That is just the password some professional working in IT-security and cutting edge hacking would pick ... in particular if they were about to commit treason by leaking states secrets.
Sounds like exactly the kind of password an emotionally immature junior employee subject to poor judgment would pick, though.
Whether that's a fair description here, I can't say--but the New Yorker story is certainly internally consistent (and, it must be said, doesn't exactly make the CIA look good, either).
It lines up with his history as a deranged narcissist.
> In a 2009 exchange... one person Schulte interacted with went by “hbp.” Another went by “Sturm.” Josh’s username was “Josh.” At one point, he volunteered to grant his new friends access to the child-porn archive on his server. He had titled it /home/josh/http/porn. Sturm, taken aback, warned Schulte to “rename these things for god’s sake.”
I bet it was a co worker who wanted to leak but also didn't want to be blamed. Or maybe even a coworker who had a grudge against the defendant and didn't care about the leaks at all.
It would be pretty easy to set up. If you work in the same room or building as a coworker how hard is it to set up a camera or a physical key logger to steal their password? Once you have someone's username and password you can make it look like they did anything. You could even do something nefarious on their computer when they went home for the evening.
You may think that as security professionals they would definitely notice a key logger, but do you honestly think _anyone_ checks the back of their computer every time they come back from a lunch break?
The password was 'KingJosh3000'.
That is just the password some professional working in IT-security and cutting edge hacking would pick ... in particular if they were about to commit treason by leaking states secrets.