8 ms·

Here’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

by Cenk 4y ago

Here’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 ago
I 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 ago
    Tell them the best thing we can do is prevent it from happening again by auditing systems and adding safeguards.
- jamespo 4y ago
  The 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 ago
    Ahh. 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 ago
      If you think the Government created this back door to frame him why would they choose that password?
      - game-of-throws 4y ago
        Also how do they know the password at all? Is the CIA storing passwords for classified material in plain text?
        snickerbockers 4y ago
        its (allegedly) his backdoor, nit the CIA's
      - nyolfen 4y ago
        contains his name, lines up with their descriptions of him as a deranged narcissist. it honestly does seem a little pat
        hannasanarion 4y ago
        It lines up with his history as a deranged narcissist. > In a 2009 exchange... one person Schulte interacted with went by “hbp.” Another went by “Sturm.” Josh’s username was “Josh.” At one point, he volunteered to grant his new friends access to the child-porn archive on his server. He had titled it /home/josh/http/porn. Sturm, taken aback, warned Schulte to “rename these things for god’s sake.”
    - md_ 4y ago
      Sounds like exactly the kind of password an emotionally immature junior employee subject to poor judgment would pick, though. Whether that's a fair description here, I can't say--but the New Yorker story is certainly internally consistent (and, it must be said, doesn't exactly make the CIA look good, either).
- 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 ago
    A 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 ago
      Not 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 ago
      Does 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 ago
    War against Russia? I'm not aware the US or EU declared war against Russia
    - jessaustin 4y ago
      USA 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 ago
        Just 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 ago
        jessaustin 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 ago
  I 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 ago
  Character 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 ago
    Is there an enemy of the CIA who isn’t a pedo or rapist?
    - googlryas 4y ago
      Sure. 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 ago
      In 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 ago
    I 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 ago
  You'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 ago
Interesting this guy called for Chelsea manning to be executed on Twitter. Wonder if he will keep up that consistency during sentencing.
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  He still claims innocence, so I doubt he thinks he deserves the same punishment.
  - upupandup 4y ago
    While 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 ago
      I think you're forgetting that Manning got a 35 year sentence, 40 isn't much more severe.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
l2silver 4y ago
This 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 ago
  My 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 ago
    Hah. 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 ago
      I 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 ago
Discussed here: A CIA hacker’s revenge - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31639354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31639354 - June 2022 (252 comments)

by Cenk 4y ago

Here’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 ago

I 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 ago
  Tell them the best thing we can do is prevent it from happening again by auditing systems and adding safeguards.
jamespo 4y ago
The 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 ago
  Ahh. 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 ago
    If you think the Government created this back door to frame him why would they choose that password?
    - game-of-throws 4y ago
      Also how do they know the password at all? Is the CIA storing passwords for classified material in plain text?
      - snickerbockers 4y ago
        its (allegedly) his backdoor, nit the CIA's
    - nyolfen 4y ago
      contains his name, lines up with their descriptions of him as a deranged narcissist. it honestly does seem a little pat
      - hannasanarion 4y ago
        It lines up with his history as a deranged narcissist. > In a 2009 exchange... one person Schulte interacted with went by “hbp.” Another went by “Sturm.” Josh’s username was “Josh.” At one point, he volunteered to grant his new friends access to the child-porn archive on his server. He had titled it /home/josh/http/porn. Sturm, taken aback, warned Schulte to “rename these things for god’s sake.”
  - md_ 4y ago
    Sounds like exactly the kind of password an emotionally immature junior employee subject to poor judgment would pick, though. Whether that's a fair description here, I can't say--but the New Yorker story is certainly internally consistent (and, it must be said, doesn't exactly make the CIA look good, either).
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 ago
  A 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 ago
    Not 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 ago
    Does 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 ago
  War against Russia? I'm not aware the US or EU declared war against Russia
  - jessaustin 4y ago
    USA 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 ago
      Just 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 ago
        jessaustin 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 ago
I 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 ago
Character 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 ago
  Is there an enemy of the CIA who isn’t a pedo or rapist?
  - googlryas 4y ago
    Sure. 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 ago
    In 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 ago
  I 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 ago
You'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 ago

Interesting this guy called for Chelsea manning to be executed on Twitter. Wonder if he will keep up that consistency during sentencing.

boomboomsubban 4y ago
He still claims innocence, so I doubt he thinks he deserves the same punishment.
- upupandup 4y ago
  While 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 ago
    I think you're forgetting that Manning got a 35 year sentence, 40 isn't much more severe.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

l2silver 4y ago

This 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 ago
My 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 ago
  Hah. 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 ago
    I 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 ago

Discussed here: A CIA hacker’s revenge - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31639354 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31639354 - June 2022 (252 comments)