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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."'"
The cure is to destroy devices, which are trivially cheap, instead of selling them.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
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...
We use a fancy expensive hard disk shredder to obliterate them... What a waste to see a perfectly working Bold being destroyed but it's the only way to ensure the permanent PIN # is not reused. The issue of potentially receiving embarrassing PINPIN texts is resolved.
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 ).
If your BackBerry belongs to an organization there is usually a remote wipe capability and remote disable feature. The last firm I where I worked would regularly wipe and disable lost BlackBerrys.
Fresh set of GOP numbers? What to do...
Joe: Hello?
New BB Owner: Is your refrigerator running?
So many possibilities!
I'm a huge obama supporter, but let's be fair to the guy. He's so out of the tech loop he's not personally responsible for this stuff. His tech people are responsible. Of course, they were all let go Nov 5, so I'm not surprised these last duties were neglected.
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
The cure is to destroy devices, which are trivially cheap, instead of selling them.
Or, since this is a blackberry, use the built-in, server-controlled guaranteed wipe function before selling them.
Or, use your blackberry server to encrypt the device content with AES, and force the user to have a strong password.
See how easy things are with blackberries? But you do have to click a few options.
Idiots.
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.
Yes this is another fine example of why septuagenarians should not be allowed anywhere near tech.
First of all, why would someone who is 70+ not be able to handle technology? I will always remember great uncle who was writing geodesic software on the ZX Spectrum, at the time when most people have not even heard about home computers. Oh, and he was 70+ then.
The second thing that puzzles me is, why would McCain's alleged computer illiteracy be a factor in this incident? So if he is not familiar with computer technology, then his staff will sell blackberries without deleting sensitive information? I think you're making a huge leap in your logic, there.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.