The Silicon Review ^Asia

Adrian Lamo, the 37-years-old hacker who reported the Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning to the authorities, was found dead in an apartment in Wichita, Kansas, last week.

"With great sadness and a broken heart, I have to let know all of Adrian's friends and acquaintances that he is dead. A bright mind and compassionate soul is gone, he was my beloved son." Adrian’s father Mario Lamo-Jiménez posted on Facebook.

Even though in July 2010, Adrian was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome and was hospitalized, his death is still a mystery.

Adrian was a former American hacker, threat analyst, and writer. Adrian had been behind many high-profile security breaches but he hit the headlines in 2002 after hacking the computer systems of The New York Times. He was also given the title "Homeless Hacker" by the media because when unemployment punched him, Adrian wandered the country by Greyhound bus and hacked corporations from inside abandoned buildings.

Chelsea Manning, former US Army intelligence analyst and a transgender woman who was then known as Bradly Manning, reached out to Lamo in early 2010 after reading about Adrian’s hacking profile in a magazine. Manning found Adrian a kindred spirit and told him everything about her role as an informer for Wikileaks and how she leaked the most controversial combat video footage of a helicopter shooting unarmed Iraqi civilians including two Reuters’ employees.

Adrian reported Manning and informed the US military of the breach. Manning was arrested in May 2010. And in 2013, she was sentenced 35 years in prison, but President Barack Obama granted her a commutation and she was released from jail in May 2017.