Collaborate Disseminate
UPS delivers some smishing advice (but have they kept something under wraps?), we ask ChatGPT to take a long hard look at itself, and we debate what the penalty should be for taking national secrets home with you.
All this and much much more is disc… Continue reading Smashing Security podcast #328: UPS smishing, ChatGPT 101, and storing secret files
Reality Winner, a former NSA-contractor found guilty of leaking classified government material, has been released early for good behavior, according to her lawyer. Winner accepted a guilty plea agreement in 2018 for leaking classified information about the Russian government’s attempt to interfere with U.S. elections to The Intercept. “Winner is released a bit early for good behavior and will be finished with the reentry process and onto supervised release in November,” her lawyer Alison Grinter said in an email. Winner was originally sentenced to more than five years in prison, the longest term ever imposed by a court for a case involving leaking. Winner and her lawyer have petitioned the Department of Justice to commute the sentence and unsuccessfully requested a pardon from former President Donald Trump. Grinter says that there has been no decision made on the commutation or pardon. “The fight continues and I’ll still be taking meetings […]
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Continue reading Former NSA contractor Reality Winner is released from prison for good behavior
The former National Security Agency contractor convicted in 2018 of illegally leaking top secret information to a news organization will remain in federal prison after an appeals court upheld a ruling against a compassionate release amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The eight-page opinion Monday from the U.S. Court of Appeals for 11th Circuit backed an earlier ruling that lawyers for Reality Winner had not sufficiently shown that her medical conditions or prison conditions justified an early release. The appeals court didn’t rule on the merits of Winner’s argument — it simply said the lower court had considered her request properly. “After careful consideration and with the benefit of oral argument, we conclude that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in denying Ms. Winner’s motion,” Monday’s opinion says. “Because we resolve her appeal on this basis alone, we need not (and do not) address Ms. Winner’s other arguments.” In early […]
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Continue reading Former NSA contractor Reality Winner loses appeal, will remain imprisoned
A former U.S. government contractor who pleaded guilty to leaking a classified intelligence report on Russian government interference is asking a federal judge to allow her to serve the remainder of her prison sentence at home over concerns about contracting COVID-19. Reality Leigh Winner told a Georgia court April 10 she suffers from a respiratory illness and bulimia nervosa, sicknesses that she said could make her especially vulnerable to contracting the coronavirus behind bars. In August 2018, a court sentenced Winner to five years and three months in prison, at the time the largest sentence ever for disclosing national security secrets to the media. Now, her attorney argues that COVID-19, which is spreading through U.S. prisons, presents an “extraordinary and compelling” reason to release Winner to home confinement. “A prison inmate like Reality cannot ‘shelter in place’ and avoid contact with others,” wrote defense attorney Joe Whitley in the new […]
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Former National Security Agency contractor Reality Winner is asking President Donald Trump to grant her clemency after she was sent to prison for leaking government secrets about Russian hacking. Winner was sentenced in 2018 after she allegedly mailed classified information from the NSA to The Intercept that explained how Russian hackers sent spearphishing emails to a voting software supplier and local election officials prior to the 2016 elections. Winner pleaded guilty at the time, and was sentenced to more than five years, the longest-ever term imposed by a federal court in a case of leaked government information to the media. Winner and her lawyer, who has submitted a formal petition for commutation at the Department of Justice, are asking Trump to “do the right thing” and “forgive our truth tellers” in the midst of foreign attacks against the U.S. political processes. “Our country was attacked by a hostile foreign power,” Winner’s attorney, Alison Grinter, […]
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Continue reading Reality Winner seeks clemency for leaking NSA report on Russian hacking attempts
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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Continue reading Former NSA contractor sentenced to 9 years for theft of government info
Such a leak is likely to anger Trump and the White House, of course, and so Axios had to be careful not to throw their source under the bus.
Continue reading Donald Trump’s ‘Executive Time’ leak – journalists retype documents to protect White House source
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
Reality Leigh Winner, the NSA contractor who leaked sensitive information to the Intercept last year, was sentenced to 63 months in prison last week along with three years of supervised release. Continue reading NSA leaker Reality Winner gets 63 months in jail
A former NSA contractor, who pleaded guilty to leaking a classified report on Russian hacking of the 2016 U.S. presidential election to an online news outlet last year, has been sentenced to five years and three months in prison.
Reality Winner, a 26-… Continue reading NSA Leaker ‘Reality Winner’ Gets More Than 5 Years in Prison