Adrian Lamo, Kevin Poulsen and Mark Rasch [Wikileaks/Manning]

Adrian Lamo, Kevin Poulsen and Mark Rasch [Wikileaks/Manning]

wlcentral.org

The story of Bradley Manning's arrest has had one crucial detail missing for the last six months. The chat logs allegedly between Adrian Lamo and Bradley Manning have had 75% of their alleged content redacted by the journalists allowed access to them, and the details of the initial contact between Manning and Lamo have never been understood. While the NY Times is content to run a front page article detailing testimony from a mentally unstable ex-felon who is suddenly remembering details

(visit the link for the full news article)

Many questions are now being raised on the activities and perhaps prior knowledge of Adrian Lamo and Kevin Lee Poulsen. Both are central figures in the Bradley Manning alleged release of military and government cables that possibly supplied Wikileaks.

Some notables:

* Lamo and Poulsen are both convicted felons who were prosecuted by the FBI and have maintained contact with at least one former adversary.

* Lamo was involuntarily hospitalized for severe psychiatric distress three weeks before his chats with Manning.

* Poulsen was the initial recipient of the Lamo / Manning chat logs and the journalist who initially published the chat logs story.

* Rasch is the former chief of the DOJ's Computer Crimes Unit in the 1990s.

* Rasch is the General Counsel of "Project Vigilant," the vigilante group that claims to gather Internet communications and hand them over to the U.S. government.

* Rasch is the person who put Poulsen in prison for several years.

* Rasch is a regular contributor to Wired.

* Rasch is a long-time associate and source for Poulsen.

* Poulsen's first job when getting out of prison was with Security Focus, the same entity for which Rasch also regularly wrote.

* Although it was Poulsen who almost always and exclusively wrote about Lamo, Rasch filled in when Poulsen was unavailable.

* Rasch has been a long-time source for Poulsen going back to 1999 and 2001, including when Poulsen was writing about Lamo, and was also Poulsen's source repeatedly for articles he wrote at Wired.

* Rasch has also been a regular source for Wired's Kim Zetter, who was Poulsen's co-author on the Manning articles (on November 29, an ABC News story on Manning featured Rasch as an "expert" analyzing the accusations without any disclosure of the key role he played in Manning's arrest).

* While many convicted hackers had very rigid restrictions placed on them when leaving prison Poulsen not only quickly began writing online as a journalist about the hacker world, but did so at the very same publication that also published articles by his prosecutor, Mark Rasch.

I have followed the history of Kevin Poulsen ranging from his LA phone phreaking days (able to command phone lines and win a Porsche via radio call in show) to his work at SecurityFocus and now Wired. I do personally find it peculiar that for someone who was such a prolific hacker he was able to re-enter the Internet security world albeit as a journalist.

More importantly here is the connection with Rasch. For this individual to be involved, considering this past with Poulsen, does seem to present some strange coincidence. Lamo was an FBI informant to boot. In all this story has some very interesting angles given whats at stake.

Poulsen has stated he would comment on this article, should be some good reading.

brill

wlcentral.org
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additional src

reply to post by brill


Why does that pose a strange situation? Two prolific writers who are associated with InfoSec happen to write for the same outlets...

Why is that odd? I mean seriously, Poulsen did his time. It's not like he's working as a pen tester... he's now just writing about the scene...


I don't see where you are going with this?

Could you elaborate.

There has been a lot wrong with the whole case. While some sources appear fairly certain that Bradley leaked the civilian shooting video, I have not heard from any of the more reputable sources that Bradley was behind the wikileaks release. The outrage that this release sparked left some powerful, angry people looking for someone to blame (apart from themselves). Good to see you looking into it.

Originally posted by HunkaHunka
reply to post by brill

 

Why does that pose a strange situation? Two prolific writers who are associated with InfoSec happen to write for the same outlets...

Why is that odd? I mean seriously, Poulsen did his time. It's not like he's working as a pen tester... he's now just writing about the scene...

I don't see where you are going with this?

Could you elaborate.

Anythings possible, but this is like Mitnick and Shimomura hangin out for beers and writing a book. I would think that anyone affiliated with law enforcement, typically, wouldn't associate with known felons, especially those they helped put away. Yes Poulsen did his time and we believe what we are told in that he is just a journalist. I really can't see someone who was knee deep in hacking/phreaking just retiring and only writing about the scene, but sure this too is very possible. Also given the circle of friends Poulsen had and associated with, one would tend to believe that the dark side could serve interest if only for personal gain and not notoriety. For me there are way too many convenient facts served here in terms of past incidents, people involved and what is currently at stake.

Poulsen still has to answer why he redacted the logs though, doesn't this violate his supposed journalistic integrity and hacker ethos ?

Your point is well taken though, thanks.

brill

Both the editor in chief and senior editor (Poulsen) of Wired have responded to the original allegations made by Greenwald. Privacy appears to be the main thrust of why Lamo's chat logs were not completely revealed (and the fact that his HD was confiscated). Poulsen rips into Greenwald. It's a lengthy read but a good followup and chance to hear the other side.

src

I have a hard time believing that Lamo wouldn't have a copy of the those chat logs in their entirety "somewhere". Poulsen/Wired has the logs, they should publish them, this story is simply too big.

brill

[...]What’s Wikileaks, the net’s foremost document leaking site, supposed to do when a whistle-blower submits a list of email addresses belonging to the site’s confidential donors as a leaked document?[...]

Snippet from Article dated February 18, 2009

www.wired.com...

Wikileaks, which has been criticized for lacking discretion in deciding whether to release documents or not, published the email and the donors’ email addresses on Wednesday. The entry noted that the email was submitted "possibly to test the project’s principles of complete impartiality when dealing with whistleblowers."

One notable email address belongs to convicted former hacker Adrian Lamo, who now runs his own security company. In a Twitter post on Saturday, Lamo noted the screw-up, writing

Thanks WikiLeaks, for leaking your donor list, including yours truly, by not BCC'ing - adrianlamo.com... - that's dedication.

2:37 AM Feb 14th, 2009 via web
Retweeted by 1 person

6
Я. Adrian Lamo

Adrian = Donor to Wikileaks Organisation

Shortly after Adrian handed over Chat Logs to the Authorities in late May 2010
Adrian Lamos posted this same message on his Twitter Account and AOL Account June 2010

Adrian Lamo For the record, I still support Wikileaks, and encourage you to donate to them, especially now.
Jun 7

coincidence maybe

however up to this point
I have yet to hear Manning or his lawyer
declare his innocence.

or maybe I missed it

this is a joke

I am betting that manning is just some random guy that they picked because he fitted the profile: wasnt satisfied with the government and is gay

maybe this is all just a show for the american an global public, since, if you stop to think, they would never be able to get who did it, their systems probably dont have a log or something

otherwise, they wouldnt need a CHAT to get the guy who did it, they would have in their logs that one guy downloaded all documents, and that would raise a flag

so, for you to say that they need the CHAT LOG, means that they probably dont have any evidence against Manning

as I said above, maybe he is just a show for the media, just to let everyone know that the guy who did it got caught

IMAGINE if the guy who did it did not get caught, just IMAGINE that, everyone would start doing it, they would have more courage to do it ...

so, I dont know whats the truth, but we need to considerer that this is just a show for the public

Originally posted by Faiol
I am betting that manning is just some random guy that they picked because he fitted the profile: wasnt satisfied with the government and is gay
....
as I said above, maybe he is just a show for the media, just to let everyone know that the guy who did it got caught

Manning had expressed his discontent with the military and was in a position to download a lot of her secrets. Why is that difficult to understand. There have been countless past events involving lax military security to the point where huge data compromises have occurred, this is really no different. If anything it shows how pathetically lazy and stupid the military is in terms of protecting what they allege is so strategic and vital to national security. Manning could be a patsy that is certainly a possibility but he did disclose his wrongdoing via the chat logs (from what Lamo has described at least).

brill