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FOR QUITE A while now, Donald Trump has bemoaned the leaking of information to the press from various agencies in the US.
“Classified information is being given to media that could have a devastating effect on US FIND NOW,” he tweeted in February.
In March, he said: “The real story that Congress, the FBI and all others should be looking into is the leaking of classified information. Must find leaker now!”
When, in the aftermath of the Manchester attack, information from UK authorities was leaked to the US press, Trump was irate.
He described the leaks as “deeply troubling” and threatened to prosecute those responsible.
Numerous leaks to the press have centred on alleged Russian involvement in last November’s presidential election, with stories around the involvement of his son-in-law Jared Kushner prominent among them.
One story, published on 5 June on online news organisation the Intercept, suggested that election-related hacking penetrated further into US voting systems than was previously known. It referenced a top-secret report which was dated 5 May to support the claim.
Barely an hour after its publication, a government contractor named Reality Leigh Winner was arrested and charged with copying classified documents and mailing it to a reporter.
But who is Reality Winner? What information was leaked? And how did she come to possess these documents if she did leak this information to the press?
Reality Leigh Winner is a 25-year-old woman from Augusta, Georgia, who served with the Air Force from January 2013 till February of this year.
Her mother, Billie Winner-Davis, told the Guardian that Reality had excelled in academia, tennis and athletics, and was fluent in several languages.
On social media, under the name Sara Winners, Winner would frequently retweet criticisms of Donald Trump’s policies.
Around the time that Trump implemented the travel ban in January, she tweeted using the hashtag #TrumpIsACunt and, on the night he was elected, she tweeted: “Well. People suck”.
Her mother said that she “never thought this would be something she would do”, adding that while she opposed Trump Winner was “not someone who would go and riot or picket”.
In recent times, she worked as a contractor for Pluribus International Corporation. Pluribus is a defence and intelligence contractor for the US government.
A report from the National Security Agency (NSA) was leaked to the Intercept online publication and it is strongly believed that it is this document that relates to Winner’s arrest.
The news outlet was founded by journalists in the wake of the NSA documents on mass surveillance leaked by Edward Snowden.
The headline of the report reads: “Top-secret NSA report details Russian hacking effort days before 2016 election“.
It depicts a hacking operation tied closely to Moscow’s GRU intelligence directorate that targeted private US companies providing voter registration services and equipment to local governments.
The operation, which potentially threatened the integrity of the US vote, went on for months, until just days before the 8 November election, according to the document.
The NSA did not conclude whether the hackers had any effect on the outcome, the Intercept said. But US intelligence officials have repeatedly said vote tallies were not affected in the election, in which President Donald Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton.
“Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors … executed cyber espionage operations against a named US company in August 2016, evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions,” the NSA report says, according to the Intercept.
The report shows that, by trying to steal log-in credentials and using spear-phishing emails to plant malware, the hackers “obtained and maintained access to elements of multiple US state or local electoral boards.”
How successful that effort was, and what kind of data may have been stolen, remains an unanswered question, the NSA report says.
Florida-based VR Systems, whose electronic voter identification system was in use in eight states, was a target of the Russian hacking effort, it says. In a statement the company said it had alerted its customers when it became aware of the phishing effort, and that none fell for it or were compromised.
“Phishing and spear-phishing are not uncommon in our society,” it said. “We have policies and procedures in effect to protect our customers and our company.”
VR Systems also stressed that none of its products are used for recording or tabulating votes.
The Intercept contacted NSA and the national intelligence director’s office about the document and both agencies asked that it not be published. US intelligence officials then asked The Intercept to redact certain sections.
The publication said some material was withheld at US intelligence agencies’ request because it wasn’t “clearly in the public interest”.
Within around an hour of the report being published on the Intercept, Reality Winner was arrested for leaking top-secret information to a news outlet.
It appears however, that she was under investigation before the publication of the Intercept story and, as soon as it was published, authorities acted swiftly.
It is the security services’ assertion that Winner unlawfully accessed top-secret files while working for Pluribus at a US government facility in Georgia.
In a sworn affidavit from an FBI special agent, Winner “admitted intentionally identifying and printing the classified intelligence reporting at issue despite not having a “need to know”, and with knowledge that the intelligence reporting was classified” on 3 June, two days before the publication of the story.
The FBI also claims it uncovered evidence that Winner had email contact with a news outlet and was one of six individuals that had printed the report.
A separate search-warrant application by investigators describes an encounter last month between an unnamed reporter and an unnamed defence contractor.
The Intercept had been attempting to verify that the documents were legitimate and asked the contractor to confirm by sending through a photo of them. This contractor is said to have told the reporter that the documents were fake, and immediately notified the agency in question about the leak.
For its part, the Intercept says that it does not know who provided them with the report.
“As we reported in the story,” they said in a statement,”the NSA document was provided to us anonymously. The Intercept has no knowledge of the identity of the source.”
Winner has been charged under the Espionage Act. If found guilty, she faces up to 10 years in prison.
With reporting from the Associated Press and AFP.
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I have only used windows 8 on friends laptops, I found it disastrous though. A nightmare to navigate and get around. Quite happy with windows 7 and I won’t be in a rush to change
Still with 7 myself, I see it’s included in the update.
Might just wait and see though, hopefully they’ve nailed it this time.
I upgraded to 8.1 as it’s part of the minimum requirements for Kinect for windows V2 only to discover that it’s heavy on USB3 bandwidth and the hardware isn’t up to it.
I have to say though, having used a windows tablet before I really don’t see what people are complaining about with Win 8.1 – I’ve come to the conclusion that people don’t like change and that’s the issue more than anything.
“Linux is for people who want to know why it works. Mac is for people who don’t want to know why it works. DOS is for people who want to know why it does not work. Windows is for people who don’t want to know why it does not work.”
If you like Windows 7 then you’ll love Windows 10. It’s like a fork in the tree, bringing the familiarity of Windows 7 to the performance and features of Windows 8.1, plus more. The UI stuff appears to have been sorted out, with desktops/laptops acting like updated Windows 7 desktops/laptops, and mobile devices focusing more on the “Modern” UI. Hybrid devices can adapt using a feature called Continuum. And best feature: it’s one Windows 10 across phone, tablet, laptop/desktop, and the TV (via Xbox One) with one common store, enabling devs to write for all devices at once using “Universal Apps”. That should prod The Journal to finally give us a native app ;-)
Nah Tony, that’s arse. OSX is also for people who know how the sausage is made but don’t want to make it every time. All the BSD you can eat and mainstream platform support.
Microsoft aren’t really losing revenue that can be expected in this age of platform agnosticism. You can’t even win in the OS market by giving superior product away.
If you can`t getr your head around the new look Windows 8/8.1 – look into a program called “Classic Shell” (free) – it will let you organise windows 8/8.1 into looking like windows 7 , easy to use and configure.
Start8 by Stardock. It’s totally seamless and has everything you need for a native feeling Windows 7 experience. I keep forgetting other Win8 machines don’t have it! The only remnant of Metro is the wifi sidebar. It costs a few quid but it’s perfect and made by a great little company.
Classic shell is great. Surprised few people know about it. So much unnecessary hate towards 8.1
Classic shell is free, where as Start8 is only free for 30days and $9.99 thereafter.
Thats what i did as i was so used to using windows 7 but my laptop packed up so cheaper buying new one but missed the interface of 7!!!
What’s gass about media coverage of tech industry is that they only focus on consumer products. Decline in sales of PC’s doesn’t affect their sales of their Server products and other enterprise software, which back in 2013 brought them in over $20billion in revenue (Windows Server, SQL Server, Exchange, Visual Studio/dev tools)
Windows 8 is a complete balls, the only good thing about it was its fast to load, but it’s a nightmare to use, If they kept the start button and give the option to switch over it wouldn’t be so bad. Windows 7 was grand
They gave the start button back in one of the updates. As for the metro interface if you spend 30 secs putting your programs in and learn the keyboard shortcut that have been a part of windows since at least 95. You find navigation much faster than 7. Also the search function on Windows 8 please you can just type what you what and get it. It people were willing to change a bit they would live how fast windows 8 makes everything.
For the record I hated 8 when I got it but after I used it for a month it and got used to it. I started to like it and then I when back to Windows 7 and found how slow things impossible to deal with.
Using windows 8.1 and it’s fine wouldn’t go back to windows 7 tbh, it’s a very Lean OS and flies along when installed on an ssd. Also I picked up the Microsoft Lumia 535 in Argos for €115 and have to say it’s an nice phone 5″ screen quad core no slowdown main apps are there like Facebook Twitter etc, no journal app but someone put up an unofficial app and it works fine. I did have a Moto G but it failed on calls the person who I was talking to voice would become garbled if the signal dropped a bar.
Windows 10 Technical Preview is worth a shot. Stepping back to go forwards. Start menu is enhanced by taking some design tips from Windows ’98 and the charms seem to be sleeping with the fishes.
Still, if you want to save money on system maintenance and have a better user Apple is still the only way to go.
Interesting comment from MS recently where they described Windows 10 as a service. Some eagle eyed commentators picked up on that. A service could mean a subscription based service similar to the model that Adobe have moved to. I’m on Win 7 and even though the upgrade to 10 is free for a year, I won’t move until I know its definitely non subscription based.
Do yourself a favour and dual boot it with Ubuntu. Trust me, you’ll hardly ever use Windows again.
Yep…Linux Mint being the best flavour of the day for newbies. I’ve put at least 15 people on it last year in dual boot and none of them have used Windows since. They all remark that their mental health has improved.
One less year of private education for the kids after that dip in share price today..
I thought I’d want to stay on 7 until they “fixed” things after the windows 8 fiasco but having in tried it I now really like it. I have it on the surface pro 3 also and I think it’s very good on that form factor.
I have 10 running on a laptop at present and have tried it on the surface. It’s excellent. 7 looks and feels antiquated at this stage.
I don’t see the need to buy into this idea of updating the software every year. It’s only a moneyspinner. I have used Windows 95 on my home PC and it is still going strong.
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