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Ministry of Defense's "How To Stop Leaks" Document Is Leaked
samzenpus writes "A restricted 2,400 page-document put out by the MoD designed to help intelligence personnel with information security has been leaked onto the internet. Wikileaks notes that Joint Services Protocol 440 (JSP 440), was published in 2001 and lays out protocols to defend against hackers, journalists, and foreign spies. it says, 'Leaks usually take the form of reports in the public media which appear to involve the unauthorized disclosure of official information (whether protectively marked or not) that causes political harm or embarrassment to either the UK Government or the Department concerned... The threat [of leakage] is less likely to arise from positive acts of counter-espionage, than from leakage of information through disaffected members of staff, or as a result of the attentions of an investigative journalist, or simply by accident or carelessness.' " Looks like it's time to write JSP 441.
Documentation security - you're doing it wrong.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Seriously? Who the fuck would read something that long? How can they expect a document that long to have any effect on anything aside from bureaucracy? If the document had only been two or three pages people probably would have read and understood it.
Whoever drafted and approved the document should be shot. Same with all the people that write bills that are hundreds or thousands of pages long, and doubly so for the people that vote for and sign them without having ever read them.
A quick solution would be to just have less secrets. Telling everyone what you are doing isn't that hard - and the foreign spies, hackers and journalists will find out anyway.
I'm sorry that you struggle to accept the fact that not all information belongs in public view. Perhaps you can explain your position to me while you hand over your bank account numbers and routing codes.
I hate to shatter your world view, but sometimes keeping things from certain groups of people is the right thing to do and that doesn't change just because one of the entities is a government. Yes, it will be abused. Yes, abuse should be punished. No, that does not mean the concept is without merit or that it's not worth trying.
Information security is definitely harder in this day and age, and it would be a colossal blunder to rely on mere obfuscation or concealment to protect things. That doesn't mean they don't have their places, nor does it mean that proper use of such in appropriate situations somehow makes them WW2-era codeword-loving spooks. Frankly, suggesting it just makes you sound like an idiot. Couple it with your ever-so-reasonable comments about police beating people but ignoring crime and, well, that cinches it up pretty firmly doesn't it?
I'm sorry that you struggle to accept the fact that not all information belongs in public view. Perhaps you can explain your position to me while you hand over your bank account numbers and routing codes.
Don't be ridiculous, they just admitted they were hiding dirty secrets "political harm or embarrassment", and generally destroying political transparency, and that is corrupt and undemocratic. Also using your bank account analogy their job Is not just to protect their account number, but also to steal yours (they call this information gathering). and all without any public or even legal oversight into their actions.
You are obviously unfamilar with UK politics. That is indeed the most frequent meaning.
Other meanings include, but are not limited to, minsters being caught beaking the law they themselves are responsible for enacting, and various assorted high-ups being caught in various forms of large scale corruption, or acts which could reasonably be desribed as treason, while preventing prosecution of the police for killing innocent people. (ver the last 10 years, the police have killed more people in the UK than terrorists have.)
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