By: Benjamin He

Most of us are probably familiar with the term “video games” these days. And that “most of us” are likely familiar with the heat that video games feed to the argumentative fires raging online. In real life, controllers are thrown, keyboards are broken over knees, confused dogs are shouted at, etc. Online, insults are texted and thrown over at people at lightning speed, ridiculous accusations of cheating sprout out and about all over the place, and arguments over what kind of lore Rainforest Cafe could hold keep breaking out. It’s Digital Combat Simulator all over again.

Oh, and there’s also the fact that people keep posting classified documents in the case of national security over a debate about a popular, free-to-play vehicular combat video game called “War Thunder.”

Last year, two classified documents concerning national security were leaked, and it happened again this year.

In total, the players of “War Thunder” have leaked three classified documents that were related to British, French, and Chinese origin in an online forum that was dedicated to the game. These postings were first acknowledged and reported by the UK Defence Journal.

There was an upload of a manual to a British Challenger 2 Tank to get the developers to make the game more realistic. Another player who claimed to be part of a French tank unit posted a Leclerc S2 manual while engaging in an online debate about the turret rotation speed of the tank in the game. Another user who posted a piece of classified information about China’s DTC10-125 tank didn’t state the reason why they did this.

“War Thunder’s” primary publisher and the forum’s host, Gaijin Entertainment, removed all three posts. However, experts say that the information the posts held probably wasn’t all that useful to any nations engaged in rivalries with the three countries.

“I didn’t see anything I’d jump up and down about,” said Steven Zaloga, a senior analyst at the Teal Group, which has been studying tanks for about 50 years and published dozens of volumes about armored vehicles and military technology.

Zaloga also mentioned that the Leclerc and the Challenger have both been exported to foreign nations.

“Tank manuals will be classified at various levels even though a lot of information in it is not especially sensitive,” Zaloga stated.

“It was from a user manual so it’s classified, but it’s distributed fairly widely to anyone who uses the tank, supports it, or maintains it,” said Sonny Butterworth, a senior analyst for land platforms at Janes, a defense intelligence company.

Butterworth stated that in the case of the Chinese tank, the information in the post was public as early as 2018. He also noted the U.S. Army’s TRADOC (Training and Doctrine Command) posts similar information on some of the public websites it hosts. Information on tanks and how countries like to use said tanks are already public.

Both tank experts stated that only a blueprint, or documents detailing specific armor materials or configurations, would be of potential value to rival nations.

“If publications keep getting leaked, something that looks innocuous could be quite important to someone who knows what to look for,” Butterworth said.

Anton Yudintsev, the founder of Gaijin Entertainment, stated that his company had aimed to remove all classified document leaks as quickly as possible.

“We explain to the users again and again that it’s pointless to give us any documents that we cannot and won’t use, but we probably can do more to explain this,” he said. “Unfortunately there is no way to completely prevent people from publishing something on the internet. We delete the posts and permanently ban those who break the rules, so our users know that they risk everything essentially for nothing.”

Yudinstev has claimed that his company had not been contacted by any governments on subjects concerning the leaks. Both the French and Chinese Embassies in the U.S. declined to comment.

“We’re happy that even military professionals like what we do,” Yudintsev said. “But breaking the law in order to win an argument online is too much. I’d like to ask all of them: please, never do that!

“If you have [classified information] and communicate it, you are in violation of the letter of the law,” Barbara L. McQuade, a former United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan and University of Michigan Law School professor, said. Still, to be prosecuted, “there is a requirement that you have an intent to harm the United States or provide an advantage to a foreign country,” she said about 18 U.S. Code § 794.

Source:

War Thunder fans leaked classified docs to get more realistic tanks – The Washington Post.pdf