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US Nuclear Weapons Lab Loses 67 Computers
pnorth writes "Officials from New Mexico's Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory have confessed that 67 of its computers are missing, with no less than 13 of them having disappeared over the past year alone. A memo [PDF] leaked by the Project on Government Oversight watchdog brought the lost nuclear laptops to the public's attention, but the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration dismissed fears the computers contained highly-sensitive or classified information, noting it was more likely to cause 'cybersecurity issues.' Three of the 13 computers which went missing in the past year were stolen from a scientist's home on January 16 and the memo also mentioned a BlackBerry belonging to another staff member had been lost 'in a sensitive foreign country.' The labs faced similar issues back in 2003 when 22 laptops were designated as being 'unlocated.'"
I guess causing 'cybersecurity issues' is better than 'nuclear warfare issues'.
like phosphorescent desert buttons singing one familiar song
best to tag this one SNAFU.
Check the resident BOFH's stash closet...he will probably cut you a good deal on buying them back if you ask nice.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
I hope they take more care of their plutonium than they do of their computers!
What "cybersecurity issues" could arise that do not involve sensitive secrets to be leaked?
I heard about this on Coast to Coast last night.
America's greatest threat to national security and the economy is the government itself.
"Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Laboratory and Taco Stand: Come for the Nukes; stay for the tacos. "
Announcer: "If we lose your sensitive nuclear secrets, your next contract is FREEEEEE!!!!"
And I'd like to be the king of all Londinium and wear a shiny hat.
At least they didn't lose any nukes.
How many times have I told you guys... first you short the receivables and then you steal the goods. Damn govt. employees can't even get a simple thing like scraping off the top right.
Which "sensitive foreign country"?
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
I worked at Sandia National Labs for 4 summers, and Los Alamos was in the news no less than three times during that period for losing sensitive documents and hardware. By comparison, the biggest event at Sandia was a missing disk that turned out to have never existed - it was simply an order form that was never processed. That didn't matter, though - everyone in the department was required to sit through additional security classes as a precaution.
A lot of things seem to go "missing" around here also. Say this is a nice Toshiba, I bet the wife would like it. Ooooppppssss perhaps I've said too much...
three of the 13 computers which went missing in the past year were stolen from a scientist's home
Either this guy gets robbed a lot, or he's been stealing laptops.
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
Project on Government Oversight watchdog brought the lost nuclear laptops to the public's attention
so now they have nuclear laptops. WOW and mine still runs solar power.
Its not my fault, someone put a wall in my way.
Boot it up from a read only partition, with the keys only delivered from a central server upon connecting with a valid log on? I'm sure such a thing is easily possible.
The computers had Linux installed, so its quite likely that the theives will get frustrated and just install windows.
Passwords and credit info in plaintext, or plain ordinary personal info.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
I just wonder one thing. How many examples of incompetency like this do we need before maybe people will reconsider whether having government get into the health care business and all these other "growth areas" for government is really such a good idea? I mean, at least law enforcement, public works, and national defense really are legitimate roles of government; this one would fall under "national defense" and they failed miserably with this too.
I suggest that this incident highlights the fundamental untrustworthiness of government even when it's performing what is without question one of its proper roles. I mentioned some implications of this that may or may not have crossed your minds. What I am not doing is endorsing any alternative proposals or anything like that. I think we already have enough presented problems and prefabricated solutions; philosophical understanding or at least a grasping of some simple principles are what I'd like to see more of. I observe that our Founding Fathers had a strong and well-founded distrust of governmental power and that history since then has only provided more reasons to feel this way. I see this and then I notice that most Americans don't appreciate it, and that's despite the fact that we are close to becoming a totalitarian police state (to you reactionary knee-jerk types, the health care issue is not why I feel that way). The stage is set for it and if you study the early history of some of the 20th century's worst dictatorships, the parallels to their situation and ours are appalling. I just wonder at what point we can all decide "hey, the government is big enough and powerful enough and nothing good will become of continuing to expand it, maybe it's time to try something new".
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
They should get this guy to do PR for the banking industry. "It's OK everyone! They didn't rob the bank, we just gave them the keys to the safe."
I bet you can go a really long time without recharging those.
That's it. My computer is not "lost"; it is merely "unlocated".
http://lanl-the-rest-of-the-story.blogspot.com/2009/02/larry-moe-and-kevin.html
The "Kevin" reference is to Kevin Roarke, the "truth-challenged" official spokesperson for Loas Alamos National Labs.
What would be the estimated half-life of the battery? They've been holding out on us!
A new policy that says you leave facility equipment at the facility. Laptops stay on site. No more working from home. Productivity drops a bit, but lost information stops getting lost. I'm sure the workers would like to not work at home.
Where are the guards? Where are the security personnel who watch doors to secret/classified labs containing computers with sensitive information? These are simple questions. They are about people with direct responsibility to the safeguarding of these computers. These sorts of people are people who don't always know what it is that they are guarding and thus may not know how vital their jobs are to this nation. I don't worry about these questions because they have easy answers like, "He took a long lunch", "No one was watching the door" etc. I worry about the other people. The people who walk by every day and notice something is missing but don't deign to ask a simple question, "where did that computer go?" 67 computers went missing and not one scientist noticed? Scientists are educated in the scientific method where a lack of information, or wrong information is seen as the enemy. Scientists should hold themselves duty bound to always tell the truth if only for the reason that if the truth is not told, there can be no progress. In truth, scientists should be as much the guardians of the information they are privy too as the people whose job it is to expressly guard those computers. What has become of these computers is just as an important a questions as what has become of our (the scientific community) morality. For if we can not change our attitudes towards our responsibilities then we can not change our behaviors in respect to them. For all our sakes, I hope they accidentally skipped a room when they were searching.
What, no WOPR tag?
http://lanl-the-rest-of-the-story.blogspot.com/2009/02/larry-moe-and-kevin.html [blogspot.com]
The "Kevin" reference is to Kevin Roarke, the "truth-challenged" official spokesperson for Loas Alamos National Labs.
National Nuclear Security Administration dismissed fears the computers contained highly-sensitive or classified information...
He explained that the NNSA has lists of highly sensitive and classified information, and none of the laptops appear on those lists. At least, none of the laptops appear on their remaining lists.
-Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
This never would have happened back in the good old days of the Princeton IAS machine. People took good care of their computers then. And kept track of them. You never would have caught a scientist taking one home.
And children respected their parents, and a dollar was a dollar, and we had wonderful music--not this modern stuff, it's noise, I tell you, just noise.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
They had a blog about it
noting it was more likely to cause 'cybersecurity issues.'
This is a no-duh! type statement. Since actual classified material wasn't obtained, somehow the problem is less severe, right? After all, those 'cybersecurity issues' would never be used for anything as piddly as obtaining classified information.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the point of espionage?
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
scores of intelligence personnel descended on all the pawn shops in Oklahoma. Also all New Zealanders in the US were understandably nervous. :P
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The Air Force can't keep track of the weapons, Los Alamos can't keep track of the technical data, why is Iran spending money to develop nuclear technology? The way we keep up with our shit, they could probably just get it off Ebay.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
... One computer at a time ...
New Mexico is a hot bed of drug smuggling and gang activity. IIRC a few years ago they raided a trailer of some employees for drugs and came up with stolen computer gear.
No international spy conspiracy, just people selling stolen goods to get high.
Still, this is really lax security in an area rife with crime.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
They cross the unprotected border from Mexico, bribe a couple workers, then smuggle the computer south so they can be sold to either Mexico politicians or Al Queda operatives (or both).
In other news:
An Arizona rancher named Roger Barnett is being sued by 18 illegal aliens. His crime? He turned-in 12,000 non-citizens to the Feds. I hope the lawsuit gets thrown-out.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
There are ~14000 employees at LANL. I'd guess 20,000 laptop and desktop machines. 0.1% loss per year isn't bad. There's nothing in the article to say when the other 67 might have fallen off the radar.
"We have met the enemy, and he is us."
Chemists do it with moles.
should just cut power to the city and see who's house emits a green glow.
Nullius in verba
What does it take for this University to lose the contract with the U.S. Government? These guys have the worst security in the world and yet Washington keeps giving them the contract! Must be some payola going on.
los alamos employs something like 15,000 people depending on how you count the contractors. They also have a much high rate of computer usage--multiple computers per person. They also have many computer loaned out to universities or incorporated in field equipment.
13 a year lost is peanuts. They should be getting a prize not a scolding.
The "missing" computers were cannibalized for parts for the other computers.
It's a farce really, considering the Chinese already stole our nuclear secrets from Bush.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
What is the theft rate of laptops in private companies? With almost 10k employees, 13 computers a year doesn't sound that high, especially considering that Los Alamos would likely be more targeted for theft than a normal company. Note - these computers were not being used to process classified information, so there was no reason to protect them at a higher level than a normal company would protect Proprietary or Personnel information.
How much does MS pay for this?
NO SIG
Sandia not in the news? Ha! They even fired people who revealed the chinese were stealing their secrets, getting hacked by pakistani script kiddies. When you consider that sandia is tiny compared to Los Alamos (which spans 47 square miles) you have to realize their rate of serious security breaches is much worse. Los alamos has not reported any break-ins during the same period. No wonder they don't let Sandia store nuclear materials.
You stupid bastards!
Can't your organization do anything right? My god!
I really didn't want to have to learn to speak Mandarin, but now, damn...
Why haven't these people been prosecuted? Why aren't they held accountable?
Why? I WANT TO KNOW NOW!
Security at Los Alamos is likely no less stringent or competent that any research institute, public or private. Incidents like these are more conspicuous because of the nature of the work done there. The balance between security and freedom to communicate ideas has always been a challenge when conducting research in sensitive areas. This has been a challenge at Los Alamos from the start, dating back to the Manhattan project.
You can't do research in a bubble.
Step one: VPN into the facility network. Step two: VNC into a virtualized PC. Step three: Do your work on the virtualized PC. Step four: End session. Step five: Enjoy a nice snifter of brandy as you don't have to worry about your data being stolen. Other than heavily encrypted and guarded back-up drives, my company doesn't let any data leave the premises. Yes, you can make the argument that any network outage would shut down your off-site operations, but it's a small hassle for the payoff in security.
Dress for success AND excess.
Los Almos from 1943 called and said you suck.
In the DC area. There were armed guards at the gates that checked our IDs and vehicles every morning. We had so much stuff stolen out of our labs and offices that there had to be weekly warnings issued. Purses were routinely stolen out of offices during the day, and one night, three brand new desktop systems were stolen out of an office "pod". These were desktop boxes, including monitors (not flat screens but CRTs).
In retrospect, there were more thefts in that "high security" facility than any place I've worked at before or after.
The Aussie linkspam on Slashdot is back!
That must mean that kdawson has finally returned!
I wonder if he has any idea how much Australian Slashdotters missed him and his crusade to make Slashdot a site all about Australia?
Sob! I'm sooooo HAPPY!
While this sort of thing shouldn't happen in sensitive government projects. Working in IT it doesn't surprise me at all. Lax tracking combined with the need for every employee having laptop is a problem with any company. ESPECIALLY when corners are being cut to save on cost. Its possible also that MORE were lost but simply not accounted for in this case also, flowing the same logic. Yet another reason to really look into how your company (or government project) tracks and inventories equipment.
Los Alamos is run, like all government research facilities, by PRIVATE contractors! Everyone always goes on about "Private Sector is better/more responsible than Government!" Well, every single one of these types of facilities and programs is run by PRIVATE COMPANIES under contract.
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
Suppose that you are a worker at Los Alamos, and you lose a computer. Do you
1) Report it lost. Hey, if a laptop was lost by the Secretary of Defense during the First Gulf War, it could happen to any peon!
2) Don't report it, and maybe no one might notice. I bet this happens a lot too. Sometimes, the records might not be closely watched.
3) Buy an identical computer on EBay, Change the serial number on the firmware and repopulate the data.
My guess is #3 is the worst choice because suppose that you did lose it, and it ends up in the hands of the enemy. Maybe it might be used against you in a multitude of ways. Well, sometimes, there are moles planted amongst the enemy, so it might end up getting spotted and word gets back to your side. Now, you are accused of intentionally replacing the goods with counterfeit items.
If so, we know what the problem is and are just dancing around it.
They cross the unprotected border from Mexico, bribe a couple workers, then smuggle the computer south so they can be sold to either Mexico politicians or Al Queda operatives (or both).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
The Geological Survey would have my butt if I lost my laptop...and I don't work on anything even remotely classified. What a lack of accountability!
I'm curious wtf he needs 3 laptops for, regardless of what they're registered for. I'm really trying and I can't fathom one possible use that a single person would have for three laptops at the same time.
This article is a ridiculous slander piece motivated by a watchdog group that hates nuclear weapons and misrepresents the truth. I like how it's written in an Australian Information Technology site. They must know a lot about Los Alamos since they are on the OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD.
I have worked for similar labs in the past. The computers that "disappeared" were unclassified computers. This is equivalent to a university student losing his laptop.
Notice at the end of the "article" how it says one of the computers stolen was "even authorised for home use"? That's because, again, it only contained unclassified information. And in case you are wondering, Los Alamos doesn't use blackberries for classified info either, so what the article is really saying is that someone got their laptop and cell phone stolen on travel.
Now I know what you are thinking... Man, what idiots! I would never let my laptop get stolen! But then think about how much time your laptop spends alone at your house or in your hotel room when you are not using it, or when it is locked in your car. Then think about how thieves might be even more interested in stealing your equipment if they knew that it was from a weapons lab employee because they were hoping that would contain classified info they could sell. It reality, the equipment sells about at well as shitty articles like this one: It sounds really desirable until you start poking around and realize it is just full of crap.
You want to get excited about something? Pakistan is releasing A.Q. Khan from house arrest. You may have missed that since the news didn't make a big deal about it, but he actually sells classified weapons designs to foreign countries like Iran and North Korea with the support of Pakistan. But ignore that and the millions of dollars of military equipment that we "lost" in Iraq. Just keep worrying about stolen government equipment like Los Alamos' unclassified laptops...
I wonder how many laptops got confiscated by the TSA/Boarder Patrol when arriving back on US shores.
for all of your criticisms of government, having no government is even worse
your negative observations of government occur in a vacuum, free of any context. when examined in context, the context of realizing the good governments do and the context of realizing the much worse evils that occur without any government at all, means that your prosecution of the very idea of government itself is just a form of insanity on your part
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
As a "government agent," of the type you describe, I still find government to be a necessary evil. Am I part of the government?--only after a fashion.
:) )
Still, it would seem to me that just like a Disney shareholder can quite frequently have more impact on changing a company than, say, a strongly conservative religious group's decision to avoid buying from the company, so too, a teacher, or any other government employee, stands a greater chance at implementing significant change than someone on the outside yelling that we're doing it all wrong.
After all, do you listen to strangers who tell you that you have it wrong or to people you know and work with on a daily basis? (of course, as someone disagreeing with your position who doesn't know you, I may have just sealed my fate
Phew. I guess it's not time to head to the vault just yet.
you accept the notion of having a government. good. now you say your problem is that it is too large or too small according to some sort of standard. you don't tell me what that standard is, you just allude to a nebulous kinship with the founding fathers
"As such it needs to operate within clearly-defined limits"
who defines those limiting terms? who sets those limits? who measures affinity with those limits?
and even more importantly, who ENFORCES that?
some sort of metagovernment?
of course not, you would say no to that... ideally, the limits are determined, and enforced, by the people themselves. agreed?
sounds fundamentalist foundingfatherist enough for you?
ok then: but that's exactly what we already have!
you already have EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT: a self-correcting mechanism to keep the government as trim as it should be, or as fat as it should be
its called DEMOCRACY
behold:
1. if we elect a government that massively bloats the bureaucracy, we get angry, some politician senses that anger, and gets elected on that platform, and shrinks the government
2. if we elect a government that massively cuts services, we get angry, some politician senses that anger, and gets elected on that platform, and increases government services
so what exactly is your problem again? ...however, i'll bring my point home further, to fatally destroy your pov: if you sense that the government is too bloated, but you are part of a fringe few with that view, and the vast amjority seem ok with the size of the government, then nothing changes. because, according to the wishes and wisdom of the founding fathers, you are minority voice on the issue, and, according to the democratic principles of the country you live in, your desires to shrink the government are not expressed
deal with it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I work at one of our many other nuclear research labs and the security is airtight there. I can't imagine how terrible a job the guards must be doing at Los Alamos.
I am scientifically inaccurate.