The Pentagon leak suspect has finally been exposed by his Steam profile. Pretty quick investigation showing the importance of our online footprints.
Alleged source of classified Pentagon documents, Jack Teixeira, should know better than anyone what it means to track someone online. The federal government accuses Jack Teixeira of illegally obtaining national defense information and other classified content after a brief investigation into his digital activities. As Christian Triebert of The New York Times explains, his investigation team identified Jack Teixeira by finding an Instagram account that mentioned his Steam profile. It showed photographs of the granite countertop and floor tiles visible in the leaked documents.
Pentagon leak suspect finally revealed by his Steam profile
The suspect has not yet specified his position, he will be heard on April 19. The two charges currently filed against him could bring him a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
Massachusetts Air Force member Jack Teixeira reportedly started sharing the documents on a dedicated Minecraft Discord server in late 2022. He first transcribed the documents himself before moving on to posting photos of the documents as they are. He also reportedly had no intention of acting as a whistleblower – he was apparently just trying to impress his video game friends – but the content in question ended up on other Discord servers, as well as 4chan and Telegram.
Pretty quick investigative work showing the importance of our online footprints.
The documents include extensive information about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including Ukrainian strategy and Russian attempts to acquire weapons from Egypt and Turkey. The files also show how the US is spying on allies and keeping a close eye on their activities, with particular interest in UN Secretary General António Guterres, for example.
The FBI arrested Jack Teixeira on the afternoon of April 13th. The case raises many questions, including the ease of access to classified US military documents. Jack Teixeira is a first class pilot, the equivalent of our corporal, acting as an apprentice in cyber transport systems, in other words, providing technical support on the communications network. The Washington Post elaborates that Jack Teixeira may nevertheless have been using the Pentagon’s Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, which gave him access to top secret data, such as the leak in question.
A breakthrough in our investigation came when the team discovered a Steam profile for the airman Teixeira, which led to an Instagram profile with photos of the exact location where the leaked documents were photographed – a kitchen countertop in his childhood home. https://t.co/XQAZf2kNV7 pic.twitter.com/DWlkN8xmqK
— Christian Tribert (@trbrtc) April 13, 2023