Honestly these guys are both the smartest and stupidest folks imaginable at the same time - I’m just glad it’s the Russians they’re screwing over this time haha
How does this happen? Like people on the forum get into some argument about the turn radius of some tank and how they shouldn’t have lost a game, and then it escalates until someone posts the tank specs so they can be right on the internet?
That and the game is popular among military and ex-military members.
IIRC the reporting fudges the definition of “classified” a bit too.
One time it was a Chinese player pissed that their tank ammo wasn’t as strong as it should be so they posted it for the devs to buff
It’s sometimes this, and it’s sometimes Gaijin just claiming something is classified for whatever reason.
Sometimes, a British tank crewman posts technical specs from their manual for the Challenger 2. Sometimes, Gaijin claims that a declassified, internationally available manual for a Cold War era plane is classified. Or the Wikipedia article on a WW2 tank.
From what I’ve seen it’s usually that Gaijin have something wrong about the vehicle and so people leak actual classified information because they want it to be corrected.
MilSim people can be an odd bunch sometimes
Yea, I had a friend who spent his free time coding how different tarmac temperatures affect the wheels of a fighter plane in a flight sim. (DCS I think)
And the devs are like “Are you fucking dumb? We won’t use classified info in our game.”
Well if it’s something like a turn radius, they can always claim that they just guessed right.
Are they under any obligation to protect the classified information if they’re not the ones who leaked it?
No. You can publish it if you like. This is how journalists work. You cannot get someone to commit a crime towards getting classified documents (Assange tried to teach people to hack shit and pled guilty to this). But accepting them and publishing them is fine and good.
That is not what Assange plead guilty to whatsoever.
“He pleaded guilty to conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified information relating to the national defense of the United States” - https://apnews.com/article/assange-wikileaks-plea-deal-39b72e6be6a775dae9b008728a46e595
Knowingly owning or using classified info without proper clearance is, in fact, a crime.
That’s a large part of what Trump’s classified document raid was for. Former presidents usually have a lot of classified stuff to turn over after leaving office. It’s standard practice, (and perfectly legal) to simply send it back (via the proper channels) as soon as you discover you have it. But if you conceal it and refuse to return it (like Trump did) then that’ll land you in some hot water.
AFAIK it’s part of being given some clearance. In most Western countries it’s fine to republish already leaked material as a private citizen. How would the media do it otherwise?
It’s my understanding that you’re only required to protect the information if you’ve actually agreed to do so, which is obviously a retirement for being given access. Elected officials are a weird area where they have a much easier time getting clearance, but they’ve still made agreements to protect the information.
Trump was authorized to handle classified information in the first place, which is why his mishandling was a problem. I haven’t read the actual law, but I’m pretty sure ordinary people who happen across classified information have no duty at all in any direction. If you can show me an example of a random person getting in trouble for sharing classified information that they didn’t steal or get others to steal, well, let me know.
What hot water has it landed Trump in?
None, because Trump deployed an appropriately-speced Cannon as a countermeasure.
Yes. This is apparently so much of a problem that US and other nations include this in security training for military personnel and contractors. They literally teach you not to get in arguments online about weapons capabilities and whatnot because they know people are dumb enough to post classified info just so they can be like “ackshually…” on an internet forum.
Yes. Supposedly it’s so bad that Raytheon includes the question “Do you or have you ever played War Thunder?” in their interviews now. Tho take that with a huge grain of salt.
Whats it this time?
The leak happened earlier this week during a forum discussion regarding the T-90M, T-80BVM, and T-90S Russian main battle tanks, all of which are currently in service and appear in War Thunder itself. The documents shared are user manuals meant for those operating said vehicles and have, like most other military documents, been declared classified or sensitive even though they contain relatively surface-level information.
For fucking once it’s not idiots leaking western stuff. I’m like halfway convinced War Thunder is a Russian intelligence operation
tbf, if I ran an intel agency, after all these incidents, Id probably have someone “leak” fake classified docs on the warthunder forums or other similar places once in a blue moon, to spread misleading information to rival agencies as to the capabilities of my nation’s equipment. Both to blend in with a place idiots are known to actually post such info, and if its found out my agency was doing this, to cast doubt on the validity of any real docs from my side that were leaked before. Doesnt seem like itd cost much of anything to do, so there would have to be only minimal benefit to be marginally worth it
And who else could fake it better than the people who make them?
There have been two leaks about Chinese tanks and two about Russian jets even before this one, so while it’s mostly Western gear it’s not only that
Oh yeah I know there’s been other leaks before, just that most of the time it seems like it’s western gear and it’s a refreshing change
Not even the stupidest Take. Gijin is a Hungarian game studio and Hungarian Govt is more or less pro Russian.
And it was founded in Moscow by Russians, they only moved the HQ to Budapest later on
Hope it helps Ukraine lol
