MIT graduate admits link in leak case

[cal04]

Says he met, exchanged e-mails with private accused of providing records, but denies role
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/08/01/mit_graduate_admits_link_in_leak_case/?s_campaign=8315

A recent MIT graduate acknowledged yesterday that he met and exchanged multiple e-mails with the Army private accused of providing thousands of classified war records to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, but he adamantly denied any role in the massive intelligence leak.

The 23-year-old graduate, who spoke on condition that his name not be published, said investigators from the US Army Criminal Investigations Division interviewed him several months ago to find out whether he or others in the local computer hacker community helped the primary suspect in the leaks, Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning.

The Army arrested Manning in May and later charged him with providing a classified video of a US helicopter attack and more than 150,000 classified diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks. Military officials have also identified him as the chief suspect in last month’s disclosure of more than 90,000 classified documents from the Afghan war to the website.

“I categorically deny that I had any role in helping Manning leak anything,’’ the former student said in a phone interview. He said he met Manning at MIT in January, when the private was on leave, and later exchanged as many as 10 e-mails with him about security issues.

[BootinUp]

1. They were talking about antivirus protection probably. nt

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. Its called constructive knowledge

I teach/support colleagues in advanced computer security and forensics. In theory I could be assisting terrorists how to evade being caught, but I have no reason to suspect that. If I did, my ass would be in Gitmo. Its quite a serious matter.

After one of my guest lectures I was accosted afterward by a student who is an LEO for helping the bad guys as he called it. I thanked him for his concern, pointed out to him that it information anyone serious in the field could put together easily, and it was not considered an ITAR issue. He still said he was going to report me and probably did.

Welcome to the world where using/discussing off the shelf tooling may or may not be a national security issue.