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Former DoE Employee Ensnared By Secret-Selling Sting Pleads Guilty (washingtonpost.com)
mdsolar writes: A former Energy Department employee accused of attempting to infiltrate the agency's computer system to steal nuclear secrets and sell them to a foreign government pleaded guilty Tuesday to a reduced charge of attempting to damage protected government computers in an email "spear-phishing attack." Charles Harvey Eccleston, a former employee at the department and at the independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), was arrested March 27 by Philippine authorities after an undercover FBI sting operation. Eccleston, 62, a U.S. citizen who had been living in the Philippines since 2011, was "terminated" from his job at the NRC in 2010, according to the Justice Department. In January 2015, the department said, he targeted more than 80 Energy Department employees in Washington at four national nuclear labs with emails containing what he thought were links to malicious websites that, if activated, could infect and damage computers.
Non paywalled version
Not only that the story seems to have bypassed the firehose. Didn't we already chat about this yesterday whipslash?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Most nuclear weapons proliferation occurs through espionage. Soviet Union, China, Israel, Pakistan all used spies to get started.
Reading comprehension fail.
The sting was launched after Eccleston offered to provide an unnamed foreign government with more than 5,000 email addresses of all Energy Department employees for $19,000, or else he would offer the information to China, Iran or Venezuela, according to court files.
After the unnamed foreign government reported the incident, the FBI sting operation sent undercover employees posing as the country’s representatives to meet with Eccleston in 2013.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Expect teams to approach a lot of people who have just left or have changed jobs from work with a security clearance.
A preemptive chat down to see how a person responds when contacted by a stranger, press, authors, peace activist, historians, random charming foreigner, fake diplomat with heavy accent or just a "new" "friend" in the area.
Holidays or travel really seem to get a person of interest to the top of a watch list.
When in another nation be careful of a honey trap or the friendly stranger approach. A few different teams will have that on record and will play that approach back in full.
Report any such contact as you would have when working with notes, events, logs any other details as quickly as possible as required. Always make a big fuss, contact law enforcement who have the ability to work with such reports, your gov, mil, company or contractor's security teams.
The main thrust of such efforts is to induce a fear that every approach by member of the press, authors, peace activist, historians is always gov team.
Very chilling for any academics, authors or press looking for comment, background or context.
Freedom of the press and freedom of association is now replaced by reporting every call, email, talk over decades by millions of workers and contractors.
By default a huge number of unofficial informants ready to report on any emerging press story.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Isnt allow nuclear info out a death sentence?
As has been discussed every other time it comes up, yes, the FBI can do exactly that.
Law enforcement officers can lie to you, bribe you, and they can even break certain laws (with appropriate approvals) to get you do do something illegal. There is a single defense against this kind of tactic, and it doesn't require a lawyer or court fees: just don't do it.
That's it. If someone asks you to do something illegal, decline. If they offer to assist, or even provide support, decline anyway. The FBI or police cannot arrest you for following the law. They can arrest you for breaking the law, or even for thinking you're breaking the law and going ahead with it.
In this case, the accused showed he might be interested in breaking the law. The FBI then gave him the materials and incentive to do so, but he'd still be walking free if he had followed the law and reported the apparent criminal activity to the FBI or other law enforcement. Of course, he instead followed through with the plan, completing his actions that would have "damaged protected government computers".
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Canada, or any other country that thinks email addresses aren't bait worth biting.
At that time, from that country's perspective, Eccleston may have been a US agent trying to get that country to engage in easily-traced espionage. If they made a deal and were provided a list of email addresses, they might also get a number of fake accounts that serve as honeypots. Any attack on those fake accounts is a clear connection to the country in question, and they can't effectively deny it.
When that accusation is presented as a particularly inopportune time, such as elections, political unrest, or during diplomatic negotiations, it may cost that country far more than the $19,000 Eccleston was seeking.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
He should have simply removed the markings from any documents containing classified information. Then he could say "they weren't marked classified when I sent them."
What's that, intentionally altering the markings for illicit purposes is another, separate felony?
An idiot
Why does a coin toss have more credibility than an economist? Same reason.
Mostly random stuff.
"...in a plea deal with prosecutors both sides said a term of 24 to 30 months is appropriate..."
AYFKM?
Did the prosecutors not comprehend what the hell he was doing?
Reading comprehension fail.
In addition to his reading comprehension fail, AC also has a problem with numbers. This is not 50 years:
He faces a maximum prison sentence of 10 years, but in a plea deal with prosecutors both sides said a term of 24 to 30 months is appropriate at sentencing April 18 before U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss of the District.
What ever would make you think that is SOP? Normally they pay a middle man to set people up. Makes me wonder who the "Robert Childs" was this time: http://fcir.org/2014/12/26/fbi...
My Favorite is that the dude didn't just find a mentally handicapped person to manipulate, no... he got money off him first too. Can you imagine, they paid a child molesting informant for setting up and informing on....someone he owed money to.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
BLM is often rocked by scandal as their employees accept bribes from mining and oil industry. Does NRC also attract the corruptible because of its regulatory role?
He tried to sell publicly available information? Thank God he was an idiot.
"Unnamed". So, Russia most likely, longer shot would be North Korea.