I was contacted today by someone using the email address eris@layeraleph.com:

It seemed odd to be asking me these questions, so I cloaked my IP and gave my opinion that they both had their reasons to be pissed at the US Govt. and said that no, I don't think Assange had an axe to grind with the Dems specifically. - I just think he only had leaks on them and lacked anything on the GOP which gave the perception of bias (and that the MSM and DNC certainly promoted that premise).

Then I thought... these aren't important questions or asking me anything relating to my technical expertise, who the fuck is this contacting me?! ... In retrospect, I'm glad I cloaked my IP...

So... who is behind layeraleph.com?

I see... ice-nine.org huh? Anything on archive for that?

And looking at Matt's old site we find...

Which, if you follow it (back in the day!) looked like...

Uhhhh... hello, this is interesting. - How's Matt doing these days?

DefenseDigital team... continuing the work you started in Afghanistan... uhhuh... tell me more...

Yup... seems you're probably the same dude...

The United States Digital Service from October 2015?

I wonder if he visited the White House at all?

I thought I'd say hello to "my friend in truth"...

As much as it's interesting... it's also quite disconcerting for me and I don't think I'm being unduly paranoid over it. - I figure for now at least, I'll publish this quickly to make sure potential motives are on public record just in case it's ever needed in future.

UPDATE: The USDS was actually set up to help deal with the Obamacare web site fiasco and has continued on as an information technology taskforce for fixing IT/web/etc problems.

Someone on Reddit has suggested this contact could just be due to a "Silicon Valley LessWronger" culture (the vast majority of which is very anti-Trump) and pointed out this article featuring Matthew Weaver.

IMPORTANT: I've only exposed this information as a precaution for my own safety. Please DO NOT harass or do anything at all that risks any harm at all to Matthew or his reputation. - I don't even know what his motives are and am just alarmed by the communication effort.

The fact I was contacted via a domain that itself was registered directly to Matthew (and therefore no significant effort to hide his identity) is also worth considering and suggests that this, at least, wasn't any formal/official intelligence gathering effort.

Adam Carter
May 30th, 2017    (Updated June 8th, 2017)