[jawn]

He felt threatened by 2 MIT students? Surely Lamo must have knew that bradass87 and his alleged "accomplices" were not mafia heavy hitters.

In all seriousness, this is piss poor reporting.

Like others have pointed out, this is second hand information that makes no substantive link between Manning and the 2 unnamed MIT students. Surely the reporter could have deduced from Lamo's clues who the two MIT students were and followed up for comments or quotes from them.

Even taking this story at face value there are lots of unanswered critical questions.

Was Manning taught to use the "encryption software" with the purpose of enabling him to hide stolen information?

What encryption software was sent?

The meaning of encryption software is left intentionally vague. Was the software something like truecrypt or perhaps the MIT masterminds just sent Manning a link to a firefox installer...

It's a shame that this passes for journalism.