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Adrian Lamo, the hacker known for breaking into high-profile computer systems and for reporting Chelsea Manning’s disclosures of classified material to authorities, died in Wichita, Kansas, at 37. Authorities confirmed his death in March 2018. The cause was not immediately known, according to contemporaneous reports.

What was confirmed about Lamo’s death

Authorities confirmed Lamo died in Wichita, Kansas, at age 37. His father, Mario Lamo, announced the death in a Facebook post. The reports published at the time did not establish a confirmed cause of death; they said it was not immediately known.

Mario Lamo’s tribute, reproduced by WIRED, included the words: “A bright mind and compassionate soul is gone, he was my beloved son.”

Why Adrian Lamo was known

In the early 2000s, Lamo drew attention for intrusions involving organizations including The New York Times, Yahoo, and Microsoft. In 2004, he was convicted in connection with the computer intrusion at The New York Times.

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His role in the Chelsea Manning case

In 2010, Chelsea Manning contacted Lamo online and discussed disclosing classified material. Lamo reported the disclosures to authorities and later testified in proceedings related to Manning in 2011. That sequence is documented; judgments about whether his decision was justified, or what consequences followed from it, remain contested.

Lamo defended his choice in an interview quoted by The Guardian: “There were no right choices that day, only less wrong ones.” His explanation is his stated reasoning, not a resolution of the controversy surrounding his report.

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Sources from the time

PBS FRONTLINE, The Guardian, and CBS News, reporting from the Associated Press, covered the death in March 2018. Those contemporaneous accounts establish what was reported then; they do not establish whether a cause of death was disclosed later.

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