Pentagon Document Leaker Outed by His Steam Profile

Who knew that Steam could be used to track down people?

Apparently, that was the case for Jack Teixeira, the person accused of leaking confidential documents from the Pentagon.

The US government continues to investigate the source of the leak, how it's spreading on social media platforms, and its impact on its national security.

Pentagon aeriel shot — The Pentagon is seen from the air in Washington, DC, on March 2, 2022. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

How Teixeira Was Tracked down

Teixeira isn't the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to leaking government records, despite his stint as an Air National Guardsman in Massachusetts. According to the official Twitter account of the New York Times' Christiaan Triebert, his investigative journalism team identified the leaker by identifying a Steam profile allegedly in Teixeira's name that mentions his Instagram profile.

A closer inspection of the photos posted on that Instagram profile showed a granite kitchen countertop with a white-tiled floor underneath that seemed to be similar to the one that appeared in Teixeira's leaks, per Engadget. Teixeira went to Discord, an instant messaging app popular among gamers, to leak the documents he smuggled from the Pentagon sometime in late 2022.

Analysts traced Teixeira's leak to the app around Apr. 11, which showed several classified documents that contains large volumes of information about the Russo-Ukranian conflict, such as Ukraine's strategy and Russia's bids to secure weapons from Egypt and Turkey.

Why Discord?

Unusually, Teixeira used Discord to leak the documents he stole, which appeared to be posted to at least two chatrooms on Discord according to a CNN report. The instant messaging app does use basic encryption, according to Stealth Optional, but it doesn't use end-to-end encryption, unlike Signal or Telegram.

Instead, Discord uses Transport Layer Security to encrypt text and images in transit, per the app's Privacy Policy.

Teixeira allegedly didn't want to act as a whistleblower when he posted the leaks on a Discord server, as he only wanted to impress his gaming friends. However, the documents he leaked eventually found their way to other Discord servers, as well as 4chan and Telegram through one Discord user going the username "Lucca," a respected user that seemingly lost all respect when he didn't take the images down.

"No one thought they were real. It's stupid to post government documents on Discord, you know? Lucca was like, 'Oh, hey, guys, look at these funny things I'm finding on this one server.'" a Serbian university student on Discord told The Guardian. "Turns out, not as funny as we thought it was."

What's not unusual is that he is charged with the unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents following his arrest on Apr. 13. Teixeira will face a hearing on Apr. 19 regarding his charges which could get him locked up in prison for up to 15 years if proven guilty. Teixeira has yet to enter a plea for his upcoming hearing.

Needless to say, Teixeira's leak puts the US' national security at risk, with the Pentagon still determining the magnitude of the documents' leak.