Ex-CIA software engineer sentenced to 40 years for giving secrets to WikiLeaks | Hacker News Reader

Ex-CIA software engineer sentenced to 40 years for giving secrets to WikiLeaks

theguardian.com

48 pointsdboreham18 comments

"...they found the material in Schulte’s New York apartment, in an encrypted container beneath three layers of password protection"

Curious if anyone knows if the original source for this statement (presumably some evidence presented in court, indictment, etc) is available for us to read. Wondering if prosecutors really say stuff like "beneath three layers of password protection", or if that was embellished by the Guardian writer.

so they just cracked his pws or what?

Right. Like the real question. They casually owned three layers of encryption?

https://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-center/

xkcd 538

I seem to remember true crypt would allow you to make an encrypted container with AES, two fish and serpent. But it was all decrypted with a single password. So if you found that password you would have gotten through all three layers.

TrueCrypt’s deniable fs took more than one password. I doubt this dude picked TrueCrypt, more like:

1. Full disk

2. Home directory, like ecryptfs

3. Downloaded/downloadable file system image

More likely that they just planted it. They operate black sites and torture people -- are they above planting evidence?

More importantly, how did they know that and how did they get access to it. Also imagine what would have (not) happened if he didn't talk to the FBI, AND lie to them

They found the passwords on his phone, according to [1] – Search for "encryption". While that's probably "good enough security" for regular people, probably not if you're leaking CIA documents ... or regularly downloading child porn...

If you want a definitive citation from court evidence then you'll have to go through all of that yourself.

[1]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/13/the-surreal-ca...

Eh, I dunno, seems everyone who crosses the CIA develops bad habits.

John Kiriakou didn't. Nor did other prominent leaks that are not directly related to the CIA but are adjacent, such as Snowden or Manning. "Everyone" is trivially disprovable.

Pretty good article on the case: "The Surreal Case of a C.I.A. Hacker’s Revenge" – https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/13/the-surreal-ca...

It's amazing how incredibly silly and petty all of this is.

Corresponding discussion at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31639354

If he was innocent, then that means: an innocent person, accused of arranging a dump to Wikileaks, contacted Wikileaks from inside jail, to tell his story to the only outlet he trusted, Wikileaks. If he was innocent, then he must assume Wikileaks was participating in framing him.

>If he was innocent, then he must assume Wikileaks was participating in framing him.

I do not see why at all, and that the defense is in contact with WikiLeaks even if innocent seems highly like because WikiLeaks could provide evidence that he is Innocent

Critically, it was not his defense who approached Wikileaks pre-trial. He himself did so with a contraband cell phone.

It's way too conventional to be plausible, at least for me, it could perhaps be a giant psyop, why would the CIA confirm anything about what was leaked? This sentence says it all

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