Category Archives: chelsea manning

UK judge gives US a shot to appeal denial of Julian Assange’s extradition

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Britain’s top court has granted the U.S. government a chance to appeal a January decision denying its request to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States to face espionage charges. The appeal process comes after a U.K. judge denied U.S. prosecutors’ original request for extradition. Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled that U.S. prosecutors met the bar for extradition, but she sided with Assange’s lawyers that the WikiLeaks ringleader was likely to commit suicide if sent to a U.S. prison. The appeal will be limited as to whether or not the court was right to deny the extradition on the basis of Assange’s mental health, Bloomberg News reported. Assange faces 18 counts of endangering U.S. national security, including conspiring to obtain and disclose hundreds of thousands of classified and sensitive government documents. He was charged under the Espionage Act for his role in allegedly publishing classified Department of Defense documents […]

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After Assange indictment, DDoSecrets publishes old WikiLeaks chats, strategy sessions

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Every anti-secrecy group operates in the long shadow of WikiLeaks. But that doesn’t mean WikiLeaks is off limits. Distributed Denial of Secrets, a semi-anonymous group of transparency activists, on Tuesday released the AssangeLeaks. It’s a collection of files that DDoSecrets says is meant to “illustrate how WikiLeaks operates behind closed doors” at a time when WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is facing criminal charges in the U.S. in connection with a series of disclosures that contained information stolen from the U.S. military and other sources. DDoSecrets on June 19 published an unrelated database called #BlueLeaks, a collection of files including police training materials, police safety guidelines, covert data collection techniques and protest containment strategies. Upon that release, scholars who have followed the past generation of information activism, in which groups like Anonymous and WikiLeaks publish hacked information, suggested that DDoSecrets had emerged as a leading group of digital demonstrators. Tuesday, DDoSecrets went […]

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Former NSA contractor sentenced to 9 years for theft of government info

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Former NSA contractor Harold T. Martin was sentenced Friday to 9 years in prison for his role in a massive theft of classified documents. Martin was responsible for one of the largest leaks of U.S government secrets, after it was found that the former NSA contractor possessed up to 50 terabytes of classified government documents he collected over the course of two decades. Judge Richard Bennett’s sentence falls short of the maximum number of years Martin previously face — 10 years for each of the 20 counts against him — for unauthorized and willful retention of national defense information. However, the sentence aligns with the plea agreement his public defenders reached with the U.S. government. The U.S. attorneys said his theft called for “significant” prison time, according to the government’s sentencing memorandum, which CyberScoop obtained. “The exceptionally grave nature and circumstances of the defendant’s criminal conduct call for a significant […]

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Julian Assange charged with 17 new criminal counts under Espionage Act

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WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange has been charged with 17 new criminal counts under the Espionage Act for “unlawfully obtaining” and disclosing national defense information. The indictment, which was issued in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, concerns documents that he and Wikileaks helped to disclose that former Army Intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning stole from the Department of Defense. Assange was “complicit” and “conspired with” Manning, according a Department of Justice Official, CNBC reports. Some of what WikiLeaks published included names of foreigners, including sources in the Middle East, who were helping U.S. military overseas, which “is alleged to have created imminent risks to the life and liberty,” per the DOJ. The U.S. government unsealed an indictment in April revealing that Assange had been charged for conspiracy to commit computer intrusion in his alleged efforts to help Manning crack a password on a U.S. government computer. Assange, […]

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US Government Admits It Doesn’t Know If Assange Cracked Password For Manning

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An FBI agent admitted in a newly unsealed court document that the Department of Justice does not know whether Assange’s offer to help Manning came to fruition. Continue reading US Government Admits It Doesn’t Know If Assange Cracked Password For Manning→

Julian Assange’s Charges Are Centered on Hacking, Not Publishing Classified Information

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For years, it has been publicly reported that Julian Assange offered to help Chelsea Manning break into a classified computer system. Now the Department of Justice has charged Assange for that. Continue reading Julian Assange’s Charges Are Centered on Hacking, Not Publishing Classified Information→

10/29/2018: Dtex, Insider Threat, Privacy News: Wyatt, Wilcox Provide Fed With Insider Threat Risk Reduction Advice; NIST Privacy Risk Framework Catching On

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If you are a regular reader of the Dtex Systems weekly news blog, you’re well versed on the string of insider threats and incidents that prey on the private and public sectors. The Waymo vs. Uber case and Anthony Levandowski highlight the insider … Continue reading 10/29/2018: Dtex, Insider Threat, Privacy News: Wyatt, Wilcox Provide Fed With Insider Threat Risk Reduction Advice; NIST Privacy Risk Framework Catching On→

HOPE XII: Chelsea Manning

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Saturday’s talk schedule at the HOPE conference was centered around one thing: the on-stage interview with Chelsea Manning. Not only was a two-hour session blocked out (almost every other talk has been one hour) but all three stages were reserved with live telecast between the three rooms.

I was lucky enough to get a seat very close to the stage in the main hall. The room was packed front to back. Even the standing room — mapped out on the carpet in tape and closely policed by conference “fire marshals” — was packed with people standing shoulder to shoulder. The …read more

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Alleged CIA Leaker Tweeted That Chelsea Manning ‘Should Be Executed’

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Joshua Schulte posted a a series of tweets criticizing Chelsea Manning in 2010, when he was working at the CIA, and she had been identified as the source of WikiLeaks’ Afghanistan and Iraq War Logs. Continue reading Alleged CIA Leaker Tweeted That Chelsea Manning ‘Should Be Executed’→

Adrian Lamo, ‘Homeless Hacker’ Who Turned in Chelsea Manning, Dead at 37

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Adrian Lamo, the hacker probably best known for breaking into The New York Times’s network and for reporting Chelsea Manning’s theft of classified documents to the FBI, was found dead in a Kansas apartment on Wednesday. Lamo was widely reviled and criticized for turning in Manning, but that chapter of his life eclipsed the profile of a complex individual who taught me quite a bit about security over the years.

Adrian Lamo, in 2006. Source: Wikipedia.
I first met Lamo in 2001 when I was a correspondent for Newsbytes.com, a now-defunct tech publication that was owned by The Washington Post at the time. A mutual friend introduced us over AOL Instant Messenger, explaining that Lamo had worked out a simple method allowing him to waltz into the networks of some of the world’s largest media companies using nothing more than a Web browser. Continue reading Adrian Lamo, ‘Homeless Hacker’ Who Turned in Chelsea Manning, Dead at 37→