11 ms·

Leaker of U.S. secret documents worked on military base, friend says

108 points by Multicomp 3y ago

stevespang 3y ago
[dead]
1letterunixname 3y ago
[flagged]
- aero-glide2 3y ago
  Incel/misogyny isn't mentioned in this story. Not sure how that's relevant.
- dang 3y ago
  Can you please not fulminate on HN? This is in the site guidelines because we're trying for something different here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
toomanyrichies 3y ago
https://archive.ph/qiOok https://archive.ph/qiOok
GalenErso 3y ago
The DoD really dropped the ball by granting access to this information to such a wide group of people, according to the article. "Thousands of people". What happened to need-to-know?
- GVIrish 3y ago
  Since 9/11 there's been a shift towards not siloing information as aggressively as before in order to make intelligence failures less likely. Don't know if that was at play in this case though. At the very least, access control systems should've flagged unusual access to more information that this person would've had a need to know. But as big as the US intelligence and defense apparatus is, not every agency, program, and office is gonna have rigorous enough controls to catch people like this. Seems like the lesson should've been learned after Manning and Snowden.
  - jonny_eh 3y ago
    This OG sounds like a total moron and ego maniac. How does someone like that get access? How can he walk away with pictures?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- halJordan 3y ago
  This is an unfair characterization without more due consideration. The IC was raked across the coals for years over being overly secretive and is still blamed for 9/11 because they had the pieces, but wouldn't coordinate. Balancing security and communication is very tough and the nation specifically choose communication. That 1000s of people had access and didn't leak it speaks to the strength of the system. I'm sorry that one guy was eff'd in the head and felt he needed to buy friends with classical documents.
- jones6ofMont 3y ago
  [dead]
- topspin 3y ago
  I agree. A lot of it seems fairly low value, but the info on intelligence penetrations of the Russian military is a major setback. That's high value intelligence; exposure means assets are now compromised. That this is floating around in the hands of some kid with a printer and a camera is deeply stupid. It isn't, however, surprising. This is just another in a now long list of similar failures, increasing in frequency. Our intelligence and military leadership is not competent.
- nvy 3y ago
  You'd be surprised what gets classified. For example aggregate maintenance data from aircraft, like the paperwork for changing tires, or repainting the fuselage on a C-130, can allow an adversary to develop pretty good estimates of a military's readiness capability. So it's classified, usually as Secret. The USAF alone has something like 100,000 aircraft maintainers, all of whom have a need to access that data to varying degrees.
  - barrkel 3y ago
    They Need To Know. NTK is a contextual requirement and shouldn't be solved by admitting them into an enormous pen whereby they instantly gain access to information that they don't, in fact, need to know.
    - nvy 3y ago
      >admitting them into an enormous pen whereby they instantly gain access to information that they don't, in fact, need to know. In my firsthand experience, having been a military officer with a security clearance, this rarely if ever happens. My point about the aircraft maintainers is that it's fairly common and in fact rather mundane that "thousands" of people do actually have a need to know.
bbunix 3y ago
I'm surprised at the lack of skepticism. I would instantly assume a ton a barium and canaries in whatever docs were dropped (so conveniently).
tomohelix 3y ago
I am not sure how much I trust this explanation. A lone discord user was responsible for a top secret leak because of some banal online argument? Doesn't sound right. Almost too convenient to hide some deeper systematic cracks in the intelligence agencies and their incompetence in securing their own secrets. I know, don't attribute malice where stupidity suffice. But something just nagging me about how inane this whole explanation is.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  Ehn, the world be that way. I can definetly believe that someone heavily invested in an argument on social media might do something like leaking docs on what they assumed was a niche audience. I've seen enough flamewars even on HN that have shown those kinds of characteristics (and Ik I myself have been guilty of getting overly invested in threads as well). Humans be humans I guess. Also from the demographics and description, I think the leaker may have been younger (early to late 20s). Being in your 20s, isolated on a base, and being bored can make people get overinvested in online communities.
  - ComputerGuru 3y ago
    Did you read the article, though? The argument thing was on the Minecraft room; the leaks were reportedly more of a long-term thing with intel shared out of a sense of “community” and “edification” on a smaller group.
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      Tbf, I did not, WaPo's paywall is aggressive. I'm just speaking from experience. I've known people very close to me who have leaked stuff in this manner before (nothing this classified though - more like non-classified gossip you'd read in Politico or Staffer Twitter quoting "an anonymous source working closely to the XYZ Subcommittee"). The leaker ofc made a horrible pattern of decisions, but it's kind of easy to see where they came from if they're dunking on friends or acquaintances in a semi-competitive manner
    - crabkin 3y ago
netfortius 3y ago
After so many years of security research, and the well known use of solutions like honeytokens, properly hidden in documents, meant to raise an alert on each occurence of exposure, I'm amazed we're still reading things like month long unawareness of critical info like this being leaked in public forums.
- dmix 3y ago
  He was manually typing up the documents into text form before leaking them at first so he obviously knew the risk of raw documents. He just got lazy and was engaging in reckless behaviour maybe because he liked the thrill/power the access gave him but very modestly shared in with a group of half-interested zoomers.
ComputerGuru 3y ago
The kicker is the final paragraph: > To date, no federal law enforcement officials have contacted the young group member. If this is real, it’s insane that WaPo beat the DoJ to get to these people. Also, how stupid are these kids to publicly talk to reporters about their involvement and receiving state secrets (the kid requested his voice not be masked!!). People have been imprisoned for receiving classified information and this is one heck of a clown show the DoJ will want to appear completely on top of. For real, guys: don’t talk to police or reporters or anyone when you’re involved in a mess (even one much smaller than this). Get a lawyer and learn how to say “no comment!”
- grugagag 3y ago
  To get into a legal mess like this makes me think they didn’t give much thought to ramifications and consequences in the first place.
- StopHammoTime 3y ago
  https://youtu.be/sgWHrkDX35o https://youtu.be/sgWHrkDX35o By admitting that they knew these documents were classified and did nothing they have now broken the law. If they shut up, they can plead ignorance “oh I figured it was role play, why would I trust stuff on the internet, etc”. It is never in your interest to talk to anyone in cases like these. Get a Lawyer on retainer and wait.
  - nradov 3y ago
    Nope. Please explain which "law" you think they have broken? Let's have a specific citation of the US criminal code and relevant case law please.
    - boomboomsubban 3y ago
      https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793 Sections C through F. I'm unsure of relevant case law, it may be untested, but it's part of the charges against Julian Assange.
neilv 3y ago
If the article is accurate, how could someone who'd been through whatever onboarding for security clearance think that this was a good idea, or think that the documents wouldn't also spread once leaked? Is it mental illness? (Like, they couldn't extrapolate from training like "Following the classified materials handling protocols is important, because... Be vigilant against foreign operatives attempting to befriend you, because... Etc...." to implied practices like "Oh, hey, and don't steal classified materials and post them in Internet social venues, not even your own private Discord of Internet randos, because that has similar problems"? Or could they see the similarity, but they thought they were above it?) And/or was the wider spread of the intel beyond the Discord actually intended?
- mint2 3y ago
  It’s because they give clearances out like candy. One article mentioned 1.25 million of them to defense tangential people
- anonuser123456 3y ago
  Probably an interim clearance holder on active duty. They can have access before an investigation reveals they probably shouldn’t.
- Maxious 3y ago
  It's not unusual for people to publish leaked documents on 4chan for the lolz https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-05/canberra-man-jailed-for-publishing-secret-document-online/6914430 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-05/canberra-man-jailed-f... And arguments on the War Thunder forum are notoriously full of leaks https://www.eurogamer.net/yet-more-military-documents-leaked-on-war-thunder-forum https://www.eurogamer.net/yet-more-military-documents-leaked...
  - neilv 3y ago
    Do some of these Internet forums normalize leaking? If so, are there suspicions that normalizing leaking is actually intentional action by an adversary? (To get the info, or to erode professionalism?)
DarkmSparks 3y ago
TLDR:someone with an intel exchange or clone tor url was reposting material from it to discord shocker. The real scandal here is that none of these supposed media outlets are reposting the documents, nor putting what they say in context of other leaks like the one from mossad back in January.
tivert 3y ago
> OG told his online companions that the government hid horrible truths from the public. He claimed, according to the members, that the government knew in advance that a white supremacist intended to go on a shooting rampage at a Buffalo supermarket in May 2022. The attack left 10 dead, all of them Black, and wounded three more. OG said federal law enforcement officials let the killings proceed so they could argue for increased funding, a baseless notion that the member said he believes and considers an example of OG’s penetrating insights about the depth of government corruption. Why is that a "baseless notion" (which is stated in the newspaper's voice)? It might be far-fetched, but this "OG" guy had proven access to top secret documents, and (IIRC) that shooter left all kinds of documents and plans online. It's not inconceivable that "federal law enforcement officials" picked up something that told them a shooting was likely to happen, didn't act, and this guy was privy to some document or conversation about that. Weaseling "baseless" in there reeks of condescendingly making sure to tell the plebs exactly what you want them to think at every opportunity.
- v0idzer0 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - whythre 3y ago
    Seems like every whistleblower can just be called a false flag op, then. Doesn’t seem like a very substantive criticism, so unless you can show these ties you are talking about.
- felixgallo 3y ago
  'baseless' is perfectly right; there's no basis for it. The guy said he had a theory. Guy goes on to yell racist and antisemitic words while shooting a rifle. Given that there have been literally tens of thousands of ridiculous right wing conspiracy theories over the last few years (plandemic! Hillary executed in gitmo (again)! Biden body double! Deep state! Venezuelan dictators!), and this is the same old Our Enemies Are Amoral Supervillains Who Victimize Us, why should anyone legitimize this one?

108 points by Multicomp 3y ago

stevespang 3y ago

[dead]

1letterunixname 3y ago

[flagged]

aero-glide2 3y ago
Incel/misogyny isn't mentioned in this story. Not sure how that's relevant.
dang 3y ago
Can you please not fulminate on HN? This is in the site guidelines because we're trying for something different here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

toomanyrichies 3y ago

https://archive.ph/qiOok https://archive.ph/qiOok

GalenErso 3y ago

The DoD really dropped the ball by granting access to this information to such a wide group of people, according to the article. "Thousands of people". What happened to need-to-know?

GVIrish 3y ago
Since 9/11 there's been a shift towards not siloing information as aggressively as before in order to make intelligence failures less likely. Don't know if that was at play in this case though. At the very least, access control systems should've flagged unusual access to more information that this person would've had a need to know. But as big as the US intelligence and defense apparatus is, not every agency, program, and office is gonna have rigorous enough controls to catch people like this. Seems like the lesson should've been learned after Manning and Snowden.
- jonny_eh 3y ago
  This OG sounds like a total moron and ego maniac. How does someone like that get access? How can he walk away with pictures?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
halJordan 3y ago
This is an unfair characterization without more due consideration. The IC was raked across the coals for years over being overly secretive and is still blamed for 9/11 because they had the pieces, but wouldn't coordinate. Balancing security and communication is very tough and the nation specifically choose communication. That 1000s of people had access and didn't leak it speaks to the strength of the system. I'm sorry that one guy was eff'd in the head and felt he needed to buy friends with classical documents.
jones6ofMont 3y ago
[dead]
topspin 3y ago
I agree. A lot of it seems fairly low value, but the info on intelligence penetrations of the Russian military is a major setback. That's high value intelligence; exposure means assets are now compromised. That this is floating around in the hands of some kid with a printer and a camera is deeply stupid. It isn't, however, surprising. This is just another in a now long list of similar failures, increasing in frequency. Our intelligence and military leadership is not competent.
nvy 3y ago
You'd be surprised what gets classified. For example aggregate maintenance data from aircraft, like the paperwork for changing tires, or repainting the fuselage on a C-130, can allow an adversary to develop pretty good estimates of a military's readiness capability. So it's classified, usually as Secret. The USAF alone has something like 100,000 aircraft maintainers, all of whom have a need to access that data to varying degrees.
- barrkel 3y ago
  They Need To Know. NTK is a contextual requirement and shouldn't be solved by admitting them into an enormous pen whereby they instantly gain access to information that they don't, in fact, need to know.
  - nvy 3y ago
    >admitting them into an enormous pen whereby they instantly gain access to information that they don't, in fact, need to know. In my firsthand experience, having been a military officer with a security clearance, this rarely if ever happens. My point about the aircraft maintainers is that it's fairly common and in fact rather mundane that "thousands" of people do actually have a need to know.

bbunix 3y ago

I'm surprised at the lack of skepticism. I would instantly assume a ton a barium and canaries in whatever docs were dropped (so conveniently).

tomohelix 3y ago

I am not sure how much I trust this explanation. A lone discord user was responsible for a top secret leak because of some banal online argument? Doesn't sound right. Almost too convenient to hide some deeper systematic cracks in the intelligence agencies and their incompetence in securing their own secrets. I know, don't attribute malice where stupidity suffice. But something just nagging me about how inane this whole explanation is.

alephnerd 3y ago
Ehn, the world be that way. I can definetly believe that someone heavily invested in an argument on social media might do something like leaking docs on what they assumed was a niche audience. I've seen enough flamewars even on HN that have shown those kinds of characteristics (and Ik I myself have been guilty of getting overly invested in threads as well). Humans be humans I guess. Also from the demographics and description, I think the leaker may have been younger (early to late 20s). Being in your 20s, isolated on a base, and being bored can make people get overinvested in online communities.
- ComputerGuru 3y ago
  Did you read the article, though? The argument thing was on the Minecraft room; the leaks were reportedly more of a long-term thing with intel shared out of a sense of “community” and “edification” on a smaller group.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    Tbf, I did not, WaPo's paywall is aggressive. I'm just speaking from experience. I've known people very close to me who have leaked stuff in this manner before (nothing this classified though - more like non-classified gossip you'd read in Politico or Staffer Twitter quoting "an anonymous source working closely to the XYZ Subcommittee"). The leaker ofc made a horrible pattern of decisions, but it's kind of easy to see where they came from if they're dunking on friends or acquaintances in a semi-competitive manner
  - crabkin 3y ago

netfortius 3y ago

After so many years of security research, and the well known use of solutions like honeytokens, properly hidden in documents, meant to raise an alert on each occurence of exposure, I'm amazed we're still reading things like month long unawareness of critical info like this being leaked in public forums.

dmix 3y ago
He was manually typing up the documents into text form before leaking them at first so he obviously knew the risk of raw documents. He just got lazy and was engaging in reckless behaviour maybe because he liked the thrill/power the access gave him but very modestly shared in with a group of half-interested zoomers.

ComputerGuru 3y ago

The kicker is the final paragraph: > To date, no federal law enforcement officials have contacted the young group member. If this is real, it’s insane that WaPo beat the DoJ to get to these people. Also, how stupid are these kids to publicly talk to reporters about their involvement and receiving state secrets (the kid requested his voice not be masked!!). People have been imprisoned for receiving classified information and this is one heck of a clown show the DoJ will want to appear completely on top of. For real, guys: don’t talk to police or reporters or anyone when you’re involved in a mess (even one much smaller than this). Get a lawyer and learn how to say “no comment!”

grugagag 3y ago
To get into a legal mess like this makes me think they didn’t give much thought to ramifications and consequences in the first place.
StopHammoTime 3y ago
https://youtu.be/sgWHrkDX35o https://youtu.be/sgWHrkDX35o By admitting that they knew these documents were classified and did nothing they have now broken the law. If they shut up, they can plead ignorance “oh I figured it was role play, why would I trust stuff on the internet, etc”. It is never in your interest to talk to anyone in cases like these. Get a Lawyer on retainer and wait.
- nradov 3y ago
  Nope. Please explain which "law" you think they have broken? Let's have a specific citation of the US criminal code and relevant case law please.
  - boomboomsubban 3y ago
    https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793 Sections C through F. I'm unsure of relevant case law, it may be untested, but it's part of the charges against Julian Assange.

neilv 3y ago

If the article is accurate, how could someone who'd been through whatever onboarding for security clearance think that this was a good idea, or think that the documents wouldn't also spread once leaked? Is it mental illness? (Like, they couldn't extrapolate from training like "Following the classified materials handling protocols is important, because... Be vigilant against foreign operatives attempting to befriend you, because... Etc...." to implied practices like "Oh, hey, and don't steal classified materials and post them in Internet social venues, not even your own private Discord of Internet randos, because that has similar problems"? Or could they see the similarity, but they thought they were above it?) And/or was the wider spread of the intel beyond the Discord actually intended?

mint2 3y ago
It’s because they give clearances out like candy. One article mentioned 1.25 million of them to defense tangential people
anonuser123456 3y ago
Probably an interim clearance holder on active duty. They can have access before an investigation reveals they probably shouldn’t.
Maxious 3y ago
It's not unusual for people to publish leaked documents on 4chan for the lolz https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-05/canberra-man-jailed-for-publishing-secret-document-online/6914430 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-05/canberra-man-jailed-f... And arguments on the War Thunder forum are notoriously full of leaks https://www.eurogamer.net/yet-more-military-documents-leaked-on-war-thunder-forum https://www.eurogamer.net/yet-more-military-documents-leaked...
- neilv 3y ago
  Do some of these Internet forums normalize leaking? If so, are there suspicions that normalizing leaking is actually intentional action by an adversary? (To get the info, or to erode professionalism?)

DarkmSparks 3y ago

TLDR:someone with an intel exchange or clone tor url was reposting material from it to discord shocker. The real scandal here is that none of these supposed media outlets are reposting the documents, nor putting what they say in context of other leaks like the one from mossad back in January.

tivert 3y ago

> OG told his online companions that the government hid horrible truths from the public. He claimed, according to the members, that the government knew in advance that a white supremacist intended to go on a shooting rampage at a Buffalo supermarket in May 2022. The attack left 10 dead, all of them Black, and wounded three more. OG said federal law enforcement officials let the killings proceed so they could argue for increased funding, a baseless notion that the member said he believes and considers an example of OG’s penetrating insights about the depth of government corruption. Why is that a "baseless notion" (which is stated in the newspaper's voice)? It might be far-fetched, but this "OG" guy had proven access to top secret documents, and (IIRC) that shooter left all kinds of documents and plans online. It's not inconceivable that "federal law enforcement officials" picked up something that told them a shooting was likely to happen, didn't act, and this guy was privy to some document or conversation about that. Weaseling "baseless" in there reeks of condescendingly making sure to tell the plebs exactly what you want them to think at every opportunity.

v0idzer0 3y ago
[flagged]
- whythre 3y ago
  Seems like every whistleblower can just be called a false flag op, then. Doesn’t seem like a very substantive criticism, so unless you can show these ties you are talking about.
felixgallo 3y ago
'baseless' is perfectly right; there's no basis for it. The guy said he had a theory. Guy goes on to yell racist and antisemitic words while shooting a rifle. Given that there have been literally tens of thousands of ridiculous right wing conspiracy theories over the last few years (plandemic! Hillary executed in gitmo (again)! Biden body double! Deep state! Venezuelan dictators!), and this is the same old Our Enemies Are Amoral Supervillains Who Victimize Us, why should anyone legitimize this one?