Users elaborate on how confidential documents managed to spread gradually on the internet without detection.
A prominent free chat platform that serves the video gaming community has come under scrutiny due to the biggest leak of classified Pentagon documents since Edward Snowden. Originally created in 2015 as a chat application for gamers to collaborate on strategies in multi-player video games, Discord has evolved into a secure platform for confidential conversations, which inadvertently drew users who wished to spread hate speech without consequences.
Discord differs from social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook in that it operates in a decentralized manner, with communities forming public or private groups known as servers for gamers to engage with one another. The majority of servers hosted on Discord are private and invite-only, meaning that they are not searchable or accessible to outsiders.
Discord’s group or server structure comprises separate channels that serve as distinct chat rooms, segmented by topic. Each server can accommodate hundreds of thousands of users simultaneously. At present, Discord has a valuation of £12 billion ($15 billion).
According to court documents, 21-year-old Jack Teixeira, the alleged source of the Pentagon leaks, was the administrator of a private Discord server named Thug Shaker Central. It was within this closed group that Teixeira supposedly shared numerous confidential military documents, including links to CIA briefings.
What made this leak remarkable is that the confidential documents were supposedly shared within the Thug Shaker Central group from January of this year, but were able to remain unnoticed and within the group’s confines due to Discord’s privacy features. However, this changed when one member, who went by the username Lucca, chose to disclose some of the documents to a larger, publicly searchable group consisting of approximately 4,000 members.
The screenshots obtained from the larger group depict Lucca sharing numerous documents related to the Ukraine conflict, including maps, intelligence briefings, and other sensitive information from 1 March 2023. Kralj stated that no law enforcement officials had contacted him or any other Discord moderators about the matter.
