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Jury finds former CIA programmer guilty of leaking CIA hacking materials
- Cenk 4y agoHere’s a good article about him: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/13/the-surreal-case-of-a-cia-hackers-revenge https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/13/the-surreal-ca...
- throwaway4good 4y agoI find interesting that 'they' feel the need to do a character assination on the man (where they being the people who are the source for this and similar articles, I guess his former employer). The original article says: "But US prosecutors never presented any forensic evidence to specifically tie Schulte to the publication of the CIA hacking materials on WikiLeaks." Maybe the issue here is that the case isn't that strong after all.
- sigmoid10 4y ago>Maybe the issue here is that the case isn't that strong after all. It doesn't need to be. It just needs to be someone. Imagine you're the head of a department and everyone up to the president is breathing down your neck about how this data made it out of your supposedly air-gapped system. Do you simply blame it on the Russians or Chinese, essentially admitting that a foreign intelligence service was able to walk past your security with all that confidential data? Or do you pick the weakest link among your own? Someone who will soothe superiors, can't really stand up for himself and will absorb all the blame?
- leoh 4y agoTell them the best thing we can do is prevent it from happening again by auditing systems and adding safeguards.
- jamespo 4y agoThe New Yorker story suggests there was some digital evidence, not of upload to wikileaks but of unauthorised access and download: And, on the sixth day of the trial, prosecutors laid out what they regarded as a coup de grâce—the digital equivalent of fingerprints at a crime scene. Even after Schulte was stripped of his administrative privileges, he had secretly retained the ability to access the O.S.B. network through a back door, by using a special key that he had set up. The password was KingJosh3000. The government contended that on April 20, 2016, Schulte had used his key to enter the system. The files were backed up every day, and while he was logged on Schulte accessed one particular backup—not from that day but from six weeks earlier, on March 3rd. The O.S.B. files released by WikiLeaks were identical to the backup from March 3, 2016. As Denton told the jurors, it was the “exact backup, the exact secrets, put out by WikiLeaks.”
- throwaway4good 4y agoAhh. The password was 'KingJosh3000'. That is just the password some professional working in IT-security and cutting edge hacking would pick ... in particular if they were about to commit treason by leaking states secrets.
- jamespo 4y agoIf you think the Government created this back door to frame him why would they choose that password?
- game-of-throws 4y agoAlso how do they know the password at all? Is the CIA storing passwords for classified material in plain text?
- snickerbockers 4y agoits (allegedly) his backdoor, nit the CIA's
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- criley2 4y ago>"But US prosecutors never presented any forensic evidence to specifically tie Schulte to the publication of the CIA hacking materials on WikiLeaks." I mean, getting into forensic evidence of what he did at the CIA would likely require exposing top secret classified material in a court room. Suffice to say, prosecutors generally can't do this except as a last resort. When the guy left his phone full of passwords, and his computer full of encrypted child sex assault material, I'm not so sure the prosecutor feels the need to burn CIA secrets in court anymore.
- mandmandam 4y ago"Sprinkle some crack on him Johnson" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ESzLDC4B14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ESzLDC4B14
- aaaaaaaaata 4y agoA CIA hacker "left his phone full of passwords, and his computer full of encrypted child sex assault material". This doesn't sound weird to you?
- criley2 4y agoNot really, opsec is a fascinating thing but in my personal experience very very few people, even trained professionals, actually go through the hassle of rigorous opsec for their personal projects and lives. The idea that a CIA hacker didn't follow rigorous opsec is about as believable as the idea that the NSA left their hacking tools publically available https://thehackernews.com/2016/09/nsa-hacking-tool-exploits.html https://thehackernews.com/2016/09/nsa-hacking-tool-exploits.... Although, based on the strength of the assumption that it must be planted, I would say that working for the CIA would be a strong cover for a pedophile, since it's apparently impossible in the public eye for someone there to authentically trade in CSAM
- formerkrogemp 4y agoDoes it seem plausible that someone would be that stupid? Sure. Is it convenient for the CIA to attack this person's character? Also reasonable.
- paganel 4y ago> I find interesting that 'they' feel the need to do a character assination on the man That's par for the course for the mainstream US (and Western, more generally, I would say) media nowadays. It wasn't always like that, but the last few years and especially the current war against Russia have accelerated this trend.
- lakomen 4y agoWar against Russia? I'm not aware the US or EU declared war against Russia
- jessaustin 4y agoUSA didn't declare war against DPRK, Vietnam, Iraq, etc. That's not something we do. However, "serious politicians" have "mistakenly" mentioned that we're at war with Russia for months. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/04/ukraine-nato-russia-proxy-war.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/04/ukraine-nato-rus...
- watwut 4y agoJust to mention, Russia invaded Ukraine and never declared it war. Russians are also comiting genocide in Ukraine. Russians call it special operation, it is illegal to call it war in Russia. USA offered to fly Ukrainian president to safety. Ukrainian president refused and Ukrainian army started to fight. USA did very decent thing after - supported Ukrainian army with guns. Not a single American Army soldier fought.
- avgcorrection 4y ago> Just to mention, Russia invaded Ukraine and never declared it war. So you agree with jessaustin?
- watwut 4y agojessaustin makes implications rather then clear statements. I dont think Ukraine situation is in any way similar to Vietnam or Iraq. And it is not case of American aggression at all. No, USA is not in war with Ukraine or Russia. Ukraine is in war with Russia. USA supports Ukraine. Russia does see west in general as ennemies, does actively work to undermine democracy and stability of western countries. Consequently, Ukraine is not just defending itself, but also defending everyone further west. Is that enough answer? -------------- Edit: looking at other comments jessaustin is trying to revert aggressor and victim. Or rather, invent new aggressor, ignore victim interests entirely and make actual aggressor look innocent.
- rougka 4y agoI don’t know about how strong the case is, but the stories about his character makes sense in the context of someone who would leak that. Notice who you call as ‘they’ didn’t portray him as a self-proclaimed idealist, but someone with an unstable personality and who weaponizes workplace bureaucracy for petty fights We do know for a fact that he filed for a restraining order against his coworker, that seems extremely weird to me, and I don’t work for the CIA. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoCharacter assassination? He assassinated his own character. Character suicide. He ran a child porn server: > At one point, he volunteered to grant his new friends access to the child-porn archive on his server. Sexually assaulted a passed-out roommate: > When F.B.I. investigators searched Schulte’s phone, they found something especially alarming: a photograph that looked as though it had been taken inside the house in Sterling, Virginia, where he had lived while working for the C.I.A. The photograph was of a woman who looked like she was passed out on the bathroom floor. Her underwear appeared to have been removed and the hand of an unseen person was touching her genitals. State investigators in Loudoun County subsequently identified the woman and interviewed her. She has not been publicly named, but she told them that she had been Schulte’s roommate and had passed out one night, with no memory of what had happened. The encounter in the photograph was not consensual, she assured them.
- skhr0680 4y agoIs there an enemy of the CIA who isn’t a pedo or rapist?
- googlryas 4y agoSure. But pedophilia is probably comorbid with psychological problems which lead people to believe they are in some kind of battle with the CIA, so one might expect it to appear a bit more commonly. No one's ever accused Jeffrey Sterling of being a pedo or rapist.
- ClumsyPilot 4y agoIn UK we sent over 100 people to jail because software was buggy, said they stole money, a private company knew about the problem but lied under oath and nobody checked. the chance that anyone would ever discover that someafiles were planted by an arm of the state seems to be zero. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal
- upupandup 4y ago
- the_only_law 4y ago
- asveikau 4y agoI don't know anything about this case, but it seems from reading comments like evidence is pretty thin. You can't just say "he's a traitor" and it makes him guilty. Even if he is, he's also a human being. Labeling people as "traitor" and dismissing their humanity is pretty weak.
- woodruffw 4y agoYou've avoided saying it directly, but the oblique claim in your post is that (1) the CIA is the New Yorker's source for the claims in the article, and (2) the New Yorker acceeded to an intentional character assassination. These are extraordinary claims, ones that you haven't presented correspondingly extraordinary evidence for.
- adrr 4y agoInteresting this guy called for Chelsea manning to be executed on Twitter. Wonder if he will keep up that consistency during sentencing.
- boomboomsubban 4y agoHe still claims innocence, so I doubt he thinks he deserves the same punishment.
- upupandup 4y agoWhile he may not be executed, its a lot more serious than Mannings leak. It is far more damaging from the hacking tools he released. He's also going to become an example so they will make he sentencing more harsh. My estimate is 40 years minimum. No parole.
- boomboomsubban 4y agoI think you're forgetting that Manning got a 35 year sentence, 40 isn't much more severe.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- l2silver 4y agoThis is also one of the best reads of the year. One of the guy's nicknames at work was "the nuclear option"... And don't forget the child pornography charges.
- jamal-kumar 4y agoMy favorite part was how insanely petty the whole thing sounded... How he insisted his nickname should be "Badass" but people called him what you mentioned as well as "Voldemort" more often than his self appointed nickname... What a goof. If this article is accurate it paints a picture of an incredibly socially immature workplace where people who didn't advance past the point of high school in that aspect left the guy feeling bullied enough that he did the leak. This was something like my first and only experience doing government contracting at a large corporation, on my tour of the offices one of the things I pointed out to my boss were these print out clip art stop signs that said "STOP BULLYING" on the walls everywhere and that I hadn't seen something like that since high school. He rolled his eyes pretty hard at that one but these people were responsible for systems that enormous amounts of people's lives depended on. I remember when these systems failed multiple times over multiple incidences and just thought of the stop sign shit.
- md_ 4y agoHah. I was deeply struck by how immature the whole thing sounds. Nobody here looks good, of course. But even top flight tech companies have this sort of time-wasting, so it's not exactly a surprise you'd find it at a TLA as well.
- jamal-kumar 4y agoI got reprimanded one time at a previous job for pretending to throw a bee at my supervisor. A nest had formed in some concrete overhang in the building, he freaked out and got adrenaline ampules at the pharmacy (epipen shortage year) like "you need to inject me with this if I get stung". So later on, I walked up to him sitting next to a coworker with nothing in my hands and a shit eating grin on my face. "What's that?" "A BEE!" as I opened my hands with nothing in them... He fell over in his chair and everyone in the office stood up and pointed and laughed at him. It was ultra funny though he insisted I was insane for this and demanded I see a psychiatrist if I wanted to keep my job. Just ended up getting xanax pills I really didn't want or need. This was close to a decade ago and I wouldn't pull something like that now, but I mean what do you expect out of hiring people in their early 20s?
- dang 4y agoDiscussed here: A CIA hacker’s revenge - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31639354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31639354 - June 2022 (252 comments)
- rob_c 4y agoAnd again another one gets hot with a CP charge that nobody questions after a character assassination... Something KGB about all that imo.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- tunap 4y agoIndeed. “lack of evidence is not evidence of innocence.” Wow.
- x86x87 4y ago
- orangepurple 4y agoCP is the nuclear weapon of the Internet that nobody questions when it shows up on someone's devices. It's radioactive; anybody that comes in contact with it immediately gets slammed. Absolute guarantee Assange is going to get hit with a CP charge to socially discredit him when they get a hold of him too.
- mdp2021 4y ago> is going to get hit I very clearly remember he got hit in that direction, almost immediately... And again the general reaction was "You must have a very diversified public, if you believe that boosts credit instead of doubts".
- rob_c 4y agoI'm surprised they're dragging his situation out so much, I think the intent now is that he's the living example if how they will screw with you if you seriously step out of line even for the right reasons. That, or he will learn to love the party and accept we were always at war...
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- yellow_lead 4y ago> But US prosecutors never presented any forensic evidence to specifically tie Schulte to the publication of the CIA hacking materials on WikiLeaks. Makes you wonder how he was found guilty. The accused have a big disadvantage at trial. He also represented himself (probably a huge mistake)
- nojito 4y agoWhy do you need to show that he uploaded information to Wikileaks? All they need to show is that he had unauthorized access to the information and downloaded that information.
- bonzini 4y agoI guess some charges only kick in if the information is redistributed.
- ClumsyPilot 4y agowhy do I need to prove you stabbed someone. All I need to show is that you have a kitchen knife
- nojito 4y agoNot a great comparison. There's a reason why whistleblowers are encouraged to only share information that they already have access to in their day to day.
- weberer 4y agoMaybe we'll find out how they got him in the next leak.
- sha256sum 4y agoThis was the third trial. The first two were declared mistrials. So yes, certainly makes one wonder.
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- peterkelly 4y ago... but finds CIA innocent of hacking
- hereforphone 4y agoBecause it's their job?
- leothecool 4y agoThat doesn't matter. Drug dealers, hitmen, prostitutes, etc. go to jail all the time even though its their job.
- upupandup 4y agoAll those ppl you listed serve themselves, not the state. can't believe i have to spell this out on HN.
- kennend3 4y agoRemember when the CIA was trafficking cocaine? So.. same thing? Drug dealers do it for themselves, and the CIA - who were they dealing drugs for again? The state? They were giving the proceeds of crime back to the US government?
- leothecool 4y agoI mean.. I could have just said nazi soldiers but I thought it was too cliche.
- r721 4y agoRecent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32089814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32089814
- psiops 4y agoOff topic: Anybody else get a weird optic movement effect looking at the picture of the courthouse in the article?
- ecef9-8c0f-4374 4y agoyes
- pessimizer 4y agoThe entire ledge/cornice above "United States Court House" is dancing.
- unnouinceput 4y agoQuote: "Schulte is now confined at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. He has several child pornography charges pending against him that stem from the FBI raid on his Manhattan apartment on March 15, 2017." Now that's just textbook setting up a patsy. If I had any doubt that the guy is innocent this one cleared that for me. I mean, at this moment, this is plain obvious it's just a CIA setup getting rid of a "no" man. They need them spineless, not actual thinkers.
- mdp2021 4y ago> If I had any doubt that the guy is innocent this one cleared that for me The Bayesian needle suddenly swings with force.
- lakomen 4y agoTell me again why we're the good guys?
- throwaway4good 4y agoHistory is written by the victors.
- harry8 4y agoBecause "we" aren't the CIA. Perhaps it's "they" as in. Are they the enemy of the people just like the KGB or GRU?
- NoGravitas 4y agoA very successful propaganda machine.
- jazzyjackson 4y agowe keep the spice flowing
- president 4y agoBecause there are worse people trying to do worse harm than the US? The real world is a dog eat dog world and if you're not up to snuff, there will always be someone else trying to eat your lunch.
- avgcorrection 4y agoHmm. I’d better steal that guy’s lunch before some meaner kid does it.
- kleer001 4y agoDefine "we" and define "good", be as exhaustive and precise as philosophically possible.
- avsteele 4y agoIf he's guilty this is a more or less normal process. The real shocker is the stuff surrounding the leak in the article: It was one of the largest leaks of information in the history of CIA and a huge embarrassment for then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who responded by labeling WikiLeaks a "non-state hostile intelligence agency" and developing "secret war plans" against the media organization that included kidnapping or even killing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Just so we are clear: if you are a member of an org, anywhere in the world, with no particular obligation to keep the CIA's secrets, but who's only mission is to make public CIA actions / capabilities, they may try to extra-judicially murder you. Real are we the baddies? vibes. If you work there, or for them as a contractor, please consider putting your abilities to more ethical use.
- Tostino 4y agoThis seems entirely in line with what I've read about the history of the CIA.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- NikolaNovak 4y agoI do respect a good "Are we the baddies?" reference :-) https://youtu.be/hn1VxaMEjRU https://youtu.be/hn1VxaMEjRU
- ho_schi 4y agoWe shall always ask this ourselves. Before, during and after an argument. Before, during and after a conflict.
- heresie-dabord 4y ago> Are we the baddies? Well, the history of the CIA is clear. But that's not the point. This whole story is about failed management of a deranged employee. The lesson for employers is to stop toxic antics and attitudes. You don't need to be "woke" to know that when employees are insulting and bullying one another, it will in time destroy a project and maybe even ruin lives.
- jonnycomputer 4y agohttps://www.emptywheel.net/2022/07/14/how-josh-schulte-got-judge-jesse-furman-to-open-a-file-in-internet-explorer/ https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/07/14/how-josh-schulte-got-j... There is a lot here, and I think people should avoid leaping to conclusions.
- muglug 4y agoThat builds up to a conclusion that this guy is the sort of super-hacker you see in the movies. I don't believe he was stupid/clever enough to infect the trial judge's computer with a virus.
- Beltalowda 4y agoBased on what I've read, I can see him thinking he's clever enough, and he certainly has some amount of stupidity about him (being smart and stupid are not mutually exclusive).
- lizardactivist 4y ago
- upupandup 4y ago
- dr-detroit 4y ago
- nobleach 4y ago> There was scant coverage of both trials from the US news media And yet there were days of trial coverage for an actor and his actress ex.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- jlkuester7 4y ago> he had told the jury the “lack of evidence is not evidence of innocence.” Wait, what? Since when in the US legal system did the defendant need to prove "evidence of innocence"? I am really getting tired of hearing BS like this from the prosecution team on high-profile cases! If they are pulling this crap when everyone is watching, what chance do any of us normal folks have at getting a fair shake from the Justice system if we ever end up in the defendant's chair?
- the_only_law 4y agoIt's the CIA, they can basically whatever the fuck they want, with little regard for law or justice.
- m348e912 4y agoIf you like that one, wait until you hear what's in store for Julian Assange.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bogomipz 4y agoThis article seems to use quotes and then provide no context for them which makes for confusing reading: >Assistant US Attorney Michael D. Lockard asserted that on April 20, 2016, Schulte “stole the entirety of the CIA’s highly sensitive cyber intelligence capabilities.” This occurred just days after the CIA “locked the defendant out of the secure restricted vault-like location on the network.” So is the prosecution asserting that he hacked into the network after having his access revoked? In the next article the article states: >“Shortly after stealing this extraordinarily sensitive intelligence information, the defendant transmitted those backups to WikiLeaks, knowing full well that WikiLeaks would put it up on the internet,” Lockard argued. Is the assertion here that the dump obtained via a local backup this the defendant made? This is really kind of a poorly written article.
- anonym29 4y agoI find the US government guilty of making secret malware that was deployed against both US citizens and friendly allies.
- ed25519FUUU 4y agoWhat Julian Assange is teaching us is that the intelligence and military apparatus can do whatever they want, but exposing them is a serious crime worthy of life in prison.
- edm0nd 4y agoA great read! https://github.com/sterling0x1/CIA-Hacking-Tools https://github.com/sterling0x1/CIA-Hacking-Tools tl;dr they use a lot of RATs and also do a lot of supply chain intercepts on hardware before it arrives to their targets. They will insert malicious hardware like charging cables or adapters or actually infect the HDD or phone with a backdoor.
- mherdeg 4y agoWhat is the Calyx Institute's interest in providing trial transcripts here? That's an interesting service: https://calyxinstitute.org/schulte https://calyxinstitute.org/schulte
- giobox 4y agoAccess to trial transcripts in many jurisdictions is often behind complex paywalls/distribution agreements or some really archaic time consuming process to get official copies. It's not unheard of for an interest group to reshare these materials relevant to their objectives. Its similar to the situation with scientific papers and the sci-hub site trying to remove blockers to access; people have tried before to make sci-hub clones for trial transcripts/court decisions/published legislation but there is huge money in this industry for companies like LexisNexis etc who often litigate to shut them down. Legal firms who need access to these details just see deals with companies like LexisNexis as standard cost of doing legal business - much like you might need a github account for every software engineer, lawyers will usually need individual accounts for services like LexisNexis to get latest court decisions and legislation.
- joshgroban 4y ago