Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Thursday September 27 2018, @04:39PM   Printer-friendly
from the me-and-my-shadow...brokers dept.

NSA employee who brought hacking tools home sentenced to 66 months in prison

Nghia Hoang Pho, a 68-year-old former National Security Agency employee who worked in the NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) division, was sentenced today to 66 months in prison for willful, unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents and material from his workplace—material that included hacking tools that were likely part of the code dumped by the individual or group known as Shadowbrokers in the summer of 2016.

Pho, a naturalized US citizen from Vietnam and a resident of Ellicott City, Maryland, had pleaded guilty to bringing home materials after being caught in a sweep by the NSA following the Shadowbrokers leaks. He will face three years of supervised release after serving his sentence. His attorney had requested home detention.

In a letter sent to the court in March, former NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers told Judge George Russell that the materials removed from the NSA by Pho "had significant negative impacts on the NSA mission, the NSA workforce, and the Intelligence Community as a whole." The materials Pho removed, Rogers wrote, included:

[S]ome of NSA's most sophisticated, hard-to-achieve, and important techniques of collecting [signals intelligence] from sophisticated targets of the NSA, including collection that is crucial to decision makers when answering some of the Nation's highest-priority questions... Techniques of the kind Mr. Pho was entrusted to protect, yet removed from secure space, are force multipliers, allowing for intelligence collection in a multitude of environments around the globe and spanning a wide range of security topics. Compromise of one technique can place many opportunities for intelligence collection and national security insight at risk.

Previously: Former NSA Employee Nghia Pho Pleads Guilty to Willful Retention of National Defense Information

Related: "The Shadow Brokers" Claim to Have Hacked NSA
The Shadow Brokers Identify Hundreds of Targets Allegedly Hacked by the NSA
Former NSA Contractor May Have Stolen 75% of TAO's Elite Hacking Tools
Former NSA Contractor Harold Martin Indicted


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday September 27 2018, @06:28PM (1 child)

    by Thexalon (636) on Thursday September 27 2018, @06:28PM (#740933)

    In case you hadn't noticed, being powerful has equaled a get-out-of-jail-free card for a very long time. For instance, it's been an unwritten law since at least 1974 (thanks to Gerald Ford) that no former president will ever be prosecuted for a crime, especially a crime committed while in office. And yes, Bill Clinton's immunity also likely extends to Hillary.

    Think about it for about 10 seconds, and the reason is obvious: If Hillary Clinton were locked up for anything, Donald Trump probably would be too sooner or later. Trump doesn't want to be locked up, so he's not going to lock up Clinton, no matter what she's done.

    In the words of George Carlin: It's a big club, and you ain't in it. And no, I ain't in it either.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Interesting=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @06:41PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2018, @06:41PM (#740942)

    While there is plenty of truth to the rich and powerful club that isn't quite the whole story. Read ikanreed's comments for a more objective assessment.