(CNN) -- Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden are two American men

(CNN) -- Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden are two American men in their 20s. They're both fascinated by -- and adept at -- computer use and held jobs that gave them access to some of their country's most secret and sensitive intelligence. They chose to share that material with the world and are now paying for it. But that may be where the similarities end.

What did they do?

United States Army Pvt. Bradley Manning leaked hundreds of thousands of classified documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and sensitive correspondence written by U.S. diplomats -- information that WikiLeaks published. Some of that information was also analyzed and reported by The New York Times, Der Spiegel and The Guardian newspapers as well as other news outlets. A military judge acquitted Manning on Tuesday of aiding the enemy, but convicted him of violations of the Espionage Act. The proceedings for his sentencing could take days or even weeks. He could get 136 years.

Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee and National Security Agency contract employee, told a Guardian journalist that the NSA was operating classified surveillance programs that track cell phone calls and monitor the e-mail and Internet traffic of virtually all Americans. To tell his story, he left his job and life in Hawaii, fled to China and is now in Russia, where he has been granted temporary asylum.

Read more: New Snowden leak: NSA program taps all you do online