This case reads like a spy novel, and also illustrates the limits of cryptography. He set up encrypted communication and dead drops with a foreign government (even calling the endpoints “alice” and “bob”), but was actually communicating with the FBI. https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1440946/download …
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My guess for COUNTRY1 is France: has subs, independent enough that someone might approach but friendly enough to rebuff the approach and cooperate with the US, not English speaking.
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A couple things jumped out at me. As soon as the FBI got the package from COUNTRY1, they clearly took it VERY seriously. Within just a week they had analyzed the SD card and sent an initial response to the Proton account.
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It's interesting that COUNTRY1 got the package in April, but waited until after the election (December) to decide to rebuff it and share with the US. Would they have if the election had gone the other way?
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Toebbe was very careful, and the complaint doesn't suggest too many mistakes on his part. Absent other details, the main thing that allowed him to be IDd was that he let "Bob" select dead drop sites, which were (obviously) under surveillance.
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Replying to @mattblaze
How is that consistent with very careful? He starts by saying he'll upload the data to a sharing site, then he insists on choosing the dead drop himself, and by the end he's taking his wife to a location he didn't select and that he himself says is uncomfortably exposed.
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Replying to @Pinboard @mattblaze
He ended doing that only after having seen the signal inside Country1-controlled building in DC (the embassy, I guess). So it wasn't unreasonable : he just missed that the FBI was helped by Country1 - again.
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But there was no reason to climb down from the two safer methods he initially proposed (uploading a file, or choosing his own dead drop), when in his own words he still had doubts. Like Matt, I'd love to see the FBI side of this conversation, which was clearly very well handled.
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