Thread by @mattblaze

This case reads like a spy novel, and also illustrates the limits of cryptography. He set up encrypted communication and dead drops with a foreign government (even calling the endpoints “alice” and “bob”), but was actually communicating with the FBI.

justice.gov/opa/press-rele…

My guess for COUNTRY1 is France: has subs, independent enough that someone might approach but friendly enough to rebuff the approach and cooperate with the US, not English speaking.

A couple things jumped out at me. As soon as the FBI got the package from COUNTRY1, they clearly took it VERY seriously. Within just a week they had analyzed the SD card and sent an initial response to the Proton account.

It's interesting that COUNTRY1 got the package in April, but waited until after the election (December) to decide to rebuff it and share with the US. Would they have if the election had gone the other way?

Toebbe was very careful, and the complaint doesn't suggest too many mistakes on his part. Absent other details, the main thing that allowed him to be IDd was that he let "Bob" select dead drop sites, which were (obviously) under surveillance.

But Toebbe wasn't actually a trained spy, and I suspect his tradecraft was derived from reading the open literature (and spy novels).

In any case, there are only five countries beside the US with nuclear-propelled subs: Russia, China, UK, India and France. RU and China aren't going to cooperate. English (of a sort) is spoken in the UK.

That leaves India and France. Of the two,,with which would you apologize for poorly speaking the language and muse about sharing a bottle of wine in a cafe?

There are other countries with aspirations for building nuclear-propelled subs which are possibilities. Australia is one, but again, English speaking. Brazil is another possibility. So if not France, maybe Brazil.