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Judge Disconnects Interior Dept., Again
jeremycec writes "Evidently, nothing's been resolved since 2001, when this
happened the first
time. In these Memorandum
Opinion and Preliminary
Injunction documents from Judge Royce
C. Lamberth of the U.S.
District Court for Washington, D.C., we see how the court
stepped in to pull the plug on a system, which, through its
abject lack of due care,
left someone's important financial information wide open to
attackers. According to the former CIO of the Bureau of
Indian Affairs: 'For all practical purposes, we have no
security, we have no infrastructure, ... Our entire network
has no firewalls on it. I don't like running a network that
can be breached by a high school kid.' So, when the BIA
could get no relief through Interior's IT Dept.,
it went to the courts. Source: Government Computer News "
I know the feds have lots of standards (And pretty well thought-out) for bank-related IT security.
Don't they have some similar standards for government standards, or are all different federal entities left to simply come up (or not come up) with their own standards?
Now everyone gets to know your business if the government does. How egalitarian! Big Brothers are watching you!
There has to be a lot more to this story. Low priority is one thing. This is right up there with willfully not breathing, or willfully not locking a door.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Our government is incapible of becoming like Orwell's 1984. They cant even keep their system straight
It will be much more like Brazil, with papers and people lost within a system more concerned about avoiding responsibility for screw-ups than actually doing anything productive or benefitial.
At my office I would up as network admin after a power struggle involving a guy who refused to do much of anything. Systems were so locked down they were useless. A tiny fraction of the building had email, fewer of those actually had the password.
New network drops? Forget it. Hell, the fund-raising department had its own domain and a dialup line to access email. 2 departments ran their own networks. I was first brought in to try to get them on the Internet, but as soon as folks saw that there was no need for any of the hoop jumping ...
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
This is the funniest joke I've seen on slashdot in quite a while. Of course, most /.'ers probably are not familiar with this
very controversial case.
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
That's mostly due to the anglo-saxon neurosis that makes them believe that everything coming from the State is bad. This has the unfortunate effect of painting State workers (civil servants) in a bad light, assuming by default that they are incompetent.
:-)
The Anglo-Saxon neurosis about the state has ample historical evidence to back it up.
It's been said that the main lesson of the XX century is the failure of governments. I would tend to agree.
As to civil servants, I don't *assume* they are incompetent. I *know* they are incompetent through long-term regular personal experience
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Speaking from the inside, they are giving the rest
of the Department an opportunity to show progress and not be affected, which could mean this has a much smaller impact. There are some offices who have been offline the entire time, which makes dealing with them a pain.
For my agency, IT security has improved immensely since last time.
Unfortunately, they've not taken into account those who already had decently secured systems three years ago.
They can get interns to do it for free .
.
, .
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
If they cannot get an Intern they can import someone
from overseas give them a L1 visa and pay them
minimum wage
Hell Tatia consulting specializes in unempolying ppl in the US
they are one of the best cheap foreign labor sweatshops in the US
Why hire americans, when you can get ppl for next to nothing !!
Go corporate corruption !
( sarcasm ended )
Asking the government why they do something stupid year end
and year out is like asking why the CEO of a major failing
corporation did not listen to the engineers
An MBA type thinks he is above the lowly R&D folks, his
elitism pushes his ego to all new heights
You see the same egotism, elitism, and intra-departmental
squabbling in the government
"little kingdoms" run by little minds
cooperation on a basic level undermined by personality
conflicts, and pissing contests
Until someone goes thru there and "cleans house" it is gonna
suck just as bad as it does now
Protecting the jobs of the incompetent whether they are
female or a minority is hurting this country, and will
be of the key object lessons of it is collapse from within
Learn from the fall of Rome, or history will repeat itself
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
After traveling through the Jemez Pueblo reservation this summer, and observing first-hand the deplorable conditions they live in, I'm deeply ashamed at the way the government is treating the true founders of this country. The government treats the Native Americans as a public attraction, a curiosity like the rest of the projects the DOI oversees.
But rest assured, the BIA will never be moved to State under the current administration. Why? Too much of an embarrassment. Very few Americans have seen first-hand how the government treats the Indian tribes, how they foster the rampant crime, poverty, and social ills that plague many reservations. Why would the current administration want to draw attention to their disregard for human decency? Plus, putting the BIA under State would give many Indian tribes the standing they need to pursue their claims against the government for unlawful seizure of their lands. Can you imagine resolving a dispute such as this by returning all 520,000 acres of privately-owned land to their rightful owners, the Kiowa and the Comanche?
Of course you can't. Neither can the government.
I don't like running a network that can be breached by a high school kid.
I think this statement underestimates the experience, intelect and time that some high school kids have. I have seen countless posts to Slashdot either by people in high school or by people who were doing great things by the time they were in high school. This statement means nothing and somewhat indicates the lack of understanding that the general public has about hackers and crackers.
The US government continues to crap on Native Americans. They've done so for centuries, and will continue to do so until people speak up. I am part Native American (at least 1/8th blackfoot). I am grateful that my parents divorced when I was younger and I grew up with my dad. There are no opportunities on most reservations. The actions of the DOI (or lack thereof) stated in the article just goes to prove that the BIA does just the bare minimum. It's truly sad. :(
A similarly incompetent information regime already exists today - the credit reporting agencies. Considering how much private information they store, and how pervasively it's used, I'm amazed at how poor the data quality is. Basically they pushed the data integrity issue off to the consumer, who usually discovers the problem only after getting turned down for a loan....
Since I used to work in the industry, I can say that there are much deeper reasons for the pervasive data integrity problems in credit reporting. Why? Because they are not allowed to do a good job of matching. By the government, which is listening to the same privacy people that complain when anyone has data on them, and then turn around and complain when they get it wrong.
I've seen car salesmen who, when your credit report comes back bad, just pull an SSN out of the air to get a good report so they can sell you the car. I've seen department stores keep people on their active credit card files when they haven't been in the store for 40 years! Guess at the likelihood of the name or address being valid after all that time. At least one real estate chain changes the name on your mortgage when they're processing the sale: guess how many people suddenly find their name and address changed to the local real estate agency. And I could go on and on and on and on...
Believe me when I say that intentional identity theft is small potoatoes compared to the havoc caused by thousands of companies that take short cuts with their accounts recievable files, and cause havoc with the credit system as a result.
And that's not even counting all the lawyers that intentionally give the court the wrong address for their clients so that they can't be traced.
Anonymous Coward