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Military Investigates Sale of Sensitive Data
smokeslikeapoet wrote to mention an article being run in the New York Times detailing the sale of sensitive data in Afghan markets. From the article: "The military acted after The Los Angeles Times and The Associated Press reported that computer memory drives smuggled out of the base were being sold in shops. Some drives bought by the reporters contained material marked secret as well as information about insurgency activities and names and personal details about American service members and Afghan agents working for the United States military." Fox News is reporting the sold storage units are being repurchased by the military as they can find them.
I agree that the military is capable of great things *sometimes*. But I have been in the military, and the military basically attracts the same caliber of employee as any other government department.
What is more likely, that the military let classified data walk out the door due to incompetence, or due to some clever X-files style conspiracy? After you answer that question, replace "the military" with "the department of motor vehicles" and ask yourself again. The answer would usually be the same in both cases.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
I was going to say the same. How is it possible that Fox News reporters could even open the data files ? .DOC or .PDF files on USB keys ? I wonder how this is even possible.
One could expect that everything is encrypted, every single file being a part of a globla security policy, etc.
This is the army ! Big companies protect their sensible data by ensuring each sensible file is properly encrypted, defining trust circles, and strict key management policies. How were the files stored ?
What point is there to repurchasing the drives? Once the information is out, it's out. Anyone that would be interested isn't interested in the drives, they are interested in the data -- data that's easily copied and transmitted in a couple of minutes. All you are doing is paying people to get back a USB key, the data on which they've already sold someone else.
Heck, let them keep the drive as a keepsake. If the information is misinformation, maybe it will propagate farther. If it's real information, the damage is already done, there's really no point in rewarding for it.
Fox News is reporting the sold storage units are being repurchased by the military as they can find them
Why the hell are they repurchasing their own porperty?
Isn't that going to turn theft of military equipment and information into a whole economy?
Don't get me wrong, I don't think we should be there in the first place (IMHO, what little real benefit either the US or Iraq could ever hope to gain is nowhere near worth the lives of all those that have died), but if some bastard swipes my laptop, and I find out where it is, the last damn thing I'm going to do is buy it back. I don't care if the guy holding it is the one who stole it or not, he's not getting a nickle for something that's mine.