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United States Politics Your Rights Online

Former DoE Employee Ensnared By Secret-Selling Sting Pleads Guilty (washingtonpost.com) 40

mdsolar writes: A former Energy Department employee accused of attempting to infiltrate the agency's computer system to steal nuclear secrets and sell them to a foreign government pleaded guilty Tuesday to a reduced charge of attempting to damage protected government computers in an email "spear-phishing attack." Charles Harvey Eccleston, a former employee at the department and at the independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), was arrested March 27 by Philippine authorities after an undercover FBI sting operation. Eccleston, 62, a U.S. citizen who had been living in the Philippines since 2011, was "terminated" from his job at the NRC in 2010, according to the Justice Department. In January 2015, the department said, he targeted more than 80 Energy Department employees in Washington at four national nuclear labs with emails containing what he thought were links to malicious websites that, if activated, could infect and damage computers.
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Former DoE Employee Ensnared By Secret-Selling Sting Pleads Guilty

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  • by OzPeter ( 195038 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2016 @05:14PM (#51434751)

    Non paywalled version [securityweek.com]

    Not only that the story seems to have bypassed the firehose. Didn't we already chat about this yesterday whipslash?

    • WashPost link wasn't paywalled for me. You're in the US?

      • WashPost link wasn't paywalled for me. You're in the US?

        You may be able to bypass WoPo's paywall if you are coming from a .edu, .gov, or .mil client. You may also be able to access a quota of articles before the paywall kicks in. They play around with different policies, so I am not sure if these particular policies are currently in effect.

  • by mdsolar ( 1045926 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2016 @05:52PM (#51435035) Homepage Journal
    Most nuclear weapons proliferation occurs through espionage. Soviet Union, China, Israel, Pakistan all used spies to get started.
    • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      By far and away the majority of defence industry espionage occurs via corporate greed, straight up selling secrets to the highest bidder. The more defence is contracted the more corrupt it becomes. Now you have contractors in the decision making process of whether or not to go to war, contractors fining ways to fabricate evidence in order to promote war and contractors stacking the decision making process with corrupt officials looking for non-working high salary positions. The FBI has it's job cut out for

    • by stephanruby ( 542433 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2016 @11:53PM (#51436773)

      Most nuclear weapons proliferation occurs through espionage. Soviet Union, China, Israel, Pakistan all used spies to get started.

      Most nuclear weapons proliferation occurs through defectors. The US, Soviet Union, China, Israel, Pakistan all used defectors to get started.

  • Expect teams to approach a lot of people who have just left or have changed jobs from work with a security clearance.
    A preemptive chat down to see how a person responds when contacted by a stranger, press, authors, peace activist, historians, random charming foreigner, fake diplomat with heavy accent or just a "new" "friend" in the area.
    Holidays or travel really seem to get a person of interest to the top of a watch list.
    When in another nation be careful of a honey trap or the friendly stranger approach.
    • So in other words, it's exactly the same as what happens when a foreign intelligence agency wants to get information from an American.

      Changing jobs might mean you're unhappy with your previous employer, and want to embarrass them. A stranger, press, authors, peace activist, historians, random charming foreigner, fake diplomat with heavy accent or just a "new" "friend" in the area might just be able to convince you that your government is the embodiment of Absolute Evil.

      Holidays or travel really make for gre

      • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
        Report every approach by anyone for any reason while at work and after work :)
        Thats going to be some big new databases to spend on and look after filled by the millions of contractors, mil and gov workers.
        The the over time for the gov chat down teams that have to go out nationally and internationally to work on ex staff and former staff.
        A whole new bureaucracy, set of contractors and funding. How many team members per person of interest? 2 at a min for a buddy system and to confirm? 6 for technical
  • Isnt allow nuclear info out a death sentence?
  • He should have simply removed the markings from any documents containing classified information. Then he could say "they weren't marked classified when I sent them."

    What's that, intentionally altering the markings for illicit purposes is another, separate felony?

  • "...in a plea deal with prosecutors both sides said a term of 24 to 30 months is appropriate..."

    AYFKM?

    Did the prosecutors not comprehend what the hell he was doing?

  • BLM is often rocked by scandal as their employees accept bribes from mining and oil industry. Does NRC also attract the corruptible because of its regulatory role?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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