticated read-while-burning machine that continuously burned that page you had just finished along with something to stir the ashes. Foreign intelligence agencies would develop their own discrete sniffer machines to detect faint traces of soot on people to identify potential intelligence personnel. Counter-intelligence would work on psyops campaigns to promote the health benefits of soot & encourage people to use new deodorants and other body grooming products laced with soot to throw them off soot sniffers. The most advanced burn-while-reading devices would have intricate ventilation and ash-isolation chambers with furnaces that burn hot enough to vaporize the ash to the sub-micron level. Portable versions would occasionally malfunction and spontaneously combust the bearer, fueling that particular subset of the tinfoil hat community. It would be an entire soot-based intelligence community arms race, hilariously ridiculous and immensely fascinating.
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    > it also comes as Borris has just lost a Tory safe seat, his philandering and "hopeless" health secretary has just been forced to resign The UK population as a whole seem ok with how the COVID response has been managed (see below link). I know that an opinion on the UK COVID response doesn’t necessarily have to match an opinion on the competency of the health secretary, and even that both can be independently rubbish. The below link does appear to show a disconnect between what was achieved and what people think was achieved. There seems a whiff of nationalistic exceptionalism about it. If the response was good, it would be weird to sack the architect. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/23/people-in-advanced-economies-say-their-society-is-more-divided-than-before-pandemic/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/23/people-in-adva...
    - michaelt 5y ago
      > If the response was good, it would be weird to sack the architect. Calling Hancock hopeless is almost certainly a reference to text messages sent by the Prime Minister calling Hancock "totally fucking useless" and the fact jilted former adviser Dominic Cummings [2] said Hancock "should have been fired for at least, 15-20 things" Of course, you might very well ask if Hancock is so bad, why did the PM keep him as health secretary during perhaps the biggest health crisis of all time? It's possible Hancock isn't all that bad, and we're just seeing political manoeuvring here to make Hancock take the blame for the lack of PPE, the failure to keep even a single new variant out of the country, the failure to protect care homes, the cheating to hit testing targets, the inept track-and-trace effort run by cronies, the insistence on keeping borders wide open and allowing foreign holidays, the dodgy supply contracts given out to friends and family, and so on. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/16/cummings-texts-show-boris-johnson-calling-matt-hancock-totally-hopeless https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/16/cummings-te... [2] https://youtu.be/dpAwUaL7JcQ?t=27 https://youtu.be/dpAwUaL7JcQ?t=27
      - dmix 5y ago
        Sounds like most countries. Apparently even the advanced countries were ill prepare for a pandemic. This was a particularly bad one though and everyone is failing to contain it, it’s easy to blame health leaders.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- ineedasername 5y ago
  Accident, espionage, or counter-intelligence. Any if them seem plausible against the backdrop of modern intelligence agencies' screw ups.
- beermonster 5y ago
  It’s a bit odd it was “leaked”to the BBC. They have an odd parity with these kind of stories and official government line.
hughrr 5y ago
Makes a change. It’s usually at a station or in a taxi.
- tclancy 5y ago
  Or on a train. Or is that just guns?
  - hughrr 5y ago
    No they use the guns to shoot people at stations
  - ThePadawan 5y ago
    To be fair, the trains would have to run for someone to leave documents on them. "Secrets found on replacement bus service" does have a ring of "too funny to be true", though.
ineedasername 5y ago
Sounds like a dead-drop gone wrong.
- secfirstmd 5y ago
  That's what I had thought alright. UK Eyes Only documents being printer, leaving a building and being left somewhere. Just sounds so odd.
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  That's what I thought, but then why not just a USB with some basic encryption?
  - secfirstmd 5y ago
    Depends on how it was acquired. USB more traceable in some ways.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    The question of "why not USB" is relevant regardless of what happened. Having sensitive printed documents traveling about like that isn't very secure. But I'm half joking about it being a dead drop. (Only half because the UK has been very deeply penetrated by foreign intel operations before) One explanation for USB vs. printouts, I guess it would depend on the security measures in place. The ability to use USB drives could be disabled in various ways to prevent bulk data removal while printing was still allowed. Or the reports were centrally printed out and distributed to various recipients, so it was never digitally accessible to the person who lost it.
    - aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 5y ago
      The question remains, because presumably the exfiltrator had the option of OCRing the paper docs, then encrypting those files.
  - wrappingpaper 5y ago
    You don’t want to plug USB sticks into a SUKEO network. Far too much hassle getting them from approved suppliers, making sure they’re not tampered with so on. Much easier to print documents and write a log of it up in a 102.
_trampeltier 5y ago
British have so many cameras everywhere .. wonder if they are useful for once :-)
TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago
Can't help but think of Daniel Ellsberg and the garbage bag that blew away in a storm.
rozab 5y ago
I am so lost in this stuff. What was the deal with the story on HN a few days ago before the story dropped, saying that AIS showed a RN warship off Crimea and people were claiming live cams and direct observation showed it still in port in Odessa? Was this the Defender? It's very hard to Google for now. The date filtering tools aren't good enough. The lines between fiction and real life are blurred. Sure feels like the UK are engaging in firehose disinfo, as Russia has practiced for years. It seems impossible to understand what's really going on, and I fear even historians won't be able to figure it out because 10 years from now these events will be buried by even crazier happenings. Strange times.
- strogonoff 5y ago
  Your comment adds unwarranted mystery. Here is a report[0] from the ship during the time of events. As the leaked documentation shows, the encounter had been anticipated, so I guess it was a tough call to put a journalist on board. The reason MoD denies the “warning shots were fired” phrasing (and BBC puts it in quotes) is most likely to defuse the sizzling situation. Either UK frames the events as “warning shots were fired by Russian navy in Ukranian waters at a British ship” and has a conflict that requires following up, or it denies Russian framing of events (leaving it open to interpretation—say Russian navy suffered equipment malfunction that resulted in ammunition ending up in Ukranian waters some distance away from the British ship, stuff happens) leaving it for them to follow up—which Russia can’t really do, as no major country accepts its jurisdiction over Crimea (even China abstained on the relevant UN vote). [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLPYAKL-f2M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLPYAKL-f2M
  - LAC-Tech 5y ago
    > as no major country accepts its jurisdiction over Crimea (even China abstained on the relevant UN vote). Which UN vote are you referring to?
    - Muromec 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_68/262 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembl...
LatteLazy 5y ago
I'm a brit. This pointless bs is exactly why I wish we'd cut "defense" spending. Defense means picking a fight with Russia to pretend Crimea is part of Ukraine!? No thanks.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Crimea is part of the Ukraine. Just because it was invaded because Russia needs that strategic port doesn't mean it is not worth standing up to Russia. Don't you think the UK is better off protecting Ukraine, making friends and trying to prevent Russia from taking over another country or all of the Ukraine. Wouldn't a strong Ukraine make the UK safer?
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    Crimea is currently populated by 70% ethnic Russians, who have been the majority for at least 50 years, and the plurality for at least 120 years. The reason it became part of Ukraine is because the USSR transferred it there from Russia in 1954. The only benefit to Europe and the US of complaining about the annexation is to put pressure on Russia. Nobody wants the ethnic cleansing that would occur if Russia actually retreated from Crimea (and any Russian politician, dictator or not, who allowed that to happen would lose their political career and maybe their life.) If it weren't for the horrifying virulence of Ukrainian nationalism, I'm sure a lot of the ethnically Russian residents would be glad to be separate from Russia. Do you seriously think that if the residents of Crimea freely voted, they would vote for a Russian retreat?
    - jevgeni 5y ago
      Hey, how are the Crimean Tatars doing?
  - forgetfulness 5y ago
    I'm sure the Russians could say the same thing about the UK and Gibraltar, down to the support of the local population to being a UK territory.
robertlagrant 5y ago
> "Following the transition from defence engagement activity to operational activity, it is highly likely that RFN (Russian navy) and VKS (Russian air force) interactions will become more frequent and assertive," one presentation warned. Things I would leak if I wanted more budget.
Uptrenda 5y ago
The member of the public upon realizing the sensitive nature of the documents immediately thought: 'hmmm, better contact the BBC and tell the whole world about it.' Yikes
- ciabattabread 5y ago
  > A member of the public, who wishes to remain anonymous If you had the option to remain anonymous by going to a trusted media organization that has a reputation of balancing the public right-to-know with national security concerns, and avoid getting Richard Jewell treatment, you’d take it.
- draw_down 5y ago
  Good grief. Imagine thinking THAT is the problem here. Nobody knows how many people saw those documents (or other copies of same) before they were reported. Come on.
contingencies 5y ago
I'd wager that major intelligence agencies installed people within airline cleaning services to obtain exactly this sort of waylaid documentation with regular success (pre-COVID).
jhallenworld 5y ago
This is some kind of real life modern Sherlock Holmes story. We have the Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans, The Adventure of the Second Stain, and The Adventure of the Naval Treaty as possible models.. "If divulged, this document could bring about very dire consequences for all of Europe, even war." The minister's wife is probably trying to hide evidence of some previous tryst from her husband, but got the documents mixed up..
WalterBright 5y ago
> A member of the public, who wishes to remain anonymous, contacted the BBC when he realised the sensitive nature of the contents. Nothing suspicious about that at all!
alliao 5y ago
obligatory references to Yes Minister https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA1VTG3Z23U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA1VTG3Z23U
alexwasserman 5y ago
There was a great article several years ago about parents discovering their child came home with a UK MoD classified CD of data. The children were making clocks in school (typical $1 mechanism, AA powered) with the CD as a clock face. The parent had forgot to send in a CD and was curious what the child was using, and saw it said something like "Top Secret, return to DoD if found", or something to that effect. Was part of a period where a lot of MoD, MI5, MI6, etc docs were turning up on unsecured laptops, USB keys, left on trains, and the like.
- wrappingpaper 5y ago
  Why would a U.K. MOD CD have return to DOD written on it? Depending on where it came from it wouldn’t have any such markings. It would just be a certain colour. Note the highest document the bbc showed is on red/pink paper. Those pink CD’s are a pain to order.
  - alexwasserman 5y ago
    My bad - lived in the US too long. Meant MoD.
imvetri 5y ago
plot of "Burn After Reading"

143 points by georgecmu 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Tinfoil hat time: it sounds like these “found” documents mostly contain information that MoD would want to leak. > "We have a strong, legitimate narrative", they said, noting that the presence of the embedded journalists (from the BBC and Daily Mail) on board the destroyer "provides an option for independent verification of HMS Defender's action". As does this leak, if you believe the provenance.

azalemeth 5y ago
Quite. It's very cold-war-esque. It has a definite soupçon of publicity about it, and mostly supports the government's narrative about them vaguely being competent – we did pre-plan a trip to navigate around Crimea [a place where the British haven't traditionally had the best time!] and we also plan to keep a toe in the fort in Afghanistan -- allies be damned. Conveniently, it also comes as Borris has just lost a Tory safe seat, his philandering and "hopeless" health secretary has just been forced to resign, and people across the political spectrum are fed up with him. I am 99% sure Russia would rather have the leaks that highlight the crippling lack of ability in Britain's armed forces, caused by austerity, or a true impact assessment of Brexit. I also think it's very odd that the only papers leaked were these two: it's a strange thing to specifically print out these reports. I also think it's downright odd that they're printed --- most high-level classified documents seem to exist on secure, airgapped, immobile computer systems.
- alksjdalkj 5y ago
  > I also think it's downright odd that they're printed --- most high-level classified documents seem to exist on secure, airgapped, immobile computer systems. I think it's pretty common to print classified documents, since as you say the electronic copies normally live on specific airgapped networks. If you'll need them somewhere without access to that network (e.g. most meetings) printing is the easiest option.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    But the printed copies are supposed to come with a cover page that says "Burn Before Reading".
    - dijit 5y ago
      That’s perhaps a US specific thing. GCHQ used to use banners and footers that said: SECRET//NOFORN There was a bunch of other classification criteria on the cover such as declassification date (if any) and under who’s authority it was classified.
      - wrappingpaper 5y ago
        Another armchair classification expert? GCHQ (being a British intelligence agency) has never used NOFORN as that’s an American handling caveat. The old equivalent would be UK Eyes Alpha (UK nationals, no contractors or embeds) or it’s modern equivalent UK Eyes Only. And no the UK rarely writes “other classification criteria” on the front of documents. Again you’re thinking of the USA. Along with double slashing // also an American thing though occasionally used this side of the pond.
    - gpm 5y ago
      What does that mean? Light the cover page on fire before reading the document? Light the document on first instead of reading it? Try and read it while it is burning? Pack it in a pile of pages, light them on fire, and read it after it burns (surprisingly, that actually sort of works)?
      - ineedasername 5y ago
        I suppose any of those would work, but I like that idea of lighting it and frantically trying to read it while it's burning. Or maybe a sophisticated read-while-burning machine that continuously burned that page you had just finished along with something to stir the ashes. Foreign intelligence agencies would develop their own discrete sniffer machines to detect faint traces of soot on people to identify potential intelligence personnel. Counter-intelligence would work on psyops campaigns to promote the health benefits of soot & encourage people to use new deodorants and other body grooming products laced with soot to throw them off soot sniffers. The most advanced burn-while-reading devices would have intricate ventilation and ash-isolation chambers with furnaces that burn hot enough to vaporize the ash to the sub-micron level. Portable versions would occasionally malfunction and spontaneously combust the bearer, fueling that particular subset of the tinfoil hat community. It would be an entire soot-based intelligence community arms race, hilariously ridiculous and immensely fascinating.
- lostlogin 5y ago
  > it also comes as Borris has just lost a Tory safe seat, his philandering and "hopeless" health secretary has just been forced to resign The UK population as a whole seem ok with how the COVID response has been managed (see below link). I know that an opinion on the UK COVID response doesn’t necessarily have to match an opinion on the competency of the health secretary, and even that both can be independently rubbish. The below link does appear to show a disconnect between what was achieved and what people think was achieved. There seems a whiff of nationalistic exceptionalism about it. If the response was good, it would be weird to sack the architect. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/23/people-in-advanced-economies-say-their-society-is-more-divided-than-before-pandemic/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/23/people-in-adva...
  - michaelt 5y ago
    > If the response was good, it would be weird to sack the architect. Calling Hancock hopeless is almost certainly a reference to text messages sent by the Prime Minister calling Hancock "totally fucking useless" and the fact jilted former adviser Dominic Cummings [2] said Hancock "should have been fired for at least, 15-20 things" Of course, you might very well ask if Hancock is so bad, why did the PM keep him as health secretary during perhaps the biggest health crisis of all time? It's possible Hancock isn't all that bad, and we're just seeing political manoeuvring here to make Hancock take the blame for the lack of PPE, the failure to keep even a single new variant out of the country, the failure to protect care homes, the cheating to hit testing targets, the inept track-and-trace effort run by cronies, the insistence on keeping borders wide open and allowing foreign holidays, the dodgy supply contracts given out to friends and family, and so on. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/16/cummings-texts-show-boris-johnson-calling-matt-hancock-totally-hopeless https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/16/cummings-te... [2] https://youtu.be/dpAwUaL7JcQ?t=27 https://youtu.be/dpAwUaL7JcQ?t=27
    - dmix 5y ago
      Sounds like most countries. Apparently even the advanced countries were ill prepare for a pandemic. This was a particularly bad one though and everyone is failing to contain it, it’s easy to blame health leaders.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ineedasername 5y ago
Accident, espionage, or counter-intelligence. Any if them seem plausible against the backdrop of modern intelligence agencies' screw ups.
beermonster 5y ago
It’s a bit odd it was “leaked”to the BBC. They have an odd parity with these kind of stories and official government line.

hughrr 5y ago

Makes a change. It’s usually at a station or in a taxi.

tclancy 5y ago
Or on a train. Or is that just guns?
- hughrr 5y ago
  No they use the guns to shoot people at stations
- ThePadawan 5y ago
  To be fair, the trains would have to run for someone to leave documents on them. "Secrets found on replacement bus service" does have a ring of "too funny to be true", though.

ineedasername 5y ago

Sounds like a dead-drop gone wrong.

secfirstmd 5y ago
That's what I had thought alright. UK Eyes Only documents being printer, leaving a building and being left somewhere. Just sounds so odd.
LatteLazy 5y ago
That's what I thought, but then why not just a USB with some basic encryption?
- secfirstmd 5y ago
  Depends on how it was acquired. USB more traceable in some ways.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  The question of "why not USB" is relevant regardless of what happened. Having sensitive printed documents traveling about like that isn't very secure. But I'm half joking about it being a dead drop. (Only half because the UK has been very deeply penetrated by foreign intel operations before) One explanation for USB vs. printouts, I guess it would depend on the security measures in place. The ability to use USB drives could be disabled in various ways to prevent bulk data removal while printing was still allowed. Or the reports were centrally printed out and distributed to various recipients, so it was never digitally accessible to the person who lost it.
  - aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 5y ago
    The question remains, because presumably the exfiltrator had the option of OCRing the paper docs, then encrypting those files.
- wrappingpaper 5y ago
  You don’t want to plug USB sticks into a SUKEO network. Far too much hassle getting them from approved suppliers, making sure they’re not tampered with so on. Much easier to print documents and write a log of it up in a 102.

_trampeltier 5y ago

British have so many cameras everywhere .. wonder if they are useful for once :-)

TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago

Can't help but think of Daniel Ellsberg and the garbage bag that blew away in a storm.

rozab 5y ago

I am so lost in this stuff. What was the deal with the story on HN a few days ago before the story dropped, saying that AIS showed a RN warship off Crimea and people were claiming live cams and direct observation showed it still in port in Odessa? Was this the Defender? It's very hard to Google for now. The date filtering tools aren't good enough. The lines between fiction and real life are blurred. Sure feels like the UK are engaging in firehose disinfo, as Russia has practiced for years. It seems impossible to understand what's really going on, and I fear even historians won't be able to figure it out because 10 years from now these events will be buried by even crazier happenings. Strange times.

strogonoff 5y ago
Your comment adds unwarranted mystery. Here is a report[0] from the ship during the time of events. As the leaked documentation shows, the encounter had been anticipated, so I guess it was a tough call to put a journalist on board. The reason MoD denies the “warning shots were fired” phrasing (and BBC puts it in quotes) is most likely to defuse the sizzling situation. Either UK frames the events as “warning shots were fired by Russian navy in Ukranian waters at a British ship” and has a conflict that requires following up, or it denies Russian framing of events (leaving it open to interpretation—say Russian navy suffered equipment malfunction that resulted in ammunition ending up in Ukranian waters some distance away from the British ship, stuff happens) leaving it for them to follow up—which Russia can’t really do, as no major country accepts its jurisdiction over Crimea (even China abstained on the relevant UN vote). [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLPYAKL-f2M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLPYAKL-f2M
- LAC-Tech 5y ago
  > as no major country accepts its jurisdiction over Crimea (even China abstained on the relevant UN vote). Which UN vote are you referring to?
  - Muromec 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembly_Resolution_68/262 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assembl...

LatteLazy 5y ago

I'm a brit. This pointless bs is exactly why I wish we'd cut "defense" spending. Defense means picking a fight with Russia to pretend Crimea is part of Ukraine!? No thanks.

ipaddr 5y ago
Crimea is part of the Ukraine. Just because it was invaded because Russia needs that strategic port doesn't mean it is not worth standing up to Russia. Don't you think the UK is better off protecting Ukraine, making friends and trying to prevent Russia from taking over another country or all of the Ukraine. Wouldn't a strong Ukraine make the UK safer?
- pessimizer 5y ago
  Crimea is currently populated by 70% ethnic Russians, who have been the majority for at least 50 years, and the plurality for at least 120 years. The reason it became part of Ukraine is because the USSR transferred it there from Russia in 1954. The only benefit to Europe and the US of complaining about the annexation is to put pressure on Russia. Nobody wants the ethnic cleansing that would occur if Russia actually retreated from Crimea (and any Russian politician, dictator or not, who allowed that to happen would lose their political career and maybe their life.) If it weren't for the horrifying virulence of Ukrainian nationalism, I'm sure a lot of the ethnically Russian residents would be glad to be separate from Russia. Do you seriously think that if the residents of Crimea freely voted, they would vote for a Russian retreat?
  - jevgeni 5y ago
    Hey, how are the Crimean Tatars doing?
- forgetfulness 5y ago
  I'm sure the Russians could say the same thing about the UK and Gibraltar, down to the support of the local population to being a UK territory.

robertlagrant 5y ago

> "Following the transition from defence engagement activity to operational activity, it is highly likely that RFN (Russian navy) and VKS (Russian air force) interactions will become more frequent and assertive," one presentation warned. Things I would leak if I wanted more budget.

Uptrenda 5y ago

The member of the public upon realizing the sensitive nature of the documents immediately thought: 'hmmm, better contact the BBC and tell the whole world about it.' Yikes

ciabattabread 5y ago
> A member of the public, who wishes to remain anonymous If you had the option to remain anonymous by going to a trusted media organization that has a reputation of balancing the public right-to-know with national security concerns, and avoid getting Richard Jewell treatment, you’d take it.
draw_down 5y ago
Good grief. Imagine thinking THAT is the problem here. Nobody knows how many people saw those documents (or other copies of same) before they were reported. Come on.

contingencies 5y ago

I'd wager that major intelligence agencies installed people within airline cleaning services to obtain exactly this sort of waylaid documentation with regular success (pre-COVID).

jhallenworld 5y ago

This is some kind of real life modern Sherlock Holmes story. We have the Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans, The Adventure of the Second Stain, and The Adventure of the Naval Treaty as possible models.. "If divulged, this document could bring about very dire consequences for all of Europe, even war." The minister's wife is probably trying to hide evidence of some previous tryst from her husband, but got the documents mixed up..

WalterBright 5y ago

> A member of the public, who wishes to remain anonymous, contacted the BBC when he realised the sensitive nature of the contents. Nothing suspicious about that at all!

alliao 5y ago

obligatory references to Yes Minister https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA1VTG3Z23U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA1VTG3Z23U

alexwasserman 5y ago

There was a great article several years ago about parents discovering their child came home with a UK MoD classified CD of data. The children were making clocks in school (typical $1 mechanism, AA powered) with the CD as a clock face. The parent had forgot to send in a CD and was curious what the child was using, and saw it said something like "Top Secret, return to DoD if found", or something to that effect. Was part of a period where a lot of MoD, MI5, MI6, etc docs were turning up on unsecured laptops, USB keys, left on trains, and the like.

wrappingpaper 5y ago
Why would a U.K. MOD CD have return to DOD written on it? Depending on where it came from it wouldn’t have any such markings. It would just be a certain colour. Note the highest document the bbc showed is on red/pink paper. Those pink CD’s are a pain to order.
- alexwasserman 5y ago
  My bad - lived in the US too long. Meant MoD.

imvetri 5y ago

plot of "Burn After Reading"