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> Winner was just 25 years old when she printed a single classified document — one that described Russian military efforts to spear-phish dozens of local electi
by reactspa 5y ago
> Winner was just 25 years old when she printed a single classified document — one that described Russian military efforts to spear-phish dozens of local election officials ahead of the 2016 election — smuggled it out of the NSA facility where she worked and mailed it to The Intercept.
> While attempting to verify its authenticity with the NSA, an Intercept reporter inadvertently revealed its provenance. According to an FBI affidavit, the document had a telltale crease in it, indicating it had been printed and folded. An FBI agent assigned to the case would later testify that a total of six people had printed the document. The pool of potential leakers was further narrowed to one — Winner — when investigators discovered she’d emailed The Intercept from her work computer.
Lessons:
1) Don't leak out information to potentially incompetent people.
2) Don't email potential leakees from your work computer if you work for the NSA.
- WarOnPrivacy 5y ago> Don't leak out information to potentially incompetent people. But that's the thing. Greenwald wasn't incompetent during the Snowden revelations. It was a shock when he mishandled her docs. Not long after, he was aggressively losing his way.
- shkkmo 5y agoAs far as I am aware, Greenwald was not the reporter that provided the leaked document to the FBI? What mishandling of docs are you accusing Greenwald of?
- WarOnPrivacy 5y agoGreenwald's article included an unaltered image of the document, including the identifying printer details.
- shkkmo 5y agoWhich article? As far as I know Greenwald did not write or edit the original article based on Reality Winner's leak. [0] Additionally, Reality Winner was arrested before the article was published. The reason this happened is because the original leaked document was sent to the FBI for confirmation which allowed the FBI to trace the leak before the article was published with the unredacted document.[1] [0] https://theintercept.com/2017/06/05/top-secret-nsa-report-details-russian-hacking-effort-days-before-2016-election/ https://theintercept.com/2017/06/05/top-secret-nsa-report-de... [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/vbznza/nsa-leak-suspect-was-ratted-out-by-an-office-printer https://www.vice.com/en/article/vbznza/nsa-leak-suspect-was-... Edit: I am willing to buy that Greenwald shares responsibility for the lack of rigor in protecting sources by people working for an organization he founded, but if you are going to ascribe such responsibility, you need to be accurate with your claims.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> But that's the thing. Greenwald wasn't incompetent during the Snowden revelations. Winner didn't, according to Greenwald, leak to him but to the Intercept New York newsroom with no specific direction to a particular reporter. So, even assuming Greenwald himself would have been a reasonable person to rely on (but “managed not to fuck things up once for someone else” and “can be relied on for things that put me at extreme risk” probably aren't categories you want to treat as equivalent), “Don't leak out information to potentially incompetent people” seems at least potentially applicable as a lesson.
- justinclift 5y agoMaybe better summarised as: Your security is up to you. Don't do things in such a way that your security could be compromised by the other party.