I have never seen so much paranoia and conspiratorial thinking from Hacker news than with this story unfolding. Many comments saying "it can't be this easy and dumb, can it?" Ask any government worker who works in classified spaces, and the answer is overwhelmingly yes.
As one of the Twitter replies points out (<a href="https://twitter.com/dirtturd/status/1646618532950450176" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/dirtturd/status/1646618532950450176</a>), there's no way that the pattern on the granite countertop is actually a match, given that in the Instagram photo the match is on the edge of the counter - whereas in the leak, the match is clearly <i>not</i> on the edge of the counter. The floor is also an entirely different color in the leaks v. the Instagram photo.<p>Someone else then raised the point of "well maybe there are duplicate splotches", in which case there would surely be duplicates across <i>many</i> countertops in <i>many</i> homes - probably one with a floor color that actually matches the one shown in the leaks.<p>A couple other folks in that thread seem to assume "well the splotch sample was clearly rotated so the paper could've been on the counter", in which case you'd think some of the leak photos would've shown the edge on which the splotch exists <i>and</i> would've shown more matching splotches. Still flimsy, at best.<p>Assuming the suspect really is guilty, I highly doubt this was how the suspect got caught; it reeks of parallel construction. If this is really the only evidence anyone has of the suspect's guilt, then a conviction in spite of the "evidence" being blatantly non-evidence would be yet another damning condemnation of my country's already-damningly-condemned "justice" system.
>Teixeira used his real name and home address in North Dighton, Massachusetts, for the billing information associated with his Discord account, according to the affidavit.<p>(CNN live blog <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35570705" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35570705</a>)
Good. I am actively working on the front lines of the Ukraine war in a humanitarian capacity.[1]<p>The danger posed to civilians and soldiers by stolen intelligence is real, and the cavalier sharing of such documents without regard to the consequences is, and should be, a serious crime punishable to the fullest extent of the law.<p>[1]<a href="https://ukraineaidinternational.org" rel="nofollow">https://ukraineaidinternational.org</a>
The title is an editorialization: no government source (to my knowledge) has claimed that the IG photo was used to <i>find</i> the leaker, only that it served as a piece of data singling this suspect out among several. It’s much more likely that other, officially undisclosed, evidence led them to the suspect in the first place.
NYT/Bellingcat investigators*, not the actual team of investigators in the government who tracked the leaker and ultimately arrested him.<p>Just in case there's any confusion.
Are these documents <i>actually</i> leaked...?<p>It seems lots of journalists have them, and none of the public.<p>And none of the journalists will just publish the actual complete documents.
LOL this is almost insulting in level of BS, but all's forgiven for a good belly-laugh.<p>Clearly they had other sources, and this is a laughable attempt to divert from that.
It's probably a parallel construction. They might have found him using other sources or methods which they might not want to reveal. The should already be embarrassed some 20 year old kid had access to all this stuff, so any further embarrassment would be nice to avoid.<p>Once they had him, they sifted through the stuff until they found some plausible confirmation and the pattern just looked a fun enough one for the media to report on.
Those leaks are a proof that agencies can't or unwilling to protect the data they are collecting. If even crucial war information isn't really protected you can imagine the lack of protection for less important data.<p>Most of the last big leaks came from contractors or minor ranks with access.
I'm surprised they don't do (steganography-style) watermarking when a TS doc is printed. Put random little dots on the page just like they do on currency bills. Color them in a manner that it looks like imperfections on the paper.<p>Or change the spacing between words ever so slightly.
Should I be surprised that a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, in the intelligence wing, had access to these sort of documents? Or is this expected? Was this part of a larger organizational failure, or just one man's betrayal?