If you had unprecedented access to classified networks 14 hours a day, 7 days a week for 8+ months, what would you do?
"I'm in the desert, with a bunch of hyper-masculine trigger-happy ignorant rednecks as neighbors... and the only safe place I seem to have is this satellite internet connection. I already got myself into minor trouble, revealing my uncertainty over my gender identity. Which is causing me to lose this job. And putting me in an awkward limbo...
At the very least, I managed to keep my security clearance (so far), and little does anyone know. But, among this "visible" mess, there's the mess I created that no one knows about yet.
Hypothetical question: if you had free reign over classified networks for long periods of time, say, 8-9 months ... and you saw incredible things, awful things ... things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington, D.C. ... what would you do?
Say ... a database of half a million events during the Iraq war. From 2004 to 2009, with reports, date time groups, lat-lon locations, casualty figures...? Or 260,000 state department cables from embassies and consulates all over the world, explaining how the first world exploits the third, in detail, from an internal perspective?
Let's just say someone I know intimately well, has been penetrating U.S. classified networks, mining data like the ones described, and [has] been transferring that data from the classified networks over the "air gap" onto a commercial network computer ... sorting the data, compressing it, encrypting it, and uploading it to a crazy white-haired Aussie who can't seem to stay in one country very long.
Crazy white Aussie = Julian Assange..
In other words, I've made a huge mess.
"And, it's important that it gets out, I feel, for some bizarre reason. It might actually change something. I just ... don't wish to be a part of it. At least not now. I'm not ready ... I wouldn't mind going to prison for the rest of my life, or being executed so much, if it wasn't for the possibility of having pictures of me plastered all over the world press, as a [poster] boy.
I've totally lost my mind. I make no sense. The CPU is not made for this motherboard. I cannot believe what I'm confessing to you.
"So, it was a massive data spillage, facilitated by numerous factors. Both physically, technically, and culturally. [It's a] perfect example of how not to do INFOSEC. [I] listened and lip-synced to Lady Gaga's Telephone while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history.
Weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counter-intelligence, inattentive signal analysis ... a perfect storm.
I mean, what if I were someone more malicious? I could've sold to Russia or China, and made bank."
Adrian shot back, "Why didn't you?"
"Because it's public data. It belongs in the public domain.
Information should be free." - Bradley Manning
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This is true bravery. This is courage. This is heroism. Capitol Hill does not have the intelligence quotient to understand this.
Either that, or they're just corrupt. It's probably the latter.
I am praying to a God I know doesn't exist, if only because I feel helpless in this matter. Bradley Manning, please be free. Just like the information you set out to liberate, be yourself liberated from tyranny.