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MI5 Laptop Stolen -- Along With Top-Secret Data
Tuscahoma writes "ZDNet has this story about an MI5 agent who lost a laptop containing sensitive information at Paddinton station. Does this sound like the plot of a bad spy movie (turns out that Julia Roberts picked up the laptop to return it, and now she's on the run for her life from enemy spies)?" This really does sound like a screenwriter's dream. I wonder if the machine's already been fenced, the hard drive wiped, and some Londoner is wondering at the "Property of M15. PLEASE return" in the BIOS.
I know it seems harsh, but this is one reason I'd like to see a username blacklist feature available on Slashdot. The idea doesn't impress me, but it seems necessary now that stuff like this guy is showing up posting advertising spam with a Slashdot account.
Moderating is all well and good, but it won't always catch them before I read a thread. It seems much easier to provide a simple list that I can add 'impulsiveprofits' to, and never have to think about him again.
Look at his profile, he's posted 8 times this week, each one spam advertising.
Yes, and these are the kind of morons that the government wants to give the key to every encryption system used within the UK.
Yes, I know you're watching me...
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Both of the computers were recovered.
It was posted on Slashdot awhile back, and here is a link to the original story.
On a note to the story, what's going to happen to the MI5 agent? I'm assuming that he will be quietly discharged, and a few months down the road he'll disappear. (That usually happens to clumsy government agents. heh.)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
I've always assumed that they end up being bought and sold on the internet's own black market... you know... EBay.
I'm only half-joking. Think about it, you have an open market where people all over the world can legally bid on your merchandise, and no effort is ever made to verify that the product being sold is not stolen (though there is some insurance the the product actually exists). Once someone buys it from you it becomes a legal item again, as that person has their "reciept" from the EBay auction...
Your Brain + EEG + LEGO Robots = Brainstorms
I suspect that unless he snuck the laptop out (bad spy!), either the data is not that sensitive, or the entire hard drive was encrypted (or both).
Though actually, I'll bet there are a lot of people who would like to get ahold of the encryption software or hardware (probably hardware), in order to reverse engineer it. Not neccesarily for any bad purposes, mind you, I supsect that people such as Ross Anderson or Lars Knudsen (a couple of cryptographers, for those not in the know) would love to get ahold of something like that and be able to say that they broke a cipher used by MI5.
Also, I doubt this guy is actually a spy of any sort: more likely a desk worker of some sort.
"On a note to the story, what's going to happen to the MI5 agent? I'm assuming that he will be quietly discharged, and a few months down the road he'll disappear. (That usually happens to clumsy government agents. heh.)"
:)
If you're fimiliar with the Dilbert Principle, this agent will be promoted to upper-management in no time at all.
Is publicizing the theft/loss the right thing to do in this situation? What could MI5 possibly gain by announcing to the entire world that one of its bumbling agents has lost a laptop containing "sensitive government information"? If nothing else, the information might make the person who found (or stole) the machine realize that he has something really valuable in his hands, and decide to fence the sensitive information to MI5 enemies, or demand a huge reward, or even hold it for ransom. The saying goes, "There's no such thing as bad publicity," but I wonder if this might be an exception.
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I think this would make a good children's story:
A nice family finds the laptop in Paddington Station and decide to take it home and take care of it. It tends to get into little adventures and hilarity ensues.
One of my former roommates bought such a laptop, only to find out later it was stolen from the CEO of a certain major corporation. He found out after looking at the hard drive, which not only had Windows 95 installed on it, but lots of files relating to executive business of said corporation.
The bizarre part is apparently no one at the computer store ever looked at what, besides Windows 95 itself, was actually installed on the thing, nor did anybody try to format the disk.
I don't think they ever caught the thief.....so some details have been obscured.
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How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
I had a laptop stoling a couple years ago and was just wondering what typically happens to them? Do the thieves sell them as is or do they wipe the HD, install a fresh Win9x (or maybe the latest OpenBSD :)) and then take them to the swap meet? My laptop was a WinNT 4 Server used for demoing web apps, and I doubt the average thug would know what to do when he couldn't just hit ESC to bypass the password prompt. Maybe such systems just wind up in the trash? Are there actually big time laptop-thieving operations or do people just steal them because they can't afford to buy one capable of running Win2K? My apologies for the lack of facts and plethora of questions.
According to the reports over here...
1) The bloke with the Laptop was buying a ticket. This can frequently be a long, tedious complex process - especially at Paddington Station. One of Londons stations which serves some of the rather less -well organised rail companies. And you wouldn't believe how complicated buying a ticket can be in this country at the moment.
2) He put the Laptop down, between his legs.
3) Someone snatched it from behind and ran off. The guy realised at once and gave chase, helped by a couple of Transport Police. But the thief got away.
AJB