Game of Thrones Hacker Worked With US Defector To Hack Air Force Employees of Iran (zdnet.com) 67
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: The U.S. Department of Justice unsealed today espionage-related charges against a former U.S. Air Force service member who defected to Iran and helped the country's hackers target her former Air Force colleagues. Besides charges and an arrest warrant issued in the name of the former USAF service member, the DOJ also indicted four Iranian hackers who supposedly carried out the cyber-attacks acting on information provided by Witt. The most notable of the four Iranian hackers is Behzad Mesri, who U.S. authorities also charged in November 2017 with hacking HBO, stealing scripts for unaired episodes of season 6 of the hit series Game Of Thrones TV show, and later attempting to extort HBO execs for $6 million.
But at the heart of today's indictment stands Monica Elfriede Witt, 39, a former US Air Force counter-intelligence special agent specialized in Middle East operations, who served for the Air Force between 1997 and 2008, and later worked as a DOD contractor until 2010 --including for Booz Allen Hamilton, the same defense company where Edward Snowden worked. [...] The DOJ claims Witt has been working ever since with IRGC hacking units to craft and fine-tune cyber-operations against her former Air Force colleagues, some of whom she knew personally. [...] All the five suspects named in the indictment are still at large, believed to be located in Iran. The DOJ says Witt now goes by the names of Fatemah Zahra or Narges Witt.
But at the heart of today's indictment stands Monica Elfriede Witt, 39, a former US Air Force counter-intelligence special agent specialized in Middle East operations, who served for the Air Force between 1997 and 2008, and later worked as a DOD contractor until 2010 --including for Booz Allen Hamilton, the same defense company where Edward Snowden worked. [...] The DOJ claims Witt has been working ever since with IRGC hacking units to craft and fine-tune cyber-operations against her former Air Force colleagues, some of whom she knew personally. [...] All the five suspects named in the indictment are still at large, believed to be located in Iran. The DOJ says Witt now goes by the names of Fatemah Zahra or Narges Witt.
What is with these guys using 2 different names? (Score:2)
Can't they just be bad with one name?
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Re: What is with these guys using 2 different name (Score:1)
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Re: These could be covers. (Score:1)
An even better cover is to not be mentioned at all. Only a TV spy would want the notoriety, or narcissists thinking like TV drama is acceptable in real life.
If people's lives are on the line, you don't act like that. You'd have to be insane to do so. ffs
Re:These could be covers. (Score:4, Interesting)
What I think is interesting is to compare her Air Force service photo to the photo of her circulating in the news stories. She is a Texan of German extraction, and in her service portraits he looks white. In the photo used in the news stories she is wearing a hijab and is very brown.
I find this strange. There are a dozen or so ethnic groups in Iran, some of whom are dark-skinned, some of whom are about the same color as this woman. Tehran has about the same latitude as Oklahoma city, so if she was brought in Texas and had the genetics to turn brown while living in Iran, she ought to have been brown all her life.
Re: Leading summary with GoT (Score:5, Funny)
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espionage
Misbehavior before the enemy
Aiding the enemy
Can under the UCMJ have the death penalty.
So don't come back
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Exactly. She is living in a country where women are second class citizens. Living with restrictions imposed by insecure and emasculated men living in the ME. Men that demonstrate how powerful and manly they are by beating down their women every chance the get.
She will also be kept under surveillance for the rest of her life. She will be living in a country where the US could contract out her elimination by the highly competent Israelis. Israelis have been killing people, sabotaging critical infrastructure,
Air Force Employees of Iran? (Score:2)
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Re: Air Force Employees of Iran? (Score:1)
She was in intel in the USAF and went native. After that, she used the up-to-date knowledge she had to target, with the help of her new Iranian friends, her former colleagues in the USAF.
She likely was a sociopath and and became charmed by another sociopath working for the Iranian gov't by use of indoctrination via Islamic fundamentalism.
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"for Iran" seems to make more sense.
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It means the US is announcing to the world people it does not want to arrest because now they know never to go to a country with extradition treaties with the US. Now why is it doing this, I don't fucking know, for publicly, the FBI announcing how dumb they are, perhaps they are trying to create an cover for a US spy in Iran, pretend to want to arrest because clearly they do not by announcing it when the person is question is in a country without extradition treaties with the US.
I am surprised a lot of oth
Time for a (Score:2)
drone strike.
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Israel has plenty of experience murdering people (nuclear scientists) in Iran. No drones required -- they used magnetic bombs, bullets and poison. Probably with the help of the MEK terrorist cult the USA supports and funds.