As usual printout issued to the intelligence services of the informant of journalists.

Фото: Depositphotos

5 June edition The Intercept published material on how the General Intelligence Agency of Russia participated in the hacking of the US electoral system on the eve of the presidential election in 2016.

The publication received this information from its source in the US National Security Agency (NSA), which gave the journalists a document on the agency’s investigation data, writes AIN.ua.

Already a few hours after the publication of the material, the informant was detained by the FBI, which revealed him thanks to several points on a printout of a secret document published by journalists.

After reporters The Intercept received a document from the source, they decided to verify its authenticity by contacting the NSA directly, for this purpose they sent a copy of the printout to the agency.

This was the first clue to the disclosure of the informant. The scanned copy showed traces of paper curvatures (it means that the document was printed and sent by regular mail) and coded watermarks that indicated when and on which printer the print was made.

Screenshot from The Intercept

After checking it turned out thatsingle marks left the printer when printing Xerox Docucolor. Printing special patterns containing meta-data about the device and print time is a common feature in printers built into the machine’s software. Researchers Electronic Frontier Foundation have created tool to decipher printer patterns Docucolor. Using it in Arstechinca decoded watermarks on the document received The Intercept and found out that it was printed on 9 May, in 6: 20 on a printer with a serial number 535218 or 29535218.

Screenshot from w2.eff.org

With this data, the NSA could quickly determine who printed the document by checking the logs of the printers. Investigators found that the informant The Intercept was 25-year-old Reality Winner who worked for Pluribis International Corporation. The company provides services for analytics, translation, and development of cyber weapons for the intelligence community.

As part of the investigation, it became clear that a report published in the media printed 6 people. Winner was one of them. Further verification of their computers revealed that Winner had contact with the media through e-mail. During detention the woman admitted that she was the source of The Intercept.

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