On Dec. 22nd, 2011, the Guardian reported on the last day of hearings for Bradley Manning. Today, both the US government and Manning's defense team gave their closing arguments. Now an investigating officer must determine whether there is enough evidence to court-martial Manning. That determination is not binding.
According to the Guardian, the government's closing was very detailed, laying out all the evidence in their favor for the investigating officer. The government's closing mentioned that Manning may have been in personal contact with Julian Assange and spent "all his working hours" looking for more confidential information to leak. The government wrapped up by stressing how Manning had betrayed his country and put many American lives at risk.
The Guardian also walked through the defense's closing. Specifically, the defense's theory was that the government was trying to "strong-arm" Manning by charging him with so many crimes. The defense also noted that the impact of the released information has been overblown, and again made references to Manning's mental condition.
The source article can be found here.
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On Dec. 22nd, 2011, the Christian Science Monitor argued that the Bradley Manning trial demonstrates that insiders might be just as great a cybersecurity threat as external hackers. According to the article, the amount of insider attacks over the past 10 years hasn't necessarily increased. However, the threat of insider attack might be overlooked.
The article has a great quote from a technical manager of the CERT inside threat center:
"Companies today are going to greater lengths to keep outsiders and nation-states out of their networks, yet insiders come to work every day . . . most of these malicious insiders do what they do every day."
The rest of the article can be found here.
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