Joshua Schulte is a former Central Intelligence Agency computer engineer in the agency’s Directorate of Science and Technology and the source of the 2017 Vault 7 WikiLeaks disclosure — the largest public release of CIA offensive technical capabilities to date. He is currently serving a 40-year U.S. federal prison sentence on espionage charges and maintains his innocence.[1]
Disclosure
In 2017 Schulte allegedly downloaded the “crown jewels” of the agency’s science-and-technology directorate and transmitted them to WikiLeaks. The resulting publication ran to thousands of pages and documented capabilities including remote takeover of internet-connected vehicles, conversion of smart-television speakers into covert microphones, and false-flag attribution tooling. The motive, as charged by federal prosecutors and described by John Kiriakou, was workplace grievance: “He was apparently allegedly a disgruntled engineer. He didn’t like his boss. He didn’t like his co-workers. They didn’t like him.”[1][2]