Pentagon, Justice Dept investigate as secret military documents appear online | Hacker News Reader

Pentagon, Justice Dept investigate as secret military documents appear online

text.npr.org

36 pointsrntn23 comments

I am fascinated by the fact that this leak happened, because it's so hard to imagine why.

Most other wars there are understandable reasons on both sides, and it's easy to imagine people in the military or with the right security clearance who are motivated to leak something because they genuinely believe the US or the West is the bad guy.

But who has access to this stuff who wants to help Russia and harm Ukraine? When this is not a war where people are siding with the Russians. I just... it's so hard to see where that Venn diagram overlaps.

Do the Russians have spies in the US government that can access this stuff? How have our security processes not caught that?

Or did Russian spies pay someone with clearance to get these? Why did that person go along with it? Did they know they were Russian spies or did they think they were helping good guys, like Ukrainian spies? (Something like that was depicted in the TV show The Americans.)

Most leaks it's pretty easy to understand how somebody with access to information would have had motivations. This one, it seems very non-obvious.

> because it's so hard to imagine why

4chan and Telegram. Two commentators on 4chan got into an argument surrounding the war and one of them leaked photos of the docs on Telegram - t.me/s/zoka200/8118

Note these photos might be edited and tampered to overstate UA casualties and understate RU ones (at least that's the official line from the NYT).

There are a lot more than just the State of Battle documents. The JDAM-ER troubleshooting review docs looked real or at least plausible. I've seen similar documents but that was 15 years ago, and you can easily make convincing forgeries now with ease.

Yep! There are a couple versions of these docs floating around 4Chan and Telegram rn and I totally wouldn't be surprised if a couple are forgeries/disinformatzya. But one of these set of photos was the original and is the subject of the investigation mentioned in the article.

The WaPo article stated that the Discord leaks were the original, and one of the documents about the number of casualties was edit to overstate UA casualties and understate RU ones before it was reposted on 4Chan.

Most spies in American intel history are motivated by either money, ideology, or to make their otherwise mundane life more interesting. For the money-motivated, many of those were deeply in debt or addicted to an expensive lifestyle. I wouldn't rule out an ideologue though. Polling shows support for Russia is in the single digits, but that means there's probably still plenty of people with TS clearances who at least disagree with how the US is handling things currently to some degree.

Sounds like these docs were high-level summaries or status updates though, which would probably be widely distributed. No doubt many analyst teams would be on a daily summary distro list.

It doesn't have to be support for Russia. If you have seen what pointlessness has unfolded over 20 years in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria and pretty much the same ppl are in charge, profiting, hiding real costs and mistakes, it's not at all a surprise.

> But who has access to this stuff who wants to help Russia and harm Ukraine?

This leak is not helping Russia and harming Ukraine. In fact, it is confirming that Russian losses are high both in absolute terms and relative to Ukrainian ones, that the Russian offensive is going nowhere, and that the Russian security apparatus is thoroughly penetrated by American hackers or moles.

> This leak is not helping Russia and harming Ukraine. In fact, it is confirming that Russian losses are high both in absolute terms and relative to Ukrainian ones

The (originally leaked) casualty figures were modified to say the opposite, actually. From the article: “Military analysts say they believe the original versions of the documents were slightly altered in some instances.

“For example, one chart puts the Ukrainian death toll at around 71,000, a figure considered plausible. However, the chart also lists the Russian fatalities at 16,000 to 17,500.”

(There was a subsequent counter-‘leak’ version that had specific different casualty figures that had higher Russian casualties and claimed to be the original figures, but who knows whether that was what it claimed or just another opposed propaganda op.)

The 71k Ukrainian KIA version was posted on 4chan after the 17.5k Ukrainian KIA version was posted there first, it's the counter version. It also has some pretty laughable numbers on it that are clearly just from photo-shopping the first version to retain the font (Russia only losing 600 vehicles and 8 helicopters).

I can imagine why. If the Russians obtained the documents through a source and then realized that there was essentially nothing they could do to stop the Ukrainian counteroffensive, then they might have decided it would be more effective to leak the documents than to hold onto them.

Keeping the documents secret is not much good if your forces are so depleted and overextended that you can’t make use of them to thwart the Ukrainian attack. But leaking the documents to the public stands a reasonable chance of delaying the counteroffensive while the Ukrainians adjust their plans and hunt down the leakers.

The offensive plans are not shared until a few days before it starts. There is way to plan to deceive possible spy’s which they know exists and cannot just share the grand plans just like that. By the time it’s shared they make sure it’s as hard as possible for enemies to adjust

I would also hope they would have multiple different copies of the plans which would be watermarked or different in subtle ways which they could use to detect leakers!

It's very possible China did this. They have every reason to throw wrenches in any US plan and weaken the resolve of the west to remain united.

China? Taiwan is really hot rn

>But who has access to this stuff who wants to help Russia and harm Ukraine?

One plausible guess is China. It's not unreasonable to assume that China infiltrated at least some US institutions, and it's also known that they at least sometimes share intelligence with Putin / Russia ([1]).

1. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-29/us-urges-...

This is a tremendously naïve take on the situation.

> But who has access to this stuff who wants to help Russia and harm Ukraine? When this is not a war where people are siding with the Russians.

There is a substantial segment of the American Right which is, actually (roughly corresponding to the MAGA/Trumpist faction.) Well, superficially, against the government of Ukraine would probably be more accurate than with Russia, but the propaganda interest are indistinguishable.

> Pentagon officials acknowledge the documents are real...

To start, NPR....

This is about all you need to read to know this is likely US propaganda. Pentagon officials never acknowledge leaked top secret documents. It's top secret! For those unaware, even that is against the law (UCMJ) if you are in the military. *To the best of my knowledge, please feel free to provide additional insight

Removal of classified documents isn't even an article under the UCMJ, it's a federal crime.

Unauthorized removal or retention of classified documents is a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison.

What could happen though is a person could be tried in federal court for this crime, serve time in prison, and if they were a member of the armed forces they may be still subject to the UCMJ depending on how the commanding officer feels the reprimand was. They could then put it under a General Article for miscellaneous actions or try put it under espionage or conspiracy depending on the motivation. Example: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/04/30/do-soldiers-fa...

Considering other topics that are leaked including that the Israeli intelligence community is supporting protests in Israel against the judicial reforms this is definitely not US propaganda.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-rejects-cla...

I can’t leak to the article in the times but the compartmentalization and classification code on that document specifically was pretty much Area 51 aliens level.

It also was a SIGINT report which reveals the means.

The documents that were leaked overall tended to have some of the highest possible classification and dissemination controls on them. Someone is going to jail for a long long time.

Bellingcat Article;

From Discord to 4chan: The Improbable Journey of a US Intelligence Leak : https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2023/04/09/from-discord-to-4...

Sounds like maybe Russia got their hands on them, altered them for propaganda purposes, and then leaked them publicly?

Can someone link the docs here? I consider it my patriotic duty to read leaked U.S. government docs. It's also just good fun.

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