[Rotdhizon]

I enjoyed the beginning of the article because it was actually informative. Once you get to the part where it becomes a blatant smear and misdirection campaign, it loses its interest and credibility. Why does half the entire read just focus on destroying this guys character?

If he actually did get caught with what they say he did, then sure he deserves to go down but it's weird how hyper focused they are on painting this guy as the devil in his personal life. It seems like it's because their isn't any real evidence present to nail this guy. It's all circumstantial and worse, in ways that could very easily be planted/faked.

[no-dr-onboard]

Having worked in similar environments, I found that most of the features in this article are both believable and typical.

The workplace hostility, the various office personas, the drudgery, humiliation and bureaucracy even the VM that's triple encrypted isn't unusual for even the most benign cybersecurity researcher. Ironically, the lapse in OPSEC isn't either. Time and time again, people who are doing bad things always seem to have a lapse in OPSEC that is routinely double underlined in these types of articles.

And of course, the last typical bit is the Child Sexual Abuse Material being found. Isn't it something that when the NSA/CIA/FBI wants to take someone down they always seem to find CSAM? I'd hazard that this approach is used when the state's most "powerful and prominent police agency" isn't able to decrypt/bypass what they're truly after. Consider the frustrations they encountered with DPR[1]. another commenter quipped, "sprinkle a little CP in there and call it a day". After all, doesn't this fit the MO of the FBI/CIA when you consider the Stonewall investigations[2]? Find something that is absolutely anathema to the public, charge the suspect with that. Not surprised.

1. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/how-the-feds-too...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots

[carapace]

Remember "Hacking Team"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacking_Team

It's not mentioned in the WP article but automated planting of the aforementioned material on a target computer was one of the capabilities they sold.

[sbarbarian]

Regardless of planted or no - feel sorry for whatever digital forensic examiner had to confirm it was indeed what it was. Not the victim in this scenario, but its an often-overlooked and extremely unpleasant role to confirm this stuff.

[jaywalk]

When the article revealed the child porn, my first thought was "of course they 'found' child porn." Such a coincidence how tough cases like this always turn up with child porn charges.

[jjoonathan]

"Just sprinkle some child porn on him Johnson, and let's get out of here"

That said, it sounds like they caught him fair and square with actual evidence (the backdoor, the access logs, and the versioning of the leak) and the mistrial was the result of a confused jury.

[jaywalk]

But they were missing the key piece, which is that he leaked it. Without that, it's all circumstantial. Was he probably the one who leaked it? Yeah, I think it's safe to say that. But that's not where the bar lies in a criminal trial.

[boomboomsubban]

I believe possession of unauthorized copies of classified information is already a crime, though I think the possible charges are far less than leaking it.

[jaywalk]

You are correct, which is why they wanted to get him convicted of leaking it.

[hermitdev]

But, do they need to prove that he leaked it? Surely the backdoor and exfiltrating the data alone would be enough to put him away from a long time, even if he never shared it with anyone.

[jaywalk]

They need to prove that he leaked it if they want him to be convicted of it. And they want that because the punishment for it is far more severe.

[ccrush]

The jury may only be confused because prosecutors never take their duty to bring exculpatory evidence to light seriously because it would harm their conviction rate and they would rather let an innocent person suffer than have their career affected. We should count all trials where innocent people are found not guilty because of evidence introduced by prosecutors as an exceptional win for the prosecutor. Their job shouldn't be focused on convictions but on delivering justice so this would be a case where justice is served even though they don't convict.

[dahdum]

He didn’t deny he had the child porn though did he? Hardly seems like a frame up job if he admits it was there, hidden behind 3 encryption layers. I thought his excuse was someone uploaded it to his server “back in college”.

Even ignoring his troubling sexual history and the chat logs, it sounds pretty legitimate.

[UberFly]

Then there's that other possibility that he actually did have child porn on his computer.

[jaywalk]

Sure, that's certainly possible. And if he did, then he deserves to be prosecuted and punished for it.

[ethbr0]

Well, he's being charged with having child pornography on his computer. Whether or not he was the one who put it there and used it is debatable.

As someone else noted, it seems statistically unlikely that so many people who the government brings national security cases against are pedophiles.

One of the following must be true: a surprising number of all government workers in intelligence are pedophiles, pedophilia and propensity to leak government secrets are highly correlated, or the government is planting evidence.

I'm not going to discount the mental health correlation possibility, because being crazy enough to work for the government and then ineptly leak classified materials... doesn't bode well for an individual's baseline mental stability.

[Ansil849]

> Why does half the entire read just focus on destroying this guys character?

Yeah, this was my question reading this piece as well. This article overwhelmingly reads like uncritical character assassination. I think whether the guy was a giant dick to coworkers should be tangential at best, if not outright irrelevant, but definitely not the centerpiece of the story, and yet it is.

[NoGravitas]

You're quite right, and the answer to the original question is "Because the US mainstream media are, knowingly or not, part of the US national security establishment's propaganda wing." But apparently, domestic propaganda is something only $BAD_COUNTRY engages in.

[buitreVirtual]

The description of his character is a fascinating part of the story. Keep in mind that this a story, and not (just) an indictment. Showing his character is also critical background for the reader to understand why he allegedly leaked that backup.

[x86_64Ubuntu]

If it were just CSAM, then that would be one thing and we could write it off as the government trying to railroad him. But the government also claims to have access to chat logs in chatrooms focused on CSAM, as well as a video of him sexually assaulting an old roommate.

Just because they are focusing on his atypical and undesirable character attributes doesn't mean that it's not a credible work.

[webmobdev]

But note that they still haven't proceeded to prosecute him for these charges yet. Which just seems so odd.

[qikInNdOutReply]

Its also - dare i say lacking in creativity. The smear checklist, in order and always the same. Why cant they hire artists to at least invent new and creative crimes.