Harold Thomas Martin III (born November 1964) is an American computer scientist and former contractor for Booz Allen Hamilton who pleaded guilty to illegally removing 50 terabytes of data from the National Security Agency. The United States government reportedly failed to note or effectively respond to a number of issues with Martin's security practices and behaviors over a period of 10 to 20 years. The motive for the crime has been a subject of debate, investigators reportedly had difficulty determining if Martin was engaged in conventional espionage or digital hoarding since throughout his decades of work, he appeared not to have ever accessed any of the files once he removed them from government facilities.
Career
Martin earned a bachelor's degree in economics and math from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1989, and commissioned as a Surface Warfare Officer in the U.S. Navy upon graduation. He served in the Navy from 1987 until 2000, deploying to the Gulf during Operation Desert Storm. During the later part of his military service he transferred to a part time role in the Navy Reserve, which was when he first received access to classified data. Upon leaving the military, Martin remained in the D.C. metro area, continuing his education with a master's degree in information systems from George Mason University in 2004, and maintaining his security clearance working for government contractors including Computer Sciences Corporation and Tenacity Solutions. He was later hired by defense staffing giant Booz Allen Hamilton, tasked to the National Security Agency from 2012 to 2015, during which time he worked with the elite Tailored Access Operations unit, albeit in a support capacity. In 2015, while still a contractor for Booz Allen, Martin moved to the Pentagon's Office of Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L), working at a Department of Defense facility in Alexandria, Virginia up until his arrest in 2016.
At the time of his arrest, Martin was pursuing a Doctor of Computer Science degree from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. His research area was "Virtual Interfaces for Exploration of Heterogeneous & Cloud Computing Architectures." Roy Rada, a retired professor at UMBC who mentored Martin early in his doctoral research, told The New York Times that Martin had been very interested in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and how to diagnose it quickly using eye tracking. Rada reported that Martin believed that he had many of the symptoms of PTSD, possibly a result of his service in the Gulf, and sought funding from military health agencies to carry out a major research project on PTSD diagnoses, though his proposals were not funded.
The New York Times described Martin as an "introverted loner," citing a former colleague's description of a man with a "sort of Walter Mitty-complex" which drove him to engage in fantasticism and grandiose delusions. The source recounted that Martin once traveled to Georgia to purchase a retired police car, still equipped with a spotlight and other overt police equipment, saying "he just always wanted to be important." "He always thought of himself like a James Bond-type person, wanting to save the world from computer evil," said another. According to The Times, though outwardly introverted, online Martin feigned a militant confidence about the future of cyberwarfare, writing "the battles ahead will require a special breed of warrior." Of his work, he wrote "It’s really a calling, and something the individual has to want to do as a profession, due to the sacrifices required to be top flight in this new, electronic, version of the great game."
Espionage
While attempting to trace the source of the Shadow Brokers leak in the summer of 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was alerted by the NSA to a post made by Martin, who allegedly communicated via the Twitter account @HAL_999999999. Martin used Twitter to contact Kaspersky Lab, a Russian cyber-security firm, which in turn alerted the National Security Agency. The FBI originally believed Martin to be the source of the Shadow Brokers thefts of NSA hacking tools, and used the information provided by Kaspersky researchers to execute a search warrant on Martin's modest residence in suburban Glen Burnie, Maryland, deploying a SWAT team, setting up roadblocks, breaking down the front door with a battering ram, and deploying flash bangs inside the house before removing Martin at gunpoint. Instead, the FBI and Maryland State Police reported discovering over 50 terabytes of classified data within the residence, in an unlocked shed, and within Martin's personal vehicle.