Secret Pentagon documents were leaked through a Minecraft Discord Server

The United States military is currently facing a massive information crisis due to the leakage of top-secret documents related to the war in Ukraine through several Discord servers.

As per the Wall Street Journal, these documents reportedly contain sensitive details about the war in Ukraine, American allies, American infiltration of Russian military plans, and much more. Dozens of documents have already surfaced, with many of them bearing the labels "Top Secret" or "Secret."

The path that the information took across the internet is even more surprising. Apparently, the documents first appeared on a small Discord server with predominantly American users. From there, the information eventually made its way through a Minecraft Discord server, with BBC obtaining screenshots dating back to early March. The classified information continued to spread, passing through 4chan, Twitter, and the Russian social network Telegram before US officials launched an investigation last week.

According to the investigative news site Bellingcat, the leak may have originated from a Discord server called WowMao, which is run by a YouTuber of the same name. A member of the server posted over 30 documents between March 1st and March 2nd, predating their appearance on the Minecraft server by a few days. The documents were not removed from the Discord server until April 7th.

However, Bellingcat's report notes that the leak may have started as early as January on a now-deleted Discord server known as Thug Shaker Central. The report states that the authenticity of these claims cannot be verified since the server no longer exists.

The Minecraft server where the leaks were posted is called Minecraft Earth Map. On March 4, two users were apparently arguing over Minecraft maps and the war in Ukraine, prompting one user to write, "here, have some leaked documents" while posting 10 documents about Ukraine. It turns out that these documents sat unnoticed on the server for over a month and were not detected by government officials.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. is assessing the damage of the leak and calling it "one of the most significant leaks of highly classified U.S. documents in recent history." Defense officials have stated that some of the documents appear to be authentic, while others may have been altered. The original source of the leak is currently unknown.

Discord is now working with law enforcement to investigate the leaks. In a statement to Kotaku, a Discord spokesperson said, "Ensuring the safety of our users is Discord's top priority. When we become aware of content that violates our policies, our Safety team investigates and takes appropriate action, including banning users, shutting down servers, and engaging with law enforcement."