(CNN) -- Adrian Lamo, the former computer hacker who tipped off federal authorities to WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning, says two men in the Boston area have told Lamo in phone conversations that they assisted Manning. 
 
 Lamo said both men attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but he refused to identify them because, he said, at least one of them has threatened him. One of these men allegedly told Lamo they gave encryption software to Manning and taught the Army private how to use it, Lamo said. 
 
 Manning, an Army intelligence analyst, is being held in solitary confinement at a Virginia detention facility. He is charged with leaking an airstrike video that the whistleblower website WikiLeaks published in April, and Pentagon officials say he is the prime suspect in last week's disclosure of thousands of field reports from the war in Afghanistan to the site. 
 
 Lamo claimed both men are working for WikiLeaks. Also, both men are Facebook friends with Lamo and Manning, and at least one continues to post Facebook messages on Lamo's wall, the former hacker said. 
 
 Asked for comment about Lamo's allegation that men working for WikiLeaks assisted Manning, WikiLeaks responded in an e-mail: "As a matter of policy, we do not discuss any matters to do with allegations relating to the identity of sources." 
 
 The New York Times reported Saturday that Army investigators looking into the document leak have expanded their inquiry to include friends and associates who may have helped Manning. Specifically, the Times spoke to two civilians interviewed in recent weeks by the Army's criminal division, who said that investigators apparently believed that the friends, who include students from MIT and Boston University, might have connections to WikiLeaks. The civilians, who the Times did not name, told the newspaper they had no connection to WikiLeaks. 
 
 The Boston Globe interviewed a recent MIT graduate who it said acknowledged Saturday that he met Manning in January and exchanged as many as 10 e-mails with him about security issues. But the individual "adamantly" denied any role in the document leak, the Globe reported. The Globe also reported that this MIT graduate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he was interviewed several months ago by Army investigators to find out whether he or "others in the local computer hacker community" helped Manning. 
 
 A spokeswoman for MIT, Patti Richards, told CNN: "We are monitoring the situation closely, but are not commenting at this time." 
 
 CNN has previously reported that the FBI is assisting the Defense Department in the WikiLeaks investigation of Manning. One FBI official told CNN the bureau is involved in the investigation of potential civilian co-conspirators who may have played a role in the leaking of the classified material. 
 
 Attempts to reach an attorney for Manning have so far been unsuccessful. 
 
 CNN's Ashley Fantz, Ashley Vaughan and Shirley Hung contributed to this report. ||||| Lamo said he doubts Manning had the technical savvy to copy all the data on his own. He thinks Manning received help from hackers in the area who provided him with encryption software to send the classified information to WikiLeaks, and who helped him ensure those leaks were featured prominently on the website. 
 
 Adrian Lamo, a former computer hacker who traded instant messages with Manning and later turned him in to authorities, said he knew of five people whom Army officials have interviewed over the past few months in the Boston area, including other MIT students and a student who recently left Boston University to attend Brandeis. 
 
 “These are people that knew him and might know things about what he may have done,’’ the Pentagon official said. 
 
 Another Pentagon official familiar with the investigation, who was also not authorized to speak publicly about the case, said law enforcement officials do not yet consider the individuals accomplices. 
 
 A senior defense official confirmed yesterday that Army investigators, who are working with the FBI, interviewed several students in the Boston area with apparent ties to Manning. Officials at both the FBI and MIT declined to comment. 
 
 The former student said he knows people who work for WikiLeaks, but he said he has never met or corresponded with Julian Assange, the website’s founder. “It’s impossible to be in this community and not know people in WikiLeaks,’’ he said, refer ring to computer hackers. The former student says his specialty is the study of secure information systems and how to penetrate them. 
 
 “I did not help him or know about it before it happened,’’ he said. 
 
 “I categorically deny that I had any role in helping Manning leak anything,’’ the former student said in a phone interview. He said he met Manning at MIT in January, when the private was on leave, and later exchanged as many as 10 e-mails with him about security issues. 
 
 The Army arrested Manning in May and later charged him with providing a classified video of a US helicopter attack and more than 150,000 classified diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks. Military officials have also identified him as the chief suspect in last month’s disclosure of more than 90,000 classified documents from the Afghan war to the website. 
 
 The 23-year-old graduate, who spoke on condition that his name not be published, said investigators from the US Army Criminal Investigations Division interviewed him several months ago to find out whether he or others in the local computer hacker community helped the primary suspect in the leaks, Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning. 
 
 A recent MIT graduate acknowledged yesterday that he met and exchanged multiple e-mails with the Army private accused of providing thousands of classified war records to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, but he adamantly denied any role in the massive intelligence leak. 
 
 “Manning’s a bright, young man, but he didn’t have the technical or political expertise to pull this off,’’ Lamo said in a telephone interview. “He had to depend on people state-side.’’ 
 
 Lamo said those in the area who he says helped Manning all work in the information security area, oppose the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and have ties to WikiLeaks. “For Manning to have almost a half-dozen friends with ties to WikiLeaks is a matter that has not escaped authorities,’’ he said. “There’s a whole lot of evidence pointing to the fact that it would have been very hard for him to act alone.’’ 
 
 Lamo, 29, who is originally from Boston, was arrested in 2003 and later convicted of hacking into the computer system of The New York Times. He said he was acquainted with those the Army investigators interviewed, but he declined to disclose their names publicly. 
 
 “To a man, I think it’s safe to say that they would not be unhappy if the war was cast in a bad light,’’ he said. 
 
 Lamo said he thinks the group in Boston provided Manning with software that allowed him to download thousands of documents without alerting network monitors at the Defense Department. He added that Manning had one of his associates in Boston physically provide WikiLeaks with documents he downloaded on CDs. 
 
 “At least one of those acquaintances misled me and defense investigators as to how well he knew some of the people with ties to WikiLeaks,’’ said Lamo, who was criticized last month by WikiLeaks, along with a Wired News reporter, Kevin Poulsen, who broke the story about Private Manning’s arrest, as “notorious felons, informers, and manipulators.’’ 
 
 Officials at WikiLeaks did not return calls for comment. 
 
 Lamo said he thinks Manning was motivated by ideology and by his access to Assange. “He was opposed to what he saw happening on the ground in Iraq and, and I think WikiLeaks played on his ego. He had access to a special server that allowed his leaks jumped to the top of the queue. I think he was made to feel special.’’ 
 
 For his part, the former MIT student said he thinks Manning was sufficiently intelligent to do it all by himself. 
 
 He said that when they met at MIT last winter, Manning spoke about his work as an intelligence analyst and was “nimble’’ about what he could and could not disclose. 
 
 “He managed to make his points very well, without compromising anything he wasn’t supposed to be talking about,’’ the former student said. “The fact that he ended up leaking this information is really ironic. He seemed quite sharp and quite capable of doing it on his own.’’ 
 
 When asked whether there might be additional secret documents in Boston, the former student said he doubts it. 
 
 “If anyone had anything remotely incriminating,’’ he said, “I think they would be smart enough to take it outside and burn it.’’ 
 
 Bryan Bender, Shelley Murphy, and Tracy Jan of the Globe staff contributed to this report. David Abel can be reached at dabel@globe.com. 
 
 © Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company. ||||| A U.S. Army intelligence analyst suspected of leaking videos and documents to Wikileaks was charged Monday with eight violations of federal criminal law, including unauthorized computer access, and transmitting classified information to an unauthorized third party. 
 
 Pfc. Bradley Manning, 22, was charged with two counts under the Uniform Code of Military Justice: one encompassing the eight alleged criminal offenses, and a second detailing four noncriminal violations of Army regulations governing the handling of classified information and computers. 
 
 According to the charge sheet, Manning downloaded a classified video of a military operation in Iraq and transmitted it to a third party, in violation of a section of the Espionage Act, 18 U.S.C. 793(e), which involves passing classified information to an uncleared party, but not a foreign government. 
 
 The remaining criminal charges are for allegedly abusing access to the Secret-level SIPR network to obtain more than 150,000 U.S. State Department cables, as well as an unspecified classified PowerPoint presentation. 
 
 Manning allegedly passed more than 50 classified diplomatic cables to an unauthorized party, but downloaded at least 150,000 unclassified State Department documents, according to Army spokesman Lt. Col. Eric Bloom. These numbers could change as the investigation continues, Bloom said. Both numbers are lower than the 260,000 cables Manning claimed, in online chats, to have passed to Wikileaks. 
 
 Between Jan. 13 and Feb. 19 this year, Manning allegedly passed one of the cables, titled “Reykjavik 13,” to an unauthorized party, the Army states. The Army doesn’t name Wikileaks as the recipient of the document, but last February the site published a classified cable titled “Reykjavik 9″ that describes a U.S. embassy meeting with the government of Iceland. 
 
 If convicted of all charges, Manning could face a prison sentence of as much as 52 years, Bloom said. 
 
 Manning was put under pretrial confinement at the end of May, after he disclosed to a former hacker that he was responsible for leaking classified information to Wikileaks. He’s currently being held at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait and has been assigned a military defense attorney, Capt. Paul Bouchard, who was not available for comment. Bloom said that Manning has not retained a civilian attorney, though Wikileaks stated recently that it commissioned unnamed attorneys to defend the soldier. 
 
 The next step in Manning’s case is an Article 32 hearing, which is an evidentiary hearing similar to a grand jury hearing, to determine if the case should proceed to court-martial. 
 
 Manning, who comes from Potomac, Maryland, enlisted in the Army in 2007 and was an Army intelligence analyst who was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer 40 miles east of Baghdad, Iraq, last November. He held a Top Secret/SCI clearance. 
 
 In May, he began communicating online with a former hacker named Adrian Lamo. Very quickly in his exchange with the ex-hacker, Manning disclosed that he was responsible for leaking a headline-making Army video to Wikileaks. The classified video, which Wikileaks released April 5 under the title “Collateral Murder,” depicted a deadly 2007 U.S. helicopter air strike in Baghdad on a group of men, some of whom were armed, that the soldiers believed were insurgents. 
 
 The attack killed two Reuters employees and an unarmed Baghdad man who stumbled on the scene afterward and tried to rescue one of the wounded by pulling him into his van. The man’s two children were in the van and suffered serious injuries in the hail of gunfire. 
 
 Manning also said he leaked a separate video to Wikileaks showing the notorious May 2009 air strike near Garani village in Afghanistan that the local government says killed nearly 100 civilians, most of them children. The Pentagon released a report about the incident last year, but backed down from a plan to show video of the attack to reporters. 
 
 Other classified leaks he claimed credit for included an Army document evaluating Wikileaks as a security threat and a detailed Army chronology of events in the Iraq war. But the most startling revelation was a claim that he gave Wikileaks a database of 260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables, which Manning said exposed “almost-criminal political back dealings.” 
 
 “Hillary Clinton and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public,” Manning told Lamo in an online chat session. 
 
 Manning anticipated watching from the sidelines as his action bared the secret history of U.S. diplomacy around the world. 
 
 “Everywhere there’s a U.S. post, there’s a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed,” Manning wrote of the cables. “It’s open diplomacy. Worldwide anarchy in CSV format. It’s Climategate with a global scope, and breathtaking depth. It’s beautiful, and horrifying.” 
 
 Wikileaks has acknowledged possessing the Afghanistan video and representatives of the organization indicated in media interviews that it will release the video soon. The organization has denied that it received 260,000 classified cables. 
 
 In his chats with Lamo, Manning discussed personal issues that got him into trouble with his Army superiors and left him socially isolated, and said he had been demoted and was headed for an early discharge from the military. 
 
 He claimed to have been rummaging through classified military and government networks for more than a year and said the networks contained “incredible things, awful things … that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington, D.C.” 
 
 Manning discovered the Iraq video in late 2009, he said. He first contacted Wikileaks founder Julian Assange sometime around late November last year, he claimed, after Wikileaks posted 500,000 pager messages covering a 24-hour period surrounding the Sept. 11 terror attacks. ”I immediately recognized that they were from an NSA database, and I felt comfortable enough to come forward,” he wrote to Lamo. 
 
 In January, while on leave in the United States, Manning visited a close friend in Boston and confessed he’d gotten his hands on unspecified sensitive information, and was weighing leaking it, according to the friend. “He wanted to do the right thing,” 20-year-old Tyler Watkins told Wired.com. “That was something I think he was struggling with.” 
 
 Manning passed the video to Wikileaks in February, he told Lamo. After April 5 when the video was released and made headlines, Manning contacted Watkins from Iraq asking him about the reaction in the United States. 
 
 “He would message me, ‘Are people talking about it?… Are the media saying anything?’” Watkins said. “That was one of his major concerns, that once he had done this, was it really going to make a difference?… He didn’t want to do this just to cause a stir…. He wanted people held accountable and wanted to see this didn’t happen again.” 
 
 Lamo decided to turn in Manning after the soldier told him that he leaked a quarter-million classified embassy cables. Lamo contacted the Army, and then met with Army CID investigators and the FBI to pass the agents a copy of the chat logs from his conversations with Manning. At their second meeting with Lamo on May 27, FBI agents from the Oakland Field Office told the hacker that Manning had been arrested the day before in Iraq by Army CID investigators. 
 
 As described by Manning in his chats with Lamo, his purported leaking was made possible by lax security online and off. 
 
 Manning had access to two classified networks from two separate secured laptops: SIPRNET, the Secret-level network used by the Department of Defense and the State Department, and the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System which serves both agencies at the Top Secret/SCI level. 
 
 The networks, he said, were both “air gapped” from unclassified networks, but the environment at the base made it easy to smuggle data out. 
 
 “I would come in with music on a CD-RW labeled with something like �?Lady Gaga,’ erase the music then write a compressed split file,” he wrote. “No one suspected a thing and, odds are, they never will.” 
 
 “[I] listened and lip-synced to Lady Gaga’s �?Telephone’ while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history,” he added later. ”Weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counterintelligence, inattentive signal analysis … a perfect storm.” 
 
 Manning told Lamo that the Garani video was left accessible in a directory on a U.S. Central Command server, centcom.smil.mil, by officers who investigated the incident. The video, he said, was an encrypted AES-256 ZIP file. 
 
 (This story has been updated repeatedly since posting, including a correction to a statement Bloom previously made about the maximum sentence Manning faces. Last updated 17:45 pm EDT) 
 
 Charge Sheet Redacted – Manning 
 
 See also:
– Students at MIT and Boston University are being investigated as possible accomplices in the massive leak of military documents posted on the Wikileaks site, according to officials. The FBI was apparently sicced on the schools in part by blogger Adrian Lamo. He did not reveal the students' names because he said at least one of them threatened his life, reports CNN. The students told Lamo they gave encryption software to soldier Bradley Manning and taught the Army private how to use it to obtain the secret documents he's suspected of providing to Wikileaks, Lamo claims. Lamo, who was working with a Wired reporter at the time, turned Manning into the feds after convincing the soldier to give him an interview. A "civilian" in the Boston area contacted by the New York Times said Army investigators quizzed him about his relationship with Manning, and offered him money to spy on Wikileaks. An MIT graduate told the Boston Globe he exchanged emails with Manning, but denied doing anything illegal. In a related development, Wikileaks editor Jacob Applebaum was detained and interrogated by customs officials and FBI agents over the weekend after he returned to the US from Europe, reports the Independent.