The free Web program that got Bradley Manning convicted of computer fraud

You know, I wouldn't rely on this article for accurate characterization of the government's legal position. Saying 'prosecutors argued that...' and then linking to a 2011 Guardian article threw up a red flag for me. That article didn't describe prosecutor's arguments; it described expert witness testimony. And the trespass was not the unauthorized nature of wget, although this was mentioned in passing, but the way in which it was employed to access data from the '.22' computer that was for secure/classified material.

wget is mentioned by the forensic expert in the context of describing how he came to his conclusions, but that's a far cry from saying it's bad in and of itself. Suppose I'm investigating a physical trespass, and I say that I discovered characteristic bootprints in the area that perfectly matched a pair of boots owned by the suspect. That doesn't mean the boots themselves are illegal, it just shows that someone was wearing that particular pair of boots while trespassing. As far as mentioning the non-authorized nature of wget, it's equivalent to observing that the boots in my example were not regular army issue.

I don't know precisely what prosecutors argued as I haven't obsessively followed the trial, so if someone can link to a primary source that contradicts the above I'm happy to be corrected. But as posted, the article seems to be drawing an incorrect inference from another news report, an as such is a questionable third-hand account of what prosecutors were really saying.

Quantity has quality of its own. So does efficiency. When you make a process much more efficient you after a tipping point convert it to something else entirely - like the surveillance that. Technology is amplifier.

Of course getting 10 more years just because he used wget instead of bash scripts that loop with nc is absurd.

But the fact that he used simple automation to do the job should be taken into consideration. So should be the fact that solitary confinement is torture.

But the whole trial seemed like Kangaroo court to me anyway ...

Edit: Also technically he was authorized to use wget - he had permissions to download it from wherever or to install the package and had permissions to set the executive bit to true.

Not authorizing wget and classifying that as computer fraud may have its justification, but giving someone 10 years for what amounts to a form of trespassing is absurd.

Assuming the computer was running Windows, you wouldn't need wget to perform HTTP requests in batch -- you could make a VBScript to do it (src: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/204759/http-get-in-vbs ). I would assume that Windows (and therefore everything in it) would be considered "authorized" in that case, but would the VBScript be considered unauthorized software? If that's the case, would you need to get approval every time to write macros to make your job more efficient?

Is there actually a line drawn in the military about what is considered software?

This is crazy. If he had used IE "Save as a file", he wouldn't have been convicted of fraud?

Issue is wget.

>U.S. prosecutors pointed out that wget was not on the list of “approved” programs for use in facility where Manning worked.

I know it sounds trivial but it was an unauthorized tool run on a system that was supposed to be secure as that system was talking to SIPRNET. Above all the other things PFC Manning has shown the world, he's also shown that security standards & procedures around some of the most damning secrets the DOD & State department could stupidly put on one fileshare was unprotected. Ironically this stuff might have shown up in foreign intelligence circles even without the PFC's actions.

Wow, wget is one hell of a tool isn't it? I think it should be a requirement that judges have to take a mandatory digital refresher course every 12 months to ensure they can deal with cases like this because this is ridiculous.They got him on a technicality, I guess they are clutching at straws and trying to get him on as many things as they possibly can.

So is the US government listing every single program authorized to be used on their computer? And I mean every single one?

That would include: -ls -cat -bash

and in Windows land: explorer.exe

If he used windows explorer to copy those files, could they have argued that explorer.exe was not on the list of authorized programs to use?

Make sure you read the fine prints before you view source on a page.

wget likely came pre-installed...