You give a kiss to good friends, but not stolen military documents, not even on Minecraft Discord servers.
On Minecraft Discord servers, you can find all kinds of interesting stuff: screenshots of huge construction projects, instructions for Redstone machines, memes and… top secret military information. The latter have little place there, though.
A US-American and former member of the US National Guard didn’t take the secrecy very seriously and, of all places, divulged state secrets on a Minecraft Discord server, which has now earned him a hefty prison sentence.
When it’s not about the US military, Minecraft is making a name for itself with the new live-action movie:
First stolen, then shared
22-year-old Jack Teixeira was sentenced to 15 years in prison after sharing classified military secrets on the Discord server. The documents included, among other things, US and NATO plans to support Ukraine and details of a Chinese drone program.
As it turned out, Teixeira shouldn’t have had access to this information. According to the Office of Public Affairs’ press release, he had served as a cyber defense operations specialist in an intelligence unit since 2019.
In 2022, he began viewing material above his clearance level and duplicating it using a “remote printer.” He then shared the information he printed and copied on his Discord server.
Im and the Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, who was responsible, found harsh words:
By posting intelligence products on the social media platform Discord to feed his own ego and impress his anonymous friends, Teixeira inflicted exceptionally grave damage on the national security of the United States. The magnitude of his betrayal is staggering. The damage he has done is immeasurable.
Initially, the documents remained undetected on the server. It was only after they were shared on other servers and the image board 4chan that law enforcement became aware of them. When the news reported on it, Teixeira instructed his Discord friends to delete all digital evidence, changed his username and destroyed his iPad and other devices that could incriminate him.
Investigators were still able to convict him after Discord handed over his address, as reported by The Register
Teixeira was arrested in April 2023 and charged in a criminal complaint with storing and sharing classified information. On November 12, 2024, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison, with three years of probation following the sentence.
In the above-mentioned press release, FBI Director Christopher Wray called the verdict a “strong warning to all those entrusted with protecting national defense information: Those who abuse that trust will be held accountable.”
