It was a private online group with posts about video games, guns, memes - and highly classified US files.
The suspect at the centre of the leak that has embarrassed the US and its allies has been named as Air National Guardsman Jack Douglas Teixeira, 21.
Among the young men in a chatroom called Thug Shaker Central on a social media platform popular with gamers, he was reportedly known as "OG".
Now he faces charges under the Espionage Act.
He joined the force in 2019 and was enlisted in the 102nd Intelligence Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard - which is a reserve of the US Air Force.
Mr Teixeira was promoted last July to Airman 1st Class - a relatively junior position - and was based at Otis Air National Guard Base in western Cape Cod.
According to his service record, his official title is Cyber Transport Systems journeyman.
The Air Force's official website notes that personnel assigned to Cyber Transport Systems jobs are responsible for operating the Air Force's huge global communications network, which links units operating both in the US and overseas.
Defence officials have said that such assignments could include the repair of network hubs in the US or fibre-optic communications systems at facilities abroad, for example. Mr Teixeira's record does not suggest any overseas deployment.
Mr Teixeira's family reportedly has a long history of military service. His stepfather, Thomas Dufault, retired after 34 years of service, according to the Washington Post. His last posting was as a master sergeant from Mr Teixeira's unit, the 102nd Intelligence Wing.
His mother, Dawn Dufault, has previously worked in non-profits focused on veterans, as well as the Massachusetts Department of Veterans Services, according to LinkedIn and public records cited by US media outlets.
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Mr Teixeira was reportedly known as the undisputed leader of an invitation-only Discord chatroom created in 2020.
Thug Shaker Central included roughly 20 to 30 members - mostly young men - from various countries.
The Washington Post reported that the group had swapped "memes, offensive jokes and idle chitchat", watched movies together and prayed.
A member of the chatroom said Mr Teixeira was a young, charismatic gun enthusiast.
Other members told the New York Times that Mr Teixeira was older than most in the group and appeared keen to impress them.
The Post reported he had told the group he worked in a facility where phones were banned.
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He previously wrote up versions of the sensitive information and shared it to the chatroom.
But he began sharing photos of the files after he reportedly became increasingly "angry" when other members of the chatroom did not pay attention.
On one occasion, the Post reported, he sent an irritated message to the group in which he complained that they were more interested in YouTube videos than in his posts about a document, which a member described as full of "annotations and explanations for stuff that we normal citizens would not understand".
"He got upset, and he said on multiple occasions, if you guys aren't going to interact with them, I'm going to stop sending them," the unidentified group member told the newspaper.
Members of the online group seem to have had conflicting opinions behind why Mr Teixeira shared these documents.
"This guy was a Christian, anti-war, just wanted to inform some of his friends about what's going on," one teenager told The New York Times.
Another member said Mr Teixeira was a "smart person".
"He knew what he was doing when he posted these documents, of course," the member told the Washington Post.
Mr Teixeira's family home is located 40 miles (64km) south of Boston in North Dighton, Massachusetts.
Aerial footage showed about a dozen FBI officers surrounding the property and arresting Mr Teixeira on Thursday.
Mr Teixeira graduated in 2020 from Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School, reports CBS News, the BBC's US partner.
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