These documents attributed to American intelligence were first shared on a Discord server before emerging several weeks later on pro-Russian Telegram channels.
The investigation was quick. A few days after launching investigations into the “Pentagon leaks”, the Attorney General of the United States announced Thursday, April 13, 2023 the arrest of a suspect, Jack Teixeira. The FBI arrested this young man of 21 years living in Massachusetts. The special agents suspect him of being at the origin of this very sensitive leak of documents coming directly from American intelligence. He would have been particularly betrayed by the presence of personal objects in the background of certain photos shared on Discord.
Spotted at the beginning of April by the New York Times, this leak resulted in the publication on various social networks of numerous photos showing documents supposed to be top secret. We could thus see snapshots of printed A4 pages, sometimes slightly crumpled. If their precise number remains unknown, the Washington Post evokes a set of 300 photos. One of the pictures, for example, shows a map of operations in Ukraine dated March 1, with an estimate of the losses of kyiv and Moscow.
However, these documents should be taken with a grain of salt. The US administration has indeed opened an investigation for the transmission of classified information. This is proof that there is authentic information in the lot. But if archives of the data leak can be found for download on Telegram channels, or elsewhere, they may also have been doctored. Fakes are already circulating, like this rough editing of the cliché evoking the losses of the belligerents in Ukraine.
Documents first shared on Discord
This uncertainty about the veracity of the leaked documents is to be compared to their incredible digital journey. Because the circuit that allowed the leakage of classified information seems unprecedented. Here, no filing on a centralized site like WikiLeaks or to the press, the channel chosen in his time by Edward Snowden in revealing the activities and programs of the NSA, the American national security agency.
As reported by open-source investigative outlet Bellingcat, the data leak began on Thug Shaker Central, a Discord server. On the menu of the twenty users, discussions on video games, firearms and religion, all embellished with insults or racist allusions. Originally, they are defectors from another Oxide fan forum, a khaki-toned YouTube channel. In 2020, on the occasion of the health crisis, these Discord users branched off to this new ultra-conservative lounge.
A migration intended to fight against social isolation and to be able to exchange more discreetly about video game tactics. But two years later, OG, the server administrator, starts sharing strange, jargon-filled messages with his friends. Classified US intelligence information reported from a military base, he says.
It is, he then explains to his friends, a way of keeping them informed of the real progress of the world. And, in passing, to denounce the opacity of power. Maybe also a way to show off. That’s not a ” alert launcher “, neither ” a Russian agent or a Ukrainian agent “, summarized a member of the server to the Washington Post. He didn’t really have a purpose. with the disclosure of these documents “, he added.
Bounces from living room to living room
Over the weeks, OG grows bolder. Irritated to see his posts – long messages typed on the keyboard – not really arousing reactions, the server administrator changes tactics. Towards the end of 2020, he directly publishes photos of sensitive printed documents. These are the photos that will circulate from server to server before being discovered by the American press.
At the end of February, images appeared on the Discord server of a Filipino videographer on YouTube, Wow_mao. Then the flight gets carried away. At the beginning of March, documents can be found on Minecraft Earth Map, a third fair dedicated to the video game of the same name. Following a discussion on the war in Ukraine, a user has, in fact, published some of the documents to support his remarks. It will take another month for the photos to come out of Discord. They end up on the 4Chan forum, a haunt of the American far right. Then, we see them on Russian Telegram channels and on the social network Twitter.
One of the most serious leaks
Although the extent of the leak is still unknown, specialists place it among the most serious. Certainly, much of the information leaked around the war in Ukraine, if genuine, does not offer great revelations. But the confidential snapshots once again recall the ability of American intelligence to penetrate, including towards close allies, and its doubts about Ukraine’s ability to achieve real gains for its offensive.
Above all, the data leak shows “ how apparently easy it was for a junior employee of a US military base to obtain and then share highly sensitive US government information sums up international security professor Stefan Wolff. The prime suspect is just a junior junior reservist.
Jack Teixeira joined the Air Force National Guard less than four years ago. Thanks to his computer skills, the young man from a military family had obtained privileged access to the internal computer network of the Ministry of Defense. So many facilities synonymous with levity, if they are confirmed by the criminal investigation, which leave one wondering about the internal management of secrecy in the American military.
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