Apr 12: Thomas Rid, Takeaways from the Discord Leaks
Thread as published by Thomas Rid on April 9, 2023
One of the best articles on the leak so far.
Intelligence leak exposes U.S. spying on adversaries and allies
The one must-read thread and analysis on how the material surfaced, step-by-step
I've seen three different versions of the files, two with 53 high-resolution photos, one with 56 low-resolution photos, very large overlap.
The Discord Leaks are probably one of the four most significant intelligence leaks this century so.
Fewer documents than Snowden files, Vault7, or the Shadow Brokers. And—unusually—we're looking at finished intelligence reporting here from multiple U.S. agencies, various sources.
There are about 20 pages of serial reporting, meaning concise one-paragraph reports on various regions and issues (Iran, China, Near East, Russia, UN, Nigeria, North Korea, Columbia, Central Africa, etc), with serial numbers at the end (eg WIRe2023-27480, or Y-G/OO/122008-23)
Based on the formats of the serial numbers, it appears that almost all (if not all) disclosed serial reporting was SIGINT derived. If I understand correctly there is no serial in there that points to HUMINT sourcing.
This appears to be the most recent file in the subsets I have seen, 2 March 2023
CIA seems to be an impressive sigint agency. Also: US intelligence apparently has stunningly granular visibility into Russian military planning.
Approximately 20 reports contain information that is FISA derived
