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US Army Files Found On Second-Hand MP3 Player
MichaelSmith writes "A New Zealand man who bought a second hand MP3 player from a store in the US found it loaded with the names and personal details of American soldiers, as well as a mission briefing and information about equipment.
Chris Ogle says he will return the unit to the US Defense Department if asked, and that it never worked as a music player anyway.
A
slightly different version of the story is available from TVNZ."
They will also be able to conveniently download the contents on Wikileaks.org in 4.. 3.. 2.. 1..
The Army should ask for the return of the MP3 player (and pay for it), find out who put the files on it, and punish them. I don't expect that to happen.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
If the military is not smart enough to purchase this item from the person and investigate how and who placed those files on this player then security is an afterthought and obviously flawed. This type of information couldn't have been obtained by a low level recruit either but someone higher in the chain of command. Either the FBI or the CIA should look into this without military oversight so there is no chance of influence. I doubt it will happen but I hope they do.
The military has already begun a comprehensive policy of prohibiting these devices for this very reason after that worm went through a bunch of military systems because of infected key drives.
Hi,
i would expect this to happen on a daily basis. Usually the buyer will not be a journalist but some kid. The typical kid will say "boring stuff" and have those files deleted before finishing yawning. By doing so, they prevent more security leaks than most security officers.
Sincerly yours, Martin
What's the big deal? The mission is probably over anyway, I could surely come up with name of 60 US soldiers using the Internet if I wanted to, and even Wikipedia is full of information on the US Army equipment.
Seriously, I'd just overwrite the device with a utility such as dban then keep my mouth shut, forever. This is the advice I'd offer anyone in this sort of situation. I actually take it a step further in that I dban _every_ used storage device I get without first looking to see what is on it, so I have no clue if I ever received something via a second-hand device that I should not have.
Why did he come out and admit this? The US will either try to extradite him or ban him from entering the US again. And the poor soldier responsible will get shafted too. For what? Just wipe the drive and pretend it never happened moron.
...what they shouldn't have kept secret anyway.
Well, I don't know enough to tell in this case, but it's an important, general question: What information should governmental agencies be allowed to keep secret from the world (and thereby from their own citizens) and what should be available? Remember, we (the people) are the ones to decide that when we decide we want to create a government in the first place.
Most of the US Gov is banning USB key drives, music players plugged into computers, and any other read/write media.
Best Slashdot Co
Few seemingly innocuous things can get you in greater trouble in any part of the federal government, especially the DoD than bringing a personal portable storage device into an area that is restricted. Copying sensitive information onto one is, itself, a very serious offense that if a soldier gets caught doing will not only revoke any security clearance they had but quite possibly end their career in the federal government.
Most likely they will try to punish the current owner.
What, they're going to sue him for buying what he was offered?
i would think that in an organization as large and as stereotypically stringent as the us army that they'd have some sort of exit policy for equipment and personnel.
I would have thought so, too, until I spent a few years in the US military. You'd be amazed how much and what kind of stuff makes it past policies (exit or otherwise). When I lived in a military town, it seems like I'd see a story every year or so about about service members getting caught with garages full of new and/or used stuff.
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
You can find secret information on wikipedia. After getting out of the service I decided to see if certain details were on certain pages and found the secret information. There is probably much more throughout the entire site that seems quite benign but it is still classified.
That would make for one hell of a 'garage sale'! ;)
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer." -Adolf Hitler
"We are one Nation, we are one People." -The One 'leader'
Hi, you'll need 1$ to scrub the flash drive and 1 million bucks to find out which one. This probably wasn't an army issue MP3 player. Someone was using his own player to transport files from work to home. The player got stolen and ended up on the black market. If you want to prevent this, you need technical measures to prevent writing on confidential data on usb drives. This software has to be installed on each and every PC. Then some brass comes by (usually has more stars than brain cells) and orders his PC to be excluded. Otherwise he cannot perform mission alpha bravo delta. His PC gets an exception rule, his junior assistants gets the same rights.... etc. Everyone knows where this ends. Sincerely yours, Martin
Victoria University strategic studies director Peter Cozens said one of the first rules of military endeavour was to not give the opposition information that could compromise your position.
and the second rule of military endeavour was to not give the opposition information that could compromise your position
Oh, so it was a Zune?
i would think that in an organization as large and as stereotypically stringent as the us army that they'd have some sort of exit policy for equipment and personnel.
You'd think that an organization as large and as stereotypically stringent as the us army would store their privileged data on something a little more robust, professional, and secure than an iPod.
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
Hi, you'll need 1$ to scrub the flash drive and 1 million bucks to find out which one.
No. You need someone with a brain to say, "no more flash drives of any kind, and no exceptions". There; it's been said, for free even.
There is no sensible reason for variance when one needs information moved from one 'secure' computer to another 'secure' computer with a highly suspect, easily compromised method in the middle. That's free info as well.
This is completely avoidable with 100% surety. My original point remains (and a big booyah fuckyou to the moderator of GPP for not understanding or modding content)... we the taxpayers foot the bill for example after example of incompetence and stupidity, with very little reward in return.
The Army doesn't used iPods to store data. Service members, however, have a habit of ignoring policies and using whatever storage mechanism is handy to transfer data between systems. I'm in the Navy, and I've seen similar behavior. Yes, there are policies against it on my side as well. Stuff still happens, and this is exactly why we have rules concerning storage devices.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Military personnel are also favored targets for petty thefts while on leave. In many European countries, the Army provides unmarked, but so obviously government vans (read: plain white 'child molestor' type) for use by service members there on training rotations when they want to take in the sights. Thefts and break-ins are rampant as a result, esp. in parking lots near popular tourist sites.
The problem is, if you ban storage devices, you're gonna have to provide an equally convenient way to move data around. Otherwise everyone's going to find their own method, which may be as simple as emailing it around.
The issue is that rules are made, but the rulemakers don't realize the reason why people were doing what they were doing. Ban storage devices, and if someone still needs to get data from point A to point B, well, you've just got a bunch of people who are going to find a way to either circumvent the rule, or to find an alternative, which may not be as secure.
Banning the devices without an equally convenient alternative will just result in people finding workarounds. Just don't be surprised what those workarounds are. Interfere with people Getting Stuff Done(tm) without educating them on How to Get Stuff Done without X...
hmm, not so happy about your sig. Especially because "The One 'leader'" as you call it made it clear that he can't do anything on his own. But being from Europe I am perhaps a bit oversensitive about people who don't understand a thing about that part of history.
I hope the files did not include the full dossier of Ding Chavez and his detailed plans for hostage rescues.
I could care less what you think of my sig. I'll even go so far as to say that, unlike "The One", I could also care less what Europeans think about us or the way we do things.
Hitler was given 'temporary' emergency powers during a contrived crisis... Keep in mind we do have a provision in the US Constitution for martial law, and all it would take would be a sufficient 'crisis' to have a reason to invoke it. Of course that is extremely unlikely, and also unnecessary, since the "checks and balances" in place can also be subverted if all three branches of government are pushing the same agenda.
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer." -Adolf Hitler
"We are one Nation, we are one People." -The One 'leader'
I watched Burn After Reading last night, so this article is kind of funny. Sounds like a bunch of interesting-looking but ultimately useless information. Just don't let George Clooney shoot you in the face as you hide in John Malkovitch's closet, okay?
I also recently purchased a used IPOD and found important naval information stored on it, most notably recruitment details describing how new recruits would be able to
When your team and others meet
amongst other available activities. In the interests of national security, I deleted the file in question immediately.
... all of those credit card numbers were there when I bought it!
Information wants to be free. And this is information with military training.
I would have thought so, too, until I spent a few years in the US military. You'd be amazed how much and what kind of stuff makes it past policies (exit or otherwise). When I lived in a military town, it seems like I'd see a story every year or so about about service members getting caught with garages full of new and/or used stuff.
Those are only the guys that they catch. Imagine being in that environment and knowing how to really cover your tracks or to surplus some stuff and have a local base garage sale where its been posted on base and base folks show up and spend bottom dollar on slightly used or near new stuff. I'm sure that happens far more than anyone's aware of and is considered a perk of being employed or in the know of certain organizations. I think that its wasteful to be throwing away/surplussing/upgrading anything that others would want.
I work at a local PD. Trust me the crap that we finally get rid of is so old/used that even the stuff in perfect unused condition is still 10 years old. (I hate knowing that some nameless individual has had a laptop for 10 years and it's been listed that they spend $3K on the thing and it looks like they never really booted the thing on. It's trash when we can't install anything current on the Win95 laptop though.) Stuff like that you are happy to have some one buy an entire lot of for $20. Heck, if you want to buy a replacement battery for most older laptops that'll cost at least $150 right there.
I'd be amazed at useful stuff that actually makes it out of local government offices. We don't surplus anything "current" or half way usable.
There has been many attempts to steal information from America. It is possible that this was stolen by a civilian that works on base and was looking to sell it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Don't worry about it too much. The morons who equate Obama with Hitler are a very small and ignorant minority that we've flushed out of power. They're generally the same people who supported vehemently our previous President's predilection for removing rights from our citizens, and are clueless that the US does not exist in a vacuum on this planet. We're going to be rebuilding our education infrastructure so we will hopefully no longer produce these types of embarrassments.
Which is more painful? Going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon? Find out!
http://www.workorspoon.com
Banning the devices without an equally convenient alternative will just result in people finding workarounds. Just don't be surprised what those workarounds are. Interfere with people Getting Stuff Done(tm) without educating them on How to Get Stuff Done without X...
This is the case with the current ban on thumb drives. For example, after years of being told we're moving electronic, the AF base I'm at switched to electronic crew pubs and forms, and other mission data from flights is built on board the aircraft, saved on a thumb drive, and downloaded to a system back home after the mission. There are work-arounds, but an entire system built on technology we can no longer use is an inconvenience that lends itself to unapproved / undocumented workarounds with even more security questions. We've always used government supplied thumb drives, but now a lot of people just (surreptitiously) use (more unknown) personal drives.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Come on, taggers. If you don't remember the movie, you could at least check the anagram to make sure it's right!
He modded you down in a thread he posted in? Gandalf is indeed a great and powerful wizard!
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
i dont think that was a troll...
anyway, the DoD has their own budget, and this falls under DoD. DHS doesnt mess with us.
Eh while equating anyone to Hitler is a stretch, it was a bit unnerving to see hundreds of thousands of people chant his mantra ("change") in comparison to the "Heils" of yesteryear. And no I'm not from America.
I am from America and I honestly found the European depiction of Obama the more ... unnerving. On a recent trip, Obama was in one paper (German) depicted as having a halo (via special effects and not the cheap drawn-in ones), in another described as a demi-god and savior (French) and in another described as a messiah (Belgian-French).
Americans aren't alone in uplifting any one individual to a place of too much significance.
WTF?
I heard that if you like find a mouse in your beer bottle and bring it to the beer store they like have to give you free beer or something.
I doubt our Government's incompetence as much as the next guy, BUT is there any verification that these files are legitimate. Could just be one giant fraud.
Less space than a Nomad. No US Army files. Lame.
... and then they built the supercollider.
I'd be less worried about petty theft in that case as I would about getting shot, to be honest.
Two Australians were shot dead in the Netherlands by the IRA back in the early 1990's. They'd apparently been mistaken for off-duty British soldiers as they were driving the same type of car as they usually drove.
It really sounds to me like it was stolen from a soldier and worked its way to a pawn shop.
Yipes! That's so much worse! That's probably why Reserve US Army personnel are directed to hide affiliation when utilizing civilian air transport internationally - as opposed to active duty personnel flying domestically to and from leave. That freaking sucks! Those kids should be able to get free beer, not dodge bullets.