WikiLeaks Publishes Dozens of CIA Director’s Alleged Email and AIM Contacts

Another day, another WikiLeaks release.

As promised, the secret-spilling organization led by Julian Assange released more information obtained by the teenage hackers who allegedly broke into the email account of CIA Director John Brennan on Thursday.

The new release consists of two documents, a preface and an executive summary report on the US government's strategy in Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as a long list of Brennan's email and AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) contacts.The list has almost two hundred AIM handles, and more than 1,000 email addresses.

On Wednesday, WikiLeaks published a first batch of documents from Brennan's account, none of them classified. The group, however, also published an unredacted draft of Brennan's Standard Form 86, a form that every government employee with a security clearance has to fill. The form contains loads of personal data on the applicant, as well as his family. In this case, the form contained Brennan's social security number, as well as that of some of his family members.

Some have questioned the value of publishing such personal details.

Can you also explain why you're releasing them? Jameel JafferOctober 22, 2015

The anti-secrecy crusaders once known for exposing war crimes are now publishing the personal information of civilians instead. Lovely.

Noah ShachtmanOctober 21, 2015

"It's a perversion of transparency to turn it into a weapon against personal privacy," Steven Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, and an expert in government secrecy, told The Daily Beast.

A WikiLeaks spokesperson did not respond to Motherboard's request for comment.

The documents were apparently obtained from Brennan's AOL email account. A group of hackers named "Crackas With Attitude" announced on Monday that it had breached into the account, and explained that it had used social engineering to trick AOL to reset the account's password. Hacking into the account, one of the hackers told Motherboard, was so easy a "5 year old could do it."

An FBI spokesperson confirmed to Motherboard in an email that the bureau "is investigating this matter jointly with the US Secret Service," but "because this is an ongoing investigation, we are restricted from commenting further."

The hackers claimed to be from teenagers from the United States, and used Twitter to publicize their feat, as well as taunt the CIA and the US government. Their current whereabouts are unknown, but one of the hackers, known as "Cracka" has not tweeted for more than 24 hours at the time of publication.

what are those flashing lights

crackaOctober 21, 2015