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Leader of Online Group Where Secret Documents Leaked Is Air National Guardsman

nytimes.com

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Re: Leader of Online Group Where Secret Documents Leaked Is Air National Guardsman

#31

Post by 2022-11-07 »

nobody9999 wrote: post #30
2022-11-07 wrote: post #14

This story just doesn't compute with me. A young guy (21) seemingly had access to all this information, and shared it despite being Portuguese (based on his last name) so seemingly not ethnically tied to Russia, shared it openly on Discord with his gaming club, a full document dump literally hundreds of pages not just screenshots or summaries, but not before faking some of the information, coordinated by a group that…

Why does it have to make sense? kids (and a 21 year-old is certainly not a full-grown adult) do stupid things all the time. For example, as James Zhong claimed[0]: >He recalled converting some of his Bitcoin into $700,000 in cash. He stated he did this so that he would have a “case full of money like in the movies.” He hoped the visual appeal of the cash would impress a female into having sexual relations with him. H…

Your link is a about a bitcoin case, so unless I missed something this guy wasn't doing it for money (I don't condone it, but money is a reasonable motive for committing a crime).

And I said based on his last name he doesn't appear to be ethnically Russian. Why are you going on about foreign nationals?

Re: Leader of Online Group Where Secret Documents Leaked Is Air National Guardsman

#32

Post by LeifCarrotson »

rebuilder wrote: post #25
pocketsand wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dirty not-so-secret about national defense apparatus in this country is that there are thousands of people in these various sub-sub-wings of our military along side mediocre contractors cashing in on defense contracts who go through rudimentary security clearance checks and have access to all this information. I grew up outside DC and every so often you hear of the security clearance spooks interviewing you or so…

It was reported in the news today that the USA is looking to tighten access to classified material as, currently, about one million US citizens have a top secret clearance.

While it would be intractable to upend the status quo of about 0.5% of American adults using that access to get things done day-to-day, there's a lot that could be improved just by compartmentalizing that access and monitoring it.

It's one thing for an IT admin on a Massachusetts national guard post to get access to a few local secrets. It's another when he's downloading hundreds of documents unrelated to his duties on a war thousands of miles away.

Your average file share or web server for a medium-sized corporation with a negligible amount of confidential data probably has that level of monitoring, it's not particularly surprising that the slower-moving military doesn't yet but it probably should.

Re: Leader of Online Group Where Secret Documents Leaked Is Air National Guardsman

#34

Post by miguelazo »

2022-11-07 wrote: post #14

This story just doesn't compute with me. A young guy (21) seemingly had access to all this information, and shared it despite being Portuguese (based on his last name) so seemingly not ethnically tied to Russia, shared it openly on Discord with his gaming club, a full document dump literally hundreds of pages not just screenshots or summaries, but not before faking some of the information, coordinated by a group that…

It’s amazing how much Russiagate has rotted peoples brains that they even considered “Russia” as a suspect. As if the motives/outcomes of the disclosure align with their interests whatsoever, not to mention the Discord origin. Newsflash: if it were Russia, they would have just kept it quiet and killed the moles.

Re: Leader of Online Group Where Secret Documents Leaked Is Air National Guardsman

#35

Post by lkjdlkjfkljv2 »

Manning got 35 years, although her sentence was commuted by Obama because she was arguably a "whistleblower."

Makes you wonder if Russian agents somehow got in his head. Impressionable 21 year old kids with access to the boss's computer to update IE will do stupdi things for the "100" reaction emoji on Discord.

Re: Leader of Online Group Where Secret Documents Leaked Is Air National Guardsman

#36

Post by nobody9999 »

2022-11-07 wrote: post #27
dogma1138 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes more sense than some Cold War spy thriller story. The amount of times people leaked classified information to win an argument on the Warthunder forums and discord alone proves that intelligence agencies have nothing on borderline teens that want to score points on the internet.

Name the most nonsensical camp b-rated Bollywood spy thriller you've ever seen, one where actors land on their feet after getting blown 50 feet into the air. It still makes more sense than this.

>Name the most nonsensical camp b-rated Bollywood spy thriller you've ever seen, one where actors land on their feet after getting blown 50 feet into the air. It still makes more sense than this.

Why does it it need to "make sense" -- to you (or me, for that matter)?

I'm sure it made sense to this kid, at least on some level(s). I remember when I was 21. I did all kinds of stupid shit -- often for no reason other than I felt like it at the moment -- even when I regretted it later.

I'm probably lucky I didn't have a security clearance or I might have ended up just like this kid.

And I keep using that word: kid. And it absolutely does mean what I think it means. A 21 year old is (with very few exceptions) not yet an adult[0]:

   Although the brain stops growing in size by early adolescence, the teen years 
   are all about fine-tuning how the brain works. The brain finishes developing 
   and maturing in the mid-to-late 20s. The part of the brain behind the 
   forehead, called the prefrontal cortex, is one of the last parts to mature. 
   This area is responsible for skills like planning, prioritizing, and making 
   good decisions.
[0] https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-teen-brain-...

Re: Leader of Online Group Where Secret Documents Leaked Is Air National Guardsman

#37

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #32
rebuilder wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was reported in the news today that the USA is looking to tighten access to classified material as, currently, about one million US citizens have a top secret clearance.

While it would be intractable to upend the status quo of about 0.5% of American adults using that access to get things done day-to-day, there's a lot that could be improved just by compartmentalizing that access and monitoring it. It's one thing for an IT admin on a Massachusetts national guard post to get access to a few local secrets. It's another when he's downloading hundreds of documents unrelated to his duties…

The shameful thing is this is the same scenario with the Manning leaks and nothing has been done to institute stronger access restrictions since. The military consistently refuses to operate by the same secrecy requirements that DoD contractors have to adhere to.

Re: Leader of Online Group Where Secret Documents Leaked Is Air National Guardsman

#38

Post by lsh123 »

etimberg wrote: post #5

Likely going to go away for a long while

I am sure FBI will find that "Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case." as it usually does in cases of leaking classified info :) :) :)

Re: Leader of Online Group Where Secret Documents Leaked Is Air National Guardsman

#39

Post by abeppu »

pocketsand wrote: post #22
ChumpGPT wrote: post #11

Would a guy in his position even have access to these documents? I'm thinking that there has to be someone who shared them or at least shared a way to gain access to them. I'm sure the FBI will be following the trail of bread crumbs to the original source. Now if it turns out he is the original source, we're in huge trouble. Because a 21 year old kid working night shift in some remote Cape Cod office for the Massachu…

The dirty not-so-secret about national defense apparatus in this country is that there are thousands of people in these various sub-sub-wings of our military along side mediocre contractors cashing in on defense contracts who go through rudimentary security clearance checks and have access to all this information. I grew up outside DC and every so often you hear of the security clearance spooks interviewing you or so…

> who go through rudimentary security clearance checks and have access to all this information.

But just getting a security clearance isn't enough to have access to "all this information", right? My understanding has been that getting security clearance can make one eligible to do work which would involve some specific sensitive information, but that stuff is still meant to be compartmentalized. There's no reason people who are working on e.g. the supply chain for some radar component need to have access to intel on some other country's chemical weapons and vice versa.

Re: Leader of Online Group Where Secret Documents Leaked Is Air National Guardsman

#40

Post by standardUser »

2022-11-07 wrote: post #14

This story just doesn't compute with me. A young guy (21) seemingly had access to all this information, and shared it despite being Portuguese (based on his last name) so seemingly not ethnically tied to Russia, shared it openly on Discord with his gaming club, a full document dump literally hundreds of pages not just screenshots or summaries, but not before faking some of the information, coordinated by a group that…

"Thug Shaker Central, where about 20 to 30 people, mostly young men and teenagers, came together over a shared love of guns, racist online memes and video games"

Based on the above, maybe one of them was an alt-right type? A lot of the right wing in this country supports Russia.

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