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Carnegie Mellon Says Computers Breached
maotx writes "Carnegie Mellon University is warning more than 5,000 students, employees and graduates that their Social Security numbers and other personal information may have been accessed during a breach of the school's computer network. What makes this one even more interesting compared to other recent break-ins is that CMU is home to the famous CERT."
And credit given where credit due, I picked up this story from a post on a mailing list from Paul Ferguson and his tech news.
What I found to be so interesting about this story is that unlike the other thefts, this one did not require the theft of a computer or social engineering skills. This one looks like the works of a group of hackers and now has the FBI's computer crime squad joined in the investigation.
I'm a virgo and on Slashdot. Coincidence? Yes.
1. A car hit you - you didn't do anything wrong, but the police wanted your ID. Why?
The last time we had ID cards here, a woman found some item in the street and tried to hand in in to the police as lost property. They demanded her ID. She had forgotten to carry it, so was arrested. This caused such a scandal that it led to the abolition of ID cards.
Criminals don't leave their ID number at the scene of the crime, so issuing ID cards will not help solve crimes. But it will create a useful new power that the police can use to harass any group they take a dislike to: the power to stop them and ask for their identity card.
2. The bank wants to see your ID. Why?
I've got a card from my bank too. When I want to take money out, it proves that I am the same person who put the money in. That's all they need to know. They don't need to know my nationality, or medical history, or police record. So I don't want a single ID that will link all that data together.
Disclaimer: I'm British, so I may have misunderstood some aspect of the problem.
No. Actually, I think you have a rather good view of the situation. I thought almost the same thing: thieves want this information because it is "secret". So it has to be secured. What if we suddenly make all SSNs publicly listed and stop trating them like they're our very souls.
Isn't there some system that would replace our "security through obscurity" attitude by a "OpenSociety" way of dealing with personal information. I mean, I'm sure there some other -- and better -- way of verifyring someone's ID than to rely entirely on a few random numbers. I all those numbers are made public, what interest is left to steal them? We'd just have to think of a new, "open" way to deal with the issue.
You are more than the sum of what you consume. Desire is not an occupation.