It is perhaps no accident that a trove of sensitive US documents reportedly ended up in a chat room on Discord, one of a small group of platforms that are widely seen by experts as natural haunts for online renegades.
Authentic appeal
It makes sense that hackers, cyber security professionals, and other technically-savvy people would feel at home in gamer forums, according to Davis.
Military personnel fond of online shooter games are also likely to take part in chat forums, Davis reasoned.
"If you look at most leaks, they really are actually personnel leaks and not cyber security leaks where somebody hacked into the system," Davis said, before the release of the report by the Washington Post.
"So, could this be a 20-something year-old somehow in the military? Of course."
Time will tell, he noted, since if Pentagon documents were hacked from the outside there will be "forensic footprints" that the US is doggedly tracking, Davis said.
"It is highly unlikely this was the result of some teenager that just happened to figure out a way to get access to this information," CTA chief Daniel said of the leak.
"That is just not how things happen."
Davis said that the likes of Discord and Reddit would see continued success.
"People seem to be always be seeking that organic authenticity of a group that really 'gets them'," Davis told AFP.
© 2023 AFP
Citation: Discord, a prime ground for online 'rebels'... and leaks? (2023, April 13) retrieved 15 April 2023 from https://techxplore.com/news/2023-04-discord-prime-ground-online-rebels.html
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