He just needed to know where to find the documents. He had top secret clearance and network admin privileges.
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Opsec? Whazzat?
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When I was a young 21-ish grad student with a shiny new “Q” clearance at a relatively famous US weapons lab I had a safe with lots and lots of Secret Restricted Data - a half step above normal Secret National Security Info. I had a scanner and a ripping (for 1997) internet connection.
I was also smart enough, and jail-averse enough, not to do something stupid. This kid, not so smart…
This one had chosen poorly, and I hope it doesn’t get people killed.
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Plenty of civilians do too. I have friends who work in aerospace who had mid-level clearances in their 20s, and they do not even work on military projects. Everyone at certain companies is required to have certain clearances just to work there.
People seem to be under the impression that clearances are hard to get. They are not. Furthermore, no organization is airtight, least of all one as big as the US military. I’d bet most people wouldn’t have much trouble seeing stuff they’re not supposed to.
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I work in aerospace now. We regularly have interns working on classified material. It takes a year or so for all the background checks to complete so they can start work, so they are typically only college sophomores when they start the paperwork.
Coming from the military side our intel analysts would usually have about 8 months of training right after high school before teporting to their first duty station. 19 years old isnt unusual.
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I don’t see how sarcasm is useful to protect kids. I also don’t see an /s
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Enlisted folks “work” at military bases as well. Everything about the case screams young enlisted man. It looks like I am right too.
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um. dude is in the military who do you think gets access to these files, if not people in the military?
An investigation by Bellingcat traced the spread of the documents from Teixeria’s Discord to 4Chan, Telegram, and Twitter. Two versions of key documents were circulating, one showing Russian losses far exceeded Ukrainian and a poorly edited version showing the opposite. Belligcat alleges the doctored versions originated on the Donbass Devushka Telegram channel, a claim Bils denies.
In short, this is a leak with a very direct cost that will certainly be paid in Ukrainian lives and destroyed equipment. Thanks only to sheer luck, the severity is far lower than could have been the case. And not to labor this point, but this luck is despite Teixeira, not thanks to any proactive attempt by him to mitigate those harms, or lack of damaging material in the documents as he posted them. At the point where he posted them, those maps were current. He posted it to a channel that had overtly pro-Russian members. The channel he shared it in was called “Bear-vs-Pig”; named for a racist slur commonly used by Russians against Ukrainians. That the documents didn’t route immediately into the hands of Russian commanders is not due to any attempt on his part to mitigate the harms prior to leaking those documents.
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