from Hacker News

N.S.A. Contractor Arrested in Possible New Theft of Secrets

by SuperKlaus on 10/5/16, 4:18 PM with 138 comments

  • by jbapple on 10/5/16, 4:50 PM

    What constitutes a "secret arrest", as mentioned in this article? Jose Padilla was arrested and initially held without notice to his family or attorney. Is that what this arrest is like? What proportion of the arrests in the US are "secret"? When the families of the prisoners are told, are they sometimes bound by court orders not to disclose the arrests?

  • by dguido on 10/5/16, 5:10 PM

    Here's the criminal complaint. Check Paragraph 12, sounds like he just liked to take work home with him. I'm leaning on the side that this IS NOT ShadowBrokers.

    https://lawfare.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/staging/2016/Mart...

    EDIT: Yeah, Martin is not even being charged with unauthorized disclosure. Not ShadowBrokers, sorry to burst everyone's bubble.

  • by cornchips on 10/5/16, 11:03 PM

    Want to see something really scary???

    Here's his house: https://www.google.com/maps/place/7+Harvard+Rd,+Glen+Burnie,...

  • by matt_wulfeck on 10/5/16, 4:58 PM

    I ask myself what I should be more upset about: that someone walked away with government hacking tools, or that our government knew about existing exploits in critical American company technologies and kept them a secret?

  • by awqrre on 10/5/16, 5:56 PM

    He didn't learn much from Hillary's case.... Always claim that you didn't know that there was any classified material and always bring your attorney along, even if it's a voluntary interrogation.

  • by acveilleux on 10/5/16, 5:04 PM

    This is why things like mandatory escrow and encryption backdoors are an horrible idea. However much the NSA would like us to use them.

  • by r721 on 10/5/16, 5:01 PM

  • by catscratch on 10/6/16, 2:38 AM

    I understand curiosity of sensitive data. I think everyone wants to know more.

    I also understand that some people think that no one should have this power and want to stop it. I wish that, if you feel this way, you renounce your citizenship and find another country that acts as you believe they should and just leave the other country alone, unless you feel they are threatening you or those you love and you must do something about it, and even then only if can do something to help in a way that won't hurt anyone now or in the future. Yes, I know it's not always that easy.

    But, if you live in a country, through your taxes and your citizenship, you pay for and are recipient of the work of people whose job it is to protect us and all other citizens of your country. And if you didn't know how they defended you, you do now. It isn't always pretty, to say it lightly.

    I don't want people to do bad things in the name of good or defense. It'd be better if every country had a large number of grown up boy scouts to protect that country in the most honorable way possible. But, we have what we have. Sure go ahead- expose it if you want, but the more you harm it, the more you'll end up with a group of people that are even more secretive and do things even worse to try to ensure that security. I really don't want that to happen. Things need to get better instead!

    Many in the US say that we need to protect people from themselves, and then criticize or harm those trying to protect us. Why?

    I used to be much more paranoid and just group people into the "trying to hurt me" bracket. But I grew up. I realized that almost everyone in the world I meet wants to do good or at least has a motivation to try to accomplish something they believe is right.

  • by mxuribe on 10/5/16, 5:04 PM

    At some point is there an actual employee on the NSA side (maybe an HR rep.) asking the account manager on the Booz Allen Hamilton side: please stop sending us these guys/girls, they're just not working out, ok? ;-)

  • by zymhan on 10/5/16, 4:44 PM

    "Two officials said that some of the information the contractor is suspected of taking was dated."

    So, only some of it. The rest was up to date then. And the old stuff is helpful for figuring out how they think.

  • by encoderer on 10/5/16, 4:54 PM

    If the accusation is true, nothing about this is related to whistleblowing. It's closer to sabotage and espionage.

  • by nylsaar on 10/6/16, 6:28 AM

    After reading this article a second time, I noticed that it's crafted to suggest the suspect had stolen software. The evidence given in the article only admits the suspect had documents, some of them classified, at his home. To suggest that many computers and code was found at a programmers home is quite ridiculous. Late in the article, the F.B.I "suspects" that he may have stolen code. What this article lacks in evidence, it makes up in sensationalism.

  • by maerF0x0 on 10/5/16, 8:33 PM

    here's an unsubstantiated claim that gave a great laugh:

    > "For the N.S.A., which spent two years and hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars repairing the damage done by Mr. Snowden, "

  • by zmanian on 10/5/16, 4:54 PM

    Wonders if this is Shadowbrokers...

  • by the_watcher on 10/5/16, 10:38 PM

    For purposes of discussion, let's say he did take the data to leak. I'm honestly curious as to the response. From everything out there, nothing he took had been used for anything beyond espionage and counter-espionage in the manner that any sane person assumed was happening. Finding a motive (unless he planned to sell it, which I haven't seen any indication of, and would wildly change the story) seems tough. Was he really just taking it to leak, being a radical transparency advocate? Why just this?

  • by kiba on 10/5/16, 4:45 PM

    Embarrassing? You expect at some point that people will try to steal and leak secrets whether that's for money or moral conscience.

  • by redthrowaway on 10/5/16, 7:41 PM

    John Schindler (former NSA counterintelligence officer) called this back in August:

    http://observer.com/2016/08/the-real-russian-mole-inside-nsa...

    This would explain how the Russians ended up with the source code for TAO's toys.

  • by engx on 10/5/16, 5:12 PM

    Whatever happened to the other "second Snowden" where it was reported DoJ was reluctant to prosecute?

    http://news.yahoo.com/feds-identify-suspected--second-leaker...

  • by eeZah7Ux on 10/5/16, 4:52 PM

    "New Theft of Secrets", as if whistleblowing was a bad thing.

    "he stole and disclosed highly classified computer codes developed to hack into the networks of foreign governments"

    "different in nature from Mr. Snowden’s theft"

    What's next, NYtimes, calling people "rats" for reporting a homicide?

  • by NN88 on 10/5/16, 5:08 PM

    they got him a month ago. gat'damn.

    the US Government is playing a different game right now. Play time is over.

  • by NN88 on 10/5/16, 5:10 PM

    This dummy was caught red handed. Documents, hardware, etc.