WHO’S YOUR DADDY? According to the Justice Department, Lee Reiber, 55, CEO of Virginia-based Oxygen Forensics, was arrested in Idaho on a federal complaint alleging that the company was secretly owned and controlled by five Russian nationals and that its software was being developed in Russia. Co-defendant Oleg Davydov, 52, the company's Moscow-based chief technology officer, was arrested at London's Heathrow Airport before boarding a flight to Istanbul. Reiber is expected to be arraigned in federal court in Los Angeles and U.S. authorities say they will likely seek Davydov’s extradition. Of course, both men are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court. The details of prosecutors laid out are pretty interesting as customers of the company are believed to include the Pentagon, the Secret Service, Homeland Security Investigations and the DHS Office of Inspector General, the agency charged with investigating waste, fraud and abuse at DHS. RFE/RL reports that the same Russian owners also ran a Moscow company whose customers included Russia's FSB, the successor to the KGB's domestic-security service. Prosecutors say the Russians disappeared from Oxygen's corporate filings after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine but continued to control key aspects of the business, including Reiber's compensation and company bank accounts. When a reporter began asking questions in 2023, prosecutors say Reiber warned the owners that press coverage "could destroy this entire opportunity." The Secret Service's National Computer Forensics Institute later awarded Oxygen a five-year contract potentially worth up to $12 million. Reiber and Davydov are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud. DOJ does not allege that Oxygen's software contained malicious code or that it was used to break into government systems.
FBI JOBS PORTAL A LITTLE TOO WIDE OPEN? The FBI’s online recruiting system appears to have attracted some applicants who were less interested in joining the Bureau than in rifling through its personnel files. The cybercrime group ShinyHunters claims it breached FBIjobs.gov and stole data on “almost all” FBI agents and job applicants. The FBI has confirmed unauthorized activity involving the site but has not confirmed the hackers’ broader claims about what was accessed. A sample of about 5,000 purported agent records examined by 404 Media included names, home addresses, phone numbers and reportedly even information about spouses. No word on whether it also included favorite pets. Here’s the rub: ShinyHunters says it has data on virtually the entire FBI workforce, including current and former employees and applicants, and claims the haul could include as much as 2 to 3 terabytes of information. If the broader claims prove true, this is a much bigger problem for the Bureau. ShinyHunters claims the attack was in retaliation for an FBI warning about the group’s cybercrime tactics. This could get ugly.
PIT STOP PEACE TALKS: As we’ve mentioned in the Dead Drop before, CIA Director John Ratcliffe flew to Moscow in late August aboard an unmarked C-17 to meet with Russia's top intelligence officials. Now it seems he may have checked in with the other side of the war, during a refueling stop. According to Reuters, Ratcliffe met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at Ireland's Shannon Airport on Monday, and the two reportedly spoke informally while their planes were being refueled. Zelensky was on his way to the UN General Assembly in New York. Ratcliffe was heading home from Egypt, where he had met with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Neither side will say what was discussed but from what we’re hearing, more experience Intelligence background folks are pretty excited about Ratcliffe’s involvement.
TRANSFORMER TOMBS. LITHUANIA PREPS FOR THE DRONE AGE: Lithuania is reportedly building a new electrical substation near Russia's Kaliningrad enclave, and apparently the days of protecting critical infrastructure with a fence and a padlock are over. According to Reuters, the country's power-grid operator is designing the facility to withstand everything from explosive-laden trucks to tunnels and, most ominously, explosive drones. The transformers will get their own custom-built reinforced-concrete "sarcophagi," with artificial cooling systems to keep the equipment from cooking inside its protective tomb. The project is expected to cost at least €48 million more because of the extra security measures. According to the CEO of the company building the facility, infrastructure planners once worried mainly about natural disasters. Now they must worry about "all possible hybrid and non-hybrid threats." It seems even transformers need bomb shelters now.
GONE TO THE GOATS: The Marine Corps has unleashed a new weapon in the fight against wildfires: 471 goats. Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego has launched “Operation Goat Rope,” deploying the four-legged fire-prevention force across more than 600 acres of rugged terrain with orders to consume dry brush and invasive grasses. The mission is especially tricky because the area includes an explosive-ordnance-disposal range, where sending Marines or heavy machinery to clear vegetation can be hazardous. The Marines say the goat grazing will create fuel breaks that can slow wildfires and protect both the base and nearby communities. As far as we know, it’s the first time a U.S. military installation has used grazing animals for wildfire mitigation. The Corps hasn’t said whether the goats will receive hazard pay or combat ribbons but did suggest that, like so many military operations, it will “only take a few weeks.”
GOING OFF SCRIPT: The Pentagon recently welcomed YouTube stars and professional boxers Jake and Logan Paul for a tour, a meeting with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and an appearance in the Pentagon briefing room. Jake Paul recently offered some thoughts on national security, arguing that civilians may eventually need access to advanced weapons because drones, autonomous robots and other military technologies could leave ordinary Americans powerless against their own government. He mentioned RPGs, anti-helicopter weapons and drones as possible examples. He also suggested that the Constitution was written in 1781. It was actually 1787 but close enough for government work. While at the Pentagon, the Paul brothers also reportedly addressed a group of servicemen and women in the now largely un-used press briefing room.
APPARENTLY THERE WAS NO TRACKING NUMBER: The F-35 has a stealth problem that has nothing to do with flying. Some of its parts have apparently disappeared. According to Politico, a shipment of "unserviceable" F-35 components was being sent from Australia to the United States for repairs when it was mysteriously diverted while crossing the Pacific and wound up in Hong Kong. The Pentagon has confirmed there was a "shipment issue" and says it is working with U.S. authorities and Lockheed Martin to recover the parts and figure out what happened. Among the components was an F-35 cockpit canopy, which is an acrylic hi-tech bubble coated in secret stealth material. Congress has reportedly known about it since June, and the obvious question is how a shipment of sensitive F-35 hardware suddenly took a wrong turn for Chinese controlled Hong Kong. There is no public evidence that China obtained or examined the parts, but we hear they have a very good lost and found department. This is not the F-35 program's first inventory problem. A 2023 GAO report found more than one million F-35 spare parts had gone missing over five years and concluded the Pentagon can't even audit the losses because Lockheed controls the records. The timing of the latest report is kind of awkward. Chinese President Xi Jinping is due at the White House for a state visit this week. Maybe he can use his influence to find the missing parts and bring them along with his delegation's luggage, eh?
SALUTING THE AIR FORCE WITH A NAVY JET: Michael Whatley, the former RNC chair who is now running for Senate in North Carolina, marked the Air Force's 79th birthday in an X post last week with a warm message of gratitude… and a photo of a Navy F-14 Tomcat. Here’s the rub: The Grumman-made jets last flew off of carrier decks in 2006. Whatley’s whoopsie was spotted by the Wall Street Journal’s Dave Brown, (who has found similar screw ups as the Dead Drop has noted in the past.) The post was captured and circulated before it was quietly deleted. But the post joins a long and undistinguished tradition of politicians honoring service branches they cannot identify on sight. It was Whatley's second high-profile correction this month. Earlier in September, he marked the anniversary of 9/11 by saying we would never forget the attacks of "September 1, 2001," a post that also came down fast and drew its own round of mockery. There are some among us who might just brush this off as a typo (which is highly likely) but where’s the fun in that?
MI-LIED? Britain’s MI5's professional posture rests on saying nothing. So it was off that the organization admitted last week that for three years, in three separate courtrooms, that it lied. According to the BBC, the case involves a violent, neo-Nazi-linked MI5 informant who abused his partner, known in court only as "Beth." When BBC journalist Daniel De Simone started investigating the man, MI5 tried to head him off by confirming, in a phone call, that the informant worked for the service. Then, under oath, in front of judges, MI5 swore it had never confirmed any such thing and had strictly maintained its "neither confirm nor deny" policy throughout. But De Simone had the call on tape. At a High Court hearing last Friday, MI5's barrister accepted a watchdog's findings in full: the testimony was false, a senior officer lied repeatedly, and the false account was allowed to stand for years. Judges are now weighing contempt proceedings against MI5 whose counsel has offered an “unreserved apology” but said “errors that had been made had not been deliberate.”
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