Step by step – how the leak spread

  • April 6 – The news reaches the world press

    31 sec

  • April 5 – 4chan

    33 sec

  • March 4 – Minecraft Forum

    28 sec

  • March 1 and 2 – Fans of a Youtuber

    28 sec

  • Unclear date – Tracks end on Discord

    48 sec

The Bellingcat network has charted the twisty path of the Pentagon Papers. The review shows that the first documents may have been posted on internet forums as early as several months ago.

At the center of the classified papers' path to the public is Discord, a service used by millions of people every day, often to connect about online gambling. The platform has about 150 million monthly users and consists of lots of groups/servers that you need to be invited to in order to be active in.

Now something of a user exodus seems to have hit Discord – many leave out of fear, reports gaming site Kotaku.

Gone by several names

The Discord server where the documents first appeared has gone by several names, among them "Thug Shaker Central". Discord has received questions from Bellingcat about the server's existence and about the other servers to which the material was then disseminated — a Minecraft forum and a forum for a Filipino YouTuber — but has not confirmed anything.

"It is Discord's top priority to ensure a safe user experience for our users. We are aware of the material that violates our rules, and our security team is investigating and taking necessary actions such as suspending users and servers and cooperating with law enforcement," a Discord spokesperson said.

"Cannot be anti-leaked"

Joakim von Braun, a specialist in cyber security and intelligence, does not believe it is a thought-out plan that the documents were spread on Discord without anyone or anyone having easy access to that particular platform.

"It's not at all impossible that Discord will shut down, but if it does, there are ignorant thoughts behind it. If it's spread, it is, it's not possible to anti-leak something when it's already reached 10,000s of users," says von Braun.

He believes that the chances are relatively good for the United States to find the leak by putting together puzzles about who had access to the various documents.