Upon
Harold Martin’s arrest in 2016, an Obama administration official
said his case was being kept under wraps “to keep this guy from
becoming another NSA martyr.” The tactic seems to be have paid
dividends.
by
Whitney Webb
Part
3 - The Shadow Brokers: love of money or country?
In
August 2016, in the aftermath of the DNC leaks among others, the
group known as Shadow Brokers made its debut, releasing computer
exploits that the NSA had kept hidden from the public as well as
auctioning off access to an encrypted file also containing NSA data
to the highest bidder. More releases soon followed, including
numerous tools developed by the NSA’s elite hacking group, Tailored
Access Operations (TAO).
The fact
that they apparently sought not to divulge the information from the
public at large — instead choosing to auction it off — as well
as the fact that some of the tools they have released were later used
by others for nefarious purposes, initially suggested that the Shadow
Brokers were essentially cyber-criminals seeking to enrich themselves
at the expense of the NSA and those who could be targeted by the
content of their releases.
However,
the Shadow Brokers have revealed themselves to be politically
motivated, at least in part. For instance, some of their earlier
manifestos condemn the “wealthy elites” and make other political
references about the 2016 election and other related topics.
Yet, the
strongest indication of the Shadow Brokers’ political motivations
came in April last year. After President Trump ordered a unilateral
strike against Syria, the Shadow Brokers wrote a message called
“Don’t Forget Your Base,” where the Brokers attacked Trump for
his “Goldman Sach [sic] (TheGlobalists) and Military Industrial
Intelligence Complex (MIIC) cabinet” and “increased U.S.
involvement in a foreign war (Syria Strike)” among other factors.
They further expressed their displeasure by releasing new NSA
documents that were by the far the most damaging.
Among
the information exposed by the Shadow Brokers in this release, was
the revelation that the NSA had developed code to hack into
Palestinian banks specifically as well as the SWIFT banking system.
“Potent exploits and hacking tools that target most versions of
Microsoft Windows” were also made public. Currently, the group
is still believed to be “holding plenty more incendiary
material.”
Though
the Shadow Brokers have remained relatively silent for more than a
year, the leaks continue to weigh heavily on the federal government,
which has shown that it is still as desperate as ever to find out
what information the Shadow Brokers may have. As the New York Times
and the Intercept reported last month, U.S. intelligence officials
paid a shady Russian national $100,000 in the hopes that he would
“deliver stolen National Security Agency cyberweapons” that were
in the Shadow Brokers possession in order to “get a full inventory”
of what had been taken. Instead of that information, however, the
Russian national “produced unverified and possibly fabricated
information involving” President Trump and others, frustrating
U.S. government efforts.
Yet,
investigators have long been “frustrated” in their attempts to
prove that Martin had “deliberately leaked or sold the hacking
tools to the Shadow Brokers or, alternatively, that someone hacked
into his computer or otherwise took them without his knowledge.”
While “forensic clues” do exist linking him to the group, that
evidence is inconclusive.
One of
those clues is the fact that Martin had more than 75 percent of the
TAO’s library of hacking tools in his possession at the time of his
arrest. Many of those hacking tools are the very ones that have
already been released by the Shadow Brokers, as well as those
suspected to remain in their possession. In addition, the Shadow
Brokers have also released NSA “code [that] was designed to
break through network firewalls and get inside the computer systems
of competitors like Russia, China and Iran” while federal
authorities found “highly classified computer codes developed to
hack into the networks of foreign governments like China, North Korea
and Iran” in Martin’s house.
Martin’s
excessive use of anonymizing software and encryption makes the
possibility that the information was stolen without his knowledge
unlikely. In addition, his encrypted communications in foreign
languages, handwritten notes meant to explain complicated technical
information to the average person, and his remote data storage online
all suggest that Martin could well have been much more than a
“hoarder.” Yet, from a legal standpoint, such evidence is
circumstantial and fails to prove intent.
As
Kiriakou explained to MintPress, intent is key in Martin’s case
when it comes to proving whether he is a whistleblower, a hoarder or
a disgruntled employee: “It really is all a matter of intent. If
his intent was to expose waste, fraud, abuse, illegality or threats
to the public health or public safety, then absolutely by legal
definition he is a whistleblower. Whether he got to the oversight
committees or got to the inspector general is irrelevant at that
point.”
However,
as Kiriakou noted, the dangerous climate for whistleblowers in the
U.S. makes this a much less attractive legal defense than claiming
that Martin is a “hoarder,” particularly given the inconclusive
links between him and the Shadow Brokers.
If
Martin were indeed the source of the Shadow Brokers, their auctioning
off of the information could mean that, instead of a whistleblower,
he could have been motivated by more nefarious factors. Some
analysts, however, have suggested that the Shadow Brokers’
“auctions” of the stolen information were meant to generate
publicity – not ransom money — and that the Shadow Brokers are
politically motivated to release information to expose U.S.
government wrongdoing, as was the case in their release of damaging
information following Trump’s strike on Syria last April.
If
Martin was, in fact, the source of the Shadow Brokers, it is possible
that he could have been unaware of the Shadow Brokers’ plans to
auction the information and may have thought they would release the
information to the public. However, making the case that Martin could
be a whistleblower who leaked to the Shadow Brokers is again a matter
of intent. As Kiriakou noted: “If his intent was to stop
something that NSA was doing as a matter of policy and he went to the
Shadow Brokers to stop it, then an argument can be made for
whistleblowing. But if he did it just to do it or if he did it
because he was disgruntled, then no, he’s not a whistleblower.”
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