Reality Winner.


The Intercept.

The Department of Justice on Monday filed a criminal complaint against Reality Leigh Winner, a federal contractor from Georgia, on charges of removing classified information and disseminating it to a news outlet.

According to the complaint, Winner, a contractor with Pluribus International Corporation, held Top Secret security clearance at a U.S. government facility. She allegedly printed classified information and sent it to an online news organization. Per the DOJ, she admitted to the offense while the FBI executed a search warrant at her home.

As the Washington Post’s Mark Berman reports, the information aligns with a bombshell report published Monday by the Intercept. According to that report, Russia “targeted at least one U.S. voting software supplier” in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election. Both the Intercept report and the FBI’s affidavit reference a May 5 report.

That hole just gets deeper and deeper. Via Raw Story and The Intercept.

Comments

  1. Tethys says

    This is consistent with an article I read months ago on how russian foreign agents planted spyware within government servers in their years long bid to hack the election. Quartz magazine perhaps? They gave away free USB drives at a kiosk near a US military/ state department (?) base, and then waited for someone to plug one into their work computer. Ta-daa! Then they apparently proceeded to impersonate election officials and hack the voter rolls.

    Reality Winner is a most unusual name.

  2. samihawkins says

    Reality Winner is a most unusual name.

    You know that old stoner philosophy “What if we’re all in like a smulation, dude?”. I’m starting to think that was correct, the system went haywire two years ago, and this is just the latest glitch.

    Seriously. ‘Reality Winner’ sounds like a busted computer program that tries to generate a name for the anti-Trump leaker, can only find something in it’s database about Trump being a ‘reality’ TV host who brags about being a ‘Winner’, and just went with that.

  3. says

    That’s interesting. I wish whoever leaked that report leaked some of NSA’s attribution analysis along with it.

    The chart included in the leak is weak sauce: read the bottom line left to right -- they believe an attack was initiated but the entire rest of the workflow is speculative (basically it’s “what we’d do it we were doing it”) Interesting but it’s hardly evidence of a successful compromise. It’s a phishing attack, for fuck’s sake: any company that does anything interesting ought to be expecting those! It’s not a big deal that someone’s spamming attacks at those organizations -- every organization that’s significant is getting dozens or hundreds of those a month. I know it’s a big (waving hands in the air) deal for a lot of govvies, because apparently they’re so stupid they click on whatever they get -- but it’s not a sophisticated attack when someone spams a bunch of this stuff at an organization. I know I’m cynical about this but if you compare this stuff to what the CIA’s been doing it’s amateur hour -- either the Russians are doing stuff that’s just blowing off the NSA’s radar screen, or they are not very good at this stuff at all. For some comparison: a phishing campaign compared to the crap that TAO and CIA Vault 7 are using is like a Yugo compared to a Tesla.

  4. says

    Marcus:

    I know it’s a big (waving hands in the air) deal for a lot of govvies, because apparently they’re so stupid they click on whatever they get —

    True. I think all of this is getting blown up because of the Russia scandal, and people want every tiny bit of whatever to heap on the pile. I can’t place too much blame, because I want Trump out of office too, but I don’t think this type of thing has much value in that regard.

    By the way, my spam filter has decided to hate you and Chigau, so if your comments don’t show, it’s because I haven’t check the filter!

  5. Dorrie Wyatt says

    So when it’s learned that our electoral process has been compromised by a foreign power, it’s classified? I would have thought that it’s very much the people’s business.

    Oh, I forgot. Voter suppression is as American as apple pie, and nobody makes a big deal of it.

    Trump supporters ignore Russia. They think he will build a wall, kick a bunch of brown people out, and most importantly, Make America “Great” Again. They hope he will get rid of Obamacare, which ironically, will hurt them the most. Under Obamacare, my pre-existing condition is insured. Before it, I struggled to make payments. Under the exchange, I pay just $200/month for health insurance. Also -- My car insurance is down to $25/month (from Insurance Panda). My renters insurance is just $10/month. Under Trump, America will become too unaffordable to live in.

    This ship is sinking faster than Trump’s approval rating. Trump’s coverup is getting tinier than his hands too. All these blind Trump supporters wanna do is complain about the media. Please, I’ve seen kids that whine less.

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