Pentagon leak traced to video game chat group users arguing over the war in Ukraine on Discord

According to open-source intelligence analysts, it appears that a batch of documents that caused damage and were leaked from the Pentagon was initially shared on the video game chat platform Discord. The purpose of this sharing was to win an argument about the war in Ukraine.

Although the unusual provenance of the leak may seem peculiar, it is not the first instance where a disagreement between gamers has resulted in an intelligence breach. The overlapping communities of military and gaming platforms have caused difficulties on numerous occasions.

Last week, documents estimating casualties in the Bakhmut theatre of battle began circulating on public social networks, thereby revealing the existence of the leaked cache.

Observers of the war circulated two versions of the documents, one of which had been digitally manipulated in a crude manner to underestimate Russian casualties and overestimate Ukrainian ones. The accurate version of the documents originated from a leak to 4chan, an image board infamous for giving rise to the "alt-right" movement.

Simultaneously, a second group of records, which consisted of the altered image, was being circulated within pro-Russian Telegram channels.

Prior to their public release on the internet, the documents were exchanged within private chat rooms facilitated by Discord, a chat application primarily catering to gamers. Specifically, within a server titled "Minecraft Earth Map," 10 of the documents were disseminated as early as 4 March, a month before their appearance on 4chan.

“After a brief spat with another person on the server about Minecraft Maps and the war in Ukraine, one of the Discord users replied: ‘Here, have some leaked documents’ – attaching 10 documents about Ukraine, some of which bore the ‘top secret’ markings,” said Aric Toler, an analyst at the investigative research group§ Bellingcat.

In turn, that particular user had discovered the documents on a separate Discord server established by and for admirers of the Filipino YouTuber WowMao, where a total of 30 documents, along with "dozens" of other unauthenticated records concerning Ukraine, were published three days before. Nonetheless, even this source does not seem to be the original origin, as a third Discord server, which goes by the names "Thug Shaker Central" and other titles, potentially served as the initial platform where the documents were made available as early as mid-January.

For some time, intelligence agencies have recognized the importance of monitoring gaming communities. In 2013, a collection of documents leaked by Edward Snowden, a contractor for the NSA, uncovered that the agency was actively surveilling Xbox Live, the voice chat system for Microsoft's gaming console, and had even sent real-life operatives into the virtual world of Azeroth, the locale of the World of Warcraft franchise.

One document entitled "Exploiting Terrorist Use of Games & Virtual Environments," authored in 2008, cautioned against the dangers of under-monitoring gaming communities, citing them as a "target-rich communications network." The memo highlighted that numerous agencies were conducting operations within gaming services to such an extent that a "deconfliction" group was required to prevent unintentional espionage on each other.

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