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"Hi. How are you? I'm an army intelligence analyst, deployed to Eastern Baghdad, pending discharge for "adjustment disorder" in lie of "gender identity disorder
by kunai 13y ago
"Hi. How are you? I'm an army intelligence analyst, deployed to Eastern Baghdad, pending discharge for "adjustment disorder" in lie of "gender identity disorder." I'm sure you're pretty busy.
If you had unprecedented access to classified networks 14 hours a day, 7 days a week for 8+ months, what would you do?
"I'm in the desert, with a bunch of hyper-masculine trigger-happy ignorant rednecks as neighbors... and the only safe place I seem to have is this satellite internet connection. I already got myself into minor trouble, revealing my uncertainty over my gender identity. Which is causing me to lose this job. And putting me in an awkward limbo...
At the very least, I managed to keep my security clearance (so far), and little does anyone know. But, among this "visible" mess, there's the mess I created that no one knows about yet.
Hypothetical question: if you had free reign over classified networks for long periods of time, say, 8-9 months ... and you saw incredible things, awful things ... things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington, D.C. ... what would you do?
Say ... a database of half a million events during the Iraq war. From 2004 to 2009, with reports, date time groups, lat-lon locations, casualty figures...? Or 260,000 state department cables from embassies and consulates all over the world, explaining how the first world exploits the third, in detail, from an internal perspective?
Let's just say someone I know intimately well, has been penetrating U.S. classified networks, mining data like the ones described, and [has] been transferring that data from the classified networks over the "air gap" onto a commercial network computer ... sorting the data, compressing it, encrypting it, and uploading it to a crazy white-haired Aussie who can't seem to stay in one country very long.
Crazy white Aussie = Julian Assange..
In other words, I've made a huge mess.
"And, it's important that it gets out, I feel, for some bizarre reason. It might actually change something. I just ... don't wish to be a part of it. At least not now. I'm not ready ... I wouldn't mind going to prison for the rest of my life, or being executed so much, if it wasn't for the possibility of having pictures of me plastered all over the world press, as a [poster] boy.
I've totally lost my mind. I make no sense. The CPU is not made for this motherboard. I cannot believe what I'm confessing to you.
"So, it was a massive data spillage, facilitated by numerous factors. Both physically, technically, and culturally. [It's a] perfect example of how not to do INFOSEC. [I] listened and lip-synced to Lady Gaga's Telephone while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history.
Weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counter-intelligence, inattentive signal analysis ... a perfect storm.
I mean, what if I were someone more malicious? I could've sold to Russia or China, and made bank."
Adrian shot back, "Why didn't you?"
"Because it's public data. It belongs in the public domain.
Information should be free." - Bradley Manning
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This is true bravery. This is courage. This is heroism. Capitol Hill does not have the intelligence quotient to understand this.
Either that, or they're just corrupt. It's probably the latter.
I am praying to a God I know doesn't exist, if only because I feel helpless in this matter. Bradley Manning, please be free. Just like the information you set out to liberate, be yourself liberated from tyranny.
- latch 13y agoNeither agree or disagree, but I couldn't help but notice that you pose a hypothetical question in a manner which is impossible to disagree with. "Hypothetical question...and you saw incredible things, awful things ... things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington, D.C. ... what would you do?" The question isn't interesting...in fact, it isn't a question, it's an opinion veiled as a discussion. If you drop your own opinion from it, then it becomes interesting. Then people can talk about it. This is like saying: "Hypothetical question...Let's say you're Truman, and you know that dropping the bomb will definitely kill more civilians and soldiers on both side while extending the war and turning all your allies against you, what would you do?"
- kawsper 13y ago> The CPU is not made for this motherboard. That line have never made much sense to me, can anyone elaborate on what he might have been seeing?
- tinco 13y agoHe's just expressing how he feels out of place. Being a hero is not what he feels he is cut out for.
- shabble 13y agoBased on pending discharge for "adjustment disorder" in lie of "gender identity disorder." it could be interpreted as a feeling that there is an incompatibility/conflict between the physical gender of the "motherboard" body and the gender identity of the mind.
- mtoddh 13y ago"I'm in the desert, with a bunch of hyper-masculine trigger-happy ignorant rednecks as neighbors..." Funny how averse most HNers are when it comes to perpetuating stereotypes and making negative generalizations based on race or gender, but when it comes to the military or people from "flyover states", it suddenly becomes acceptable.
- 13y ago