Once again gamers appear to be behind a dramatic leak of classified military intelligence. Documents originally emanating from the Pentagon appear to have been shared on the video game chat platform Discord by a 21-year-old air national guardsman – in an effort to win an esoteric argument involving the highly popular video game Minecraft Maps and the war in Ukraine. He has now been arrested as the prime suspect.
Many are describing this as the most serious breach of US security in a decade since the 2013 Wikileaks scandal. The leaked documents suggest that special forces personnel from western countries could be active in Ukraine — with the largest contingent coming from the UK.
While military officials and politicians obfuscate over the fallout, this particular round of leaks may come as a source of relief to the makers of War Thunder, a popular online multiplayer combat video simulation game. Previously, War Thunder had been leading the way when it comes to leaking state secrets, with several of its users publishing classified military intelligence to win arguments about vehicles that feature in the game.
Recent War Thunder leaks have included a player claiming to be a French army tank crewman uploading on the game’s online public forum part of the manual for the French Leclerc main battle tank during a debate about its turret rotation speed.
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