4.3 • 882 Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2023
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
How is that a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman posted government secrets to a private Discord group for almost a year before anyone noticed? On today’s episode of Angry Planet, Bellingcat’s Aric Toler walks us through the culture that created poster and edgelord Jack Teixeira.
Toler also talks about working with The New York Times, dodging phone calls from the FBI, and the digital forensics he used to identify Teixeira. We talk about the Something Awful Forums, 4chan and KiwiFarms, and why Teixeira isn’t a “leaker” at all, he’s a poster.
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0:00.0 | Love this podcast support this show through the a cast supporter feature |
0:05.1 | It's up to you how much you give and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. People live in a world with their own making. |
0:25.0 | Frankly, that seems to be the problem. |
0:31.0 | Welcome to Angry Planet. |
0:34.0 | I'm Matthew Galt and I'm |
0:45.0 | and I'm Jason Fields. I must warn you audience I have done little to no |
0:50.0 | preparation for this episode because I've been so deeply invested in the story |
0:54.4 | that we're going to be talking about today. I did some reporting on it but not nearly |
0:58.8 | as much as our guest Eric Toller of Bellingcat also doing some writing for the New York Times. |
1:05.0 | We're going to be talking about the Discord Leaks today. |
1:07.0 | Eric, thank you so much for coming on to the show and walking us through this. |
1:12.0 | Sure, happy to be on. |
1:14.0 | Thanks for having me. |
1:15.0 | So the first and most important question I have for you is, |
1:19.0 | are you now or have you ever been a member of the Something Awful forums? |
1:25.0 | A long time ago, yeah, when I was, I think when I, I think 2003 or 4, I think I had an account. |
1:32.0 | I can't remember exactly when. I remember I got the account when I bought a I was |
1:40.9 | 14 or 15 or 15 a month. I'm 34 now, so let me do my reverse math in my head. |
1:46.0 | 2004 minus 1988, 16, then, okay, right, so I was 16. |
1:51.5 | When I was 16, I remember I bought this computer case from some guy, and it broke on its way over, and he couldn't have money to give me a full refund because he'd already spent most of it, because he like, he packed it really badly. |
2:03.0 | So he gave me a partial refund and then gifted me an account on something awful forms. |
2:07.0 | It was like his way of like compensating me for his like, his like poorly packed computer case when I built in my first computer and I was 16. |
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