US nuke sub plans leaked on SD card hidden in peanut butter sandwich, claims FBI
- Reference: 1633915246
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/10/11/doj_alleges_nuclear_sub_data_leak/
- Source link:
A [1]court filing and [2]announcement allege that a chap named Jonathan Toebbe, an employee of the Department of the Navy who served as a nuclear engineer, contacted entities that he believed represented a foreign power and offered to sell "Restricted Data concerning the design of a nuclear-powered warship".
An FBI legal attaché obtained a letter sent by Toebbe in April 2020 that included some US Navy documents and instructions on how to establish a secure channel between a foreign nation and Toebbe.
[3]
"Please forward this letter to your military intelligence agency. I believe this information will be of great value to your nation," the letter stated, helpfully adding "This is not a hoax" - because it kind of reads like it would be.
[4]Anonymous: We've leaked disk images stolen from far-right-friendly web host Epik
[5]Mafia works remotely, too, it seems: 100+ people suspected of phishing, SIM swapping, email fraud cuffed
[6]Ex-US intel, military trio were cyber-mercenaries for UAE, say prosecutors
The FBI appears to have decided to string Toebbe along. After some clandestine back and forth, plenty of encrypted email, and a payment of $10,000 in cryptocurrency, Toebbe and his wife Diana loaded the relevant info onto an SD card and left it at a dead drop.
"The SD card was wrapped in plastic and placed between two slices of bread on a half of a peanut butter sandwich," the DoJ's Criminal Complaint states
[7]
[8]
Another SD card was later delivered, hidden in a packet of chewing gum. After that delivery, Toebbe was sent another $70K in crypto.
After each delivery Toebbe sent a decryption key. The keys worked and the FBI determined that the cards contained "Restricted Data related to submarine nuclear reactors".
[9]
The Toebbes were arrested and charged on October 9th.
The accused pair used ProtonMail to communicate with their "buyer" and used the pseudonym "Alice" in mails to their "buyer". The FBI, showing a tiny bit of network and crypto savvy, used the pseudonym "Bob" to reply.
The Toebbes liked the info Bob fed to them, especially when arrangements for dead drops were suggested, praising the care their buyer employed.
[10]
The FBI also kept the pair onside by paying them plenty of money — $110,000 worth of Monero made its way from the Bureau to the Toebbes, who advised the cryptocurrency offered "excellent deniability".
During correspondence between Alice and Bob, Jonathan Toebbe is alleged to have explained how he got the Restricted info as follows:
This information was slowly and carefully collected over several years in the normal course of my job to avoid attracting attention and smuggled past security checkpoints a few pages at a time.
Some security personnel probably aren't getting a pay rise this year.
But at least those personnel aren't alone in having failed to protect military secrets escaping: admins in the forums for vehicular combat game "War Thunder" have had to [11]remind posters not to share classified documents after a former member of France's military allegedly shared a manual for the Leclerc battle tank to settle an argument about whether its performance was represented accurately in the game. ®
Get our [12]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1440946/download
[2] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/maryland-nuclear-engineer-and-spouse-arrested-espionage-related-charges
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YWO3C-GnhCNYpDtpn9oydQAAAAQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/30/anonymous_second_epik_dump/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/21/europol_arrests/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/15/three_rogue_former_nsa_hackers/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YWO3C-GnhCNYpDtpn9oydQAAAAQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YWO3C-GnhCNYpDtpn9oydQAAAAQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YWO3C-GnhCNYpDtpn9oydQAAAAQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YWO3C-GnhCNYpDtpn9oydQAAAAQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/502663-leclerc-s1-vs-s2/&do=findComment&comment=9129295
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Seems risky
It seems risky to have kept these guys in play for a year. Who knows how many copies of this info they managed to sell to real adversaries during this time?
Re: Seems risky
If he was insisting that his buyers retrieve information at dead drops, there's very little chance he sold it to anyone but the FBI. They'd have had him under surveillance the whole time, and if he did drop something it's likely that it was intercepted and perhaps substituted as part of a larger intelligence operation. It's safe to assume that his ProtonMail account was also tapped, and his personal computers thoroughly penetrated. Of course, whatever communication he had, if any, with actual foreign powers isn't essential to the case against him and thus will not be revealed. But no, considering how unprofessional the would-be agent's efforts were, it doesn't seem all that risky. Probably they were hoping some other players would enter the game and when none did (I have to imagine most intelligence agencies take a dim view of volunteers-by-email, for all the obvious reasons) and they had ample evidence they shut it down and charged him.
Just a "peanut butter sandwich"? Not peanut butter and jelly, or peanut butter and honey, or even the abomination of peanut butter and pickles? Just plain PB sandwich. The guy has issues.
I know, that's an abomination.
Peanut butter, tart cherry jam, and cream cheese is my favorite.
Or a crunchy PB and sharp cheddar toastie...
I still wonder why they strung along for a year and transferred so much currency of any type. Seems sliiiiiiightly like they were looking to get a bigger catch?
No. It was a peanut butter and SD sandwich.
War Thunder is a top leak spot
This isn't even the first time people have posted classified docs to the War Thunder forum over dick-swinging about how things should Actually be.
The one you posted was about France's Leclerk tank, but just months before a commander of the UK Royal Tank regiment posted pages from the Challenger 2 tank manual in the forum to support his bitching about the tank mantle. Cue the UK Ministry of Defense getting involved. https://www.pcgamesn.com/war-thunder/challenger-2-classified-documents
Meanwhile, here these geniuses are smuggling SD cards in peanut butter sammiches and then trying to sell the info on craigslist.