Crime & Justice

CIA Hacker Accused of Child Porn Convicted in WikiLeaks Case

‘THE NUCLEAR OPTION’

Federal agents allegedly found a trove of child pornography inside Joshua Schulte’s digital lockbox while searching for evidence pointing to the so-called Vault 7 leak.

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David Burnett/Newsmakers via Getty Images

A disgruntled CIA coder accused of leaking the largest amount of classified national defense information in the agency’s history was convicted on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press. Joshua Schulte, who made the legally dubious decision to represent himself in court for the retrial, faced charges under the Espionage Act after the infamous Vault 7 leak of 2017, when WikiLeaks published evidence showing the spy agency had exploited a software vulnerability to turn personal devices into listening devices. Schulte worked at the CIA’s elite hacking unit, where his nicknames included “Bad Ass,” “Voldemort,” and “the Nuclear Option,” according to a New Yorker profile, until he departed in a huff in late 2016, in large part due to a childish office feud involving Nerf guns and desk placements. Investigators probing the 2017 WikiLeaks dump zeroed in on Schulte, and in seizing a digital lockbox of his, they allegedly stumbled on a trove of child pornography. He was arrested on charges related to the illicit material, after which federal agents were able to collect enough evidence to charge him with the data theft by 2018.

Read it at Associated Press