Classified Information Got Leaked on ‘War Thunder’ Forums Again
Add it to the list.
Published 23 minutes ago in Facepalm
The past decade has seen an unprecedented number of leaks, largely due to the government’s tendency to hire people who can’t keep their mouth shut.
While some of these leaks happen the normal way (calling a reporter after a trip to a bar and asking, “Do you want to hear a secret?”), an increasing number of them have emerged through possibly the stupidest means possible: online arguments about video games.
One of the most prominent places for this to happen is discussions around the free-to-play game War Thunder. The game boasts that the performance of everything in it is true-to-life — and so, when some players think that it isn’t accurate, they’ll post threads saying so. If they have access to classified information, they may also include it to prove their point.
Unbelievably, this has already happened a few times, and now, well, it happened again. For the ninth time, online discussions about War Thunder have been the source of classified intelligence leaks. This time, it was a manual for the AV-8B Harrier, which is only for authorized U.S. government personnel.
Remember: Internet points just aren’t worth a criminal trial.