the majority of comments on this thread are off with there suspicions of foul play on the "hackers" part. the details from the article mostly add up. there is

the majority of comments on this thread are off with there suspicions of foul play on the "hackers" part. the details from the article mostly add up. there is information missing that could confirm this (review of skill-set showing competency in side channel attacks, perhaps a followup on the DAPRA grant) but the general attack described could be possible. also intelligence agencies looking for snitches should be read as an agent fishing for a spy. A special type of spy with technical skills. It might be that after hitting the first "go higher him and bring him into our RED_or_Black team" later the agency got cold feet or countered and as a result they could only offer him the more arms-length freelance type of position where you work on blackbox projects while remaining independent but also have the alternate task to feed information about the community. This. Happens. This is the modus. The only thing I do not get is when they were still looking to higher and put him close rather than the arms-length position, why the "would have to move to Seattle" requirement? And this sparks my attention because pre-snowden I knew several security analysts in Redmond that doubled as consultants for Gov. I wonder if Gov eventually just setup shop there?