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McCain Campaign Sells Info-Loaded Blackberry PDAs
An anonymous reader writes "A news station in Washington D.C. has reported that the McCain Campaign has allegedly sold to reporters Blackberry handhelds with campaign-related information such as e-mail messages and phone numbers: 'We traced the Blackberry back to a staffer who worked for "Citizens for McCain" ... The emails contain an insider's look at how grassroots operations work, full of scheduling questions and rallying cries for support ... But most of the numbers were private cell phones for campaign leaders, politicians, lobbyists and journalists. "Somebody made a mistake," one owner told us. "People's numbers and addresses were supposed to be erased."'"
I wish my incompetence could land me a job whereby I have full access to politicians and such and I can just hand out their information freely :D
...every so often there is a story about some person or organization that sold a device without wiping the data. According to TFA, there was nothing compromising on the device (information showing wrongdoing by members of the campaign, sensitive personal info, etc) so not a major flub. I would consider it a story if something compromising was found on the device, but extra care is usually taken to dispose of that.
I said "thanks but no thanks" to those naked pictures of Sarah Palin that I found on my Blackberry.
Now I can learn all the secrets of a highly successful political campaign!
Oh wait...
Yes this is another fine example of why septuagenarians should not be allowed anywhere near tech.
This happens all the time and most of the time we never hear about it.
You would not believe how many times government computers containing critical information have been sold without having their drives wiped or have been lost or stolen.
The private sector is no better.
The vast majority of organizations do not encrypt their data or their communications. In fact data which is supposed to be encrypted such as credit card information or social security numbers is often mishandled internally ( i.e. emailed half-way around the world unencrypted or stored in the clear ).
Fresh set of GOP numbers? What to do...
Joe: Hello?
New BB Owner: Is your refrigerator running?
So many possibilities!
The problem is they really don't understand or don't care. I got a computer from a government agency and it had not been wiped. They contacted me a week later and told me I had to return it so it could be erased and reformatted. I let them do that, but, I still don't understand what could make somebody think that erasing information that has been out of their control serves any purpose whatsoever. These are people who -could- think that chain of custody is flexible.
I just noticed the message at the bottom of my web page and it say that the Earth was destroyed by a solar flare. This post is pointless then I guess.
But McCains mistakes were not contained in secret reports, or conversations with advisors, they were big broad mistakes that everyone, including the legally blind, could read. Not everything the winner does contributed to the win, and not everything the loser did contributed to the loss, to assume otherwise is folly.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Maybe if it were possible to set a password on the thing, making the entire handheld unusable without entering it, and if it could wipe its memory after ten failed password attempts. That would be nice.
And perhaps there should be some kind of "Enterprise Server" that could manage the things remotely, with the ability to set security policies and disable them entirely when they were no longer needed. That would be nice too.
But, sadly, those options don't seem to be there. Otherwise, why wouldn't they have been used?
Perhaps they knew the economy was going down the pan and took a dive so that the Democrats would get the blame? Memories of the New Statesman episode "The Party's Over".
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
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