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Suspect Identified In CIA 'Vault 7' Leak (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: In weekly online posts last year, WikiLeaks released a stolen archive of secret documents about the Central Intelligence Agency's hacking operations, including software exploits designed to take over iPhones and turn smart television sets into surveillance devices. It was the largest loss of classified documents in the agency's history and a huge embarrassment for C.I.A. officials. Now, The New York Times has learned the identity of the prime suspect in the breach (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source): a 29-year-old former C.I.A. software engineer who had designed malware used to break into the computers of terrorism suspects and other targets.
F.B.I. agents searched the Manhattan apartment of the suspect, Joshua A. Schulte, one week after WikiLeaks released the first of the C.I.A. documents in March last year, and then stopped him from flying to Mexico on vacation, taking his passport, according to court records and family members. The search warrant application said Mr. Schulte was suspected of "distribution of national defense information," and agents told the court they had retrieved "N.S.A. and C.I.A. paperwork" in addition to a computer, tablet, phone and other electronics. But instead of charging Mr. Schulte in the breach, referred to as the Vault 7 leak, prosecutors charged him last August with possessing child pornography, saying agents had found the material on a server he created as a business in 2009 while he was a student at the University of Texas.
F.B.I. agents searched the Manhattan apartment of the suspect, Joshua A. Schulte, one week after WikiLeaks released the first of the C.I.A. documents in March last year, and then stopped him from flying to Mexico on vacation, taking his passport, according to court records and family members. The search warrant application said Mr. Schulte was suspected of "distribution of national defense information," and agents told the court they had retrieved "N.S.A. and C.I.A. paperwork" in addition to a computer, tablet, phone and other electronics. But instead of charging Mr. Schulte in the breach, referred to as the Vault 7 leak, prosecutors charged him last August with possessing child pornography, saying agents had found the material on a server he created as a business in 2009 while he was a student at the University of Texas.
That's the most likely explanation.
He's just a patsy.
The whole Vault 7 leak was engineered to create plausible deniability for why and how the DNC got those tools to use to spy on the Trump campaign.
In reality, the clown deep state provided them to help "their girl." When she lost, they had to know eventually things would come out and started covering tracks. (Look at the date of the original leak, weeks after the inauguration, time enough to think up a plan and get it going.)
Now that there are investigations into that stuff, they need to close off the possible link and sacrifice this guy at the alter of clinton.
"Shut up kid, we'll put you in jail with rapists for 50 years, plea to this and keep your mouth shut and you'll be out in 10"
Go look into a thing called Q and decide for yourself. It's entirely obvious that's what is going on.
That certainly could be. Also, he says that he gave 50-100 people access to his server, so they could share files. Any of those people could have dumped alt.binaries.porn.lolita there. His legal liability would be questionable.
Or it could have been something like The Fappening and included pictures of people like McKayla Maroney or Liz Lee, who were under 18 at the time. There are a lot of ways a computer nerd could end up with a big stash of porn, possibly downloaded by a script, and have that large stash include a number of under 18 images, even if they didn't intend to.
Published reports from early in the investigation also mention that he used Tor. Surfing around on Tor one might encounter illegal material without actively looking for it.
Seeing as "... and we found kiddie porn" happens each and every single last time this situation comes up, there is no question it was planted.
The worse part is, no matter how much one might disagree if it should be, the fact of the matter is that it's already an imprisonable crime for a clearance holder to disclose classified documents.
They didn't even need to go with the already-so-tired goto of planting/claiming child porn!
Actually the only reason I can think they would do this is that if they prove or frame this guy for releasing those documents, then they can't frame or accuse anyone else of doing the same thing in the future.
This way they can lose this guy in the federal prison system and on paper not having caught the leaker. Then they can accuse someone else of that crime in the future, and still keep their boogie man.
My guess is the CIA had a short list of likely suspects and when the documents were revelled those individuals were all given a poke. Anyone of that group that appeared to run would be arrested.
The charges will, of course, be fabricated because there isn't any evidence for who leaked the documents.