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US Military Leaks its Secrets Online

Posted by samzenpus on from the check-out-the-cia-myspace-page dept.

athloi writes "Detailed schematics of a military detainee holding facility in southern Iraq, geographical surveys and aerial photographs of two military airfields outside Baghdad and plans for a new fuel farm at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan are among the items accidentally left online by government agencies and contractors."

3 of 198 comments (clear)

  1. "Accidently"?? by iminplaya · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Please! So those were the "real" plans, huh? Nod Nod Wink Wink..

    --
    What?
  2. Re:How egalitarian by Elemenope · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm fine with the government invading privacy just as long as they don't get to have any either.

    I'm not, but it is still vaguely funny. Funny in the sense that the military is even more obsessed than the famously obsessed Federal Government (of which it is a prominent member) is with controlling information could make a mistake this stupid. Not funny in the sense that often (though not always), military secrets are secrets for good strategic or tactical reasons, and our military is at least nominally on our side. (It's like rooting for the home team. ;) )

    Privacy isn't supposed to be a two-way street between a citizen and their government; symmetry of relation is inappropriate. Governments by definition are in service to the public, and act on behalf of that public; thus, there are precious few acceptable reasons why any corporeal manifestation of that government can assert a reason to keep its actions from those whom it serves, whereas a private citizen is private until and unless it gives ample reason for a public agency to believe they are doing something illegally naughty. The names almost give it away. Public Government. Private Citizen.

    As a citizen, I don't want my government thinking it is in some egalitarian relationship with me and my fellow citizens. The government ought to consider itself subordinate to its citizens.

    And I know this is taking your joke and dragging it unkindly into unfunny territory, but the 'you show me yours, I'll show you mine' meme is, I think, destructive to any defensible notion of privacy.

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    All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
  3. Re:How to improve your security... by Rearden82 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That's much more "Insightful" than "Funny".

    I had the unfortunate experience of dealing with a government agency whose website was hacked. After a month-long "security audit", their in-house security experts devised a comprehensive plan to lock down their server and prevent it from ever being compromised again.

    The solution, in its entirety, was to turn http://www.dumbass.agency.gov into the new, "secure" https://www.dumbass.agency.gov.

    I wish I was kidding.