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.'"

Comments

Re:I just wonder one thing

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

You do realize that Los Alamos, while it is a government project in the broad sense, is run by Los Alamos National Security LLC, a private, for profit, corporation?

Morale at the lab was so bad

[Presto Vivace]

They had a blog about it

Re:Morale at the lab was so bad

[DougDot]

They still do:

http://lanl-the-rest-of-the-story.blogspot.com/

And morale is even worse these days. Bechel has been a disaster since they took over the contract for LANL.

Re:This doesn't jive

[El Gigante de Justic]

All three were stolen on the same date (January 16th), but as the article points out, the more disturbing fact is that only one of the three was authorized for home use.

Stop Saying, "Government"!

[gbutler69]

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.