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.

Comments

May I be the first to say

[pecosdave]

Documentation security - you're doing it wrong.

Re:May I be the first to say

[ImNotAtWork]

that causes political harm or embarrassment

Other than military secrets like we have a spy in such and such position. I'm going to call upon.. "If you don't act in a manner that would embarrass yourself/department you should have nothing to worry about." They have been using it to justify countless forms of monitoring.. let's see how they like it when the positions are switched.. Yes I know I'm living in fantasy land.

Re:May I be the first to say

[Chrisq]

that causes political harm or embarrassment

Other than military secrets like we have a spy in such and such position. I'm going to call upon.. "If you don't act in a manner that would embarrass yourself/department you should have nothing to worry about." They have been using it to justify countless forms of monitoring.. let's see how they like it when the positions are switched.. Yes I know I'm living in fantasy land.

I think the UK government reached an all time low in this is when Thatcher's government tried to use the official secrets act to prevent it becoming public knowledge that they had encouraged Matrix Churchill and Sheffield Forgemasters to make Saddam Hussain's supergun, even though keeping it quiet would have resulted in the directors going to prison. So they were prepared to see innocent men who had cooperated with the intelligence services (even offering to fit a tracking device) go to prison rather than be embarrassed.

Re:May I be the first to say

[Shakrai]

I think they reached their new all time low each time they took rights away from their own citizens.

Re:May I be the first to say

[Philip K Dickhead]

The article on th efront page does not draw attention to the most remarkable - and horrible - aspect of the MoD document.

It consistently groups "investigative journalists" into a category with "terrorists", "criminals" and "computer hackers".

The document states "the "enemy" is unwelcome publicity of any kind, and through any medium". This is the military. "Enemy" is not a metaphor to these people.

Re:May I be the first to say

[Runaway1956]

That really hit me, as I read the article. By extension, any taxpaying citizen who would read the work of an investigative reporter would also be an enemy of the state. There is simply no way to justify the logic of their classification. Expect a new expose' in the US - people who request information under the FOI act are investigated by FBI/NSA/CIA etc ad nauseum.

Re:May I be the first to say

[eyrieowl]

If I am trying to prevent leaks of some type of information, anyone who might be actively attempting to get that information SHOULD be grouped together in a gross classification scheme. Or, to put another spin on it, let's say that I find it offensive that you grouped "computer hackers" with "terrorists" and "criminals".... You should stop seeing the grouping as a set of moral equivalences and recognize them as functional equivalences for a narrowly defined function (actively trying to get secret information). As for "enemy"...I find unwelcome publicity to be my enemy as well. Fortunately I'm a nobody so I've never had to face that enemy, but I sure wouldn't welcome it. Yes, perhaps in a military context another word like "adversary" might be more appropriate for this problem, but that's getting into semantics and PC. Semantics aside, a) it's a valid problem b) the classification scheme is useful and valid.

Not twisted enough

[gmuslera]

Declare an inexistent document the ultimate reference on how to stop leaks, put references to it in selected internal documents and even build fake leaks about its existence. As noone will be able to find it, will really work, even against the human factor. You can make a gigantic library of such documents, and put all of them in the unexistent parallel library of congress, where noone will be able to see what countain all those leak-proof documents against sensible matters of national security. Next time someone will try to make problems, will be so sure that will be a full non-existent document about him in that library where everything is afraid of become known is written that will discard that idea, making the world a safer place.

Britain

[gijoel]

Now with 50% more irony.

Outdated spook mentality

[1s44c]

These people are unable to adapt to a world where information can be sent around the world in seconds. They are the stupid, violent policemen who might punch you for looking at them but won't stop crime, terrorism, or anything else because they belong to some WW2 era not the current world.

They want to play stupid games with hidden codewords so they can pretend they are more important than 'civilians', all they really do is waste resources.

Re:Outdated spook mentality

[Dhalka226]

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?

Re:Outdated spook mentality

[internettoughguy]

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.

Re:Outdated spook mentality

[slarrg]

Gee, it seems to me that the banks already give your account information to reporting agencies who will sell it to anyone with the money to buy it. So, despite my desire to keep the information secret, the governemt has already decided that we do not deserve this privacy.

The problem with government secrecy is that rather than concentrating their efforts on information that is vital to keep secret, they mark almost everything as secret with very little justification. The more pieces of information you claim are secret, the more likely that some of that information will leak through the cracks. Meanwhile the attempt to keep many secrets removes focus from the truly vital pieces which makes any given secret more likely to slip out from divided attention.

Couple this with the technology and recent government directives and we end up collecting even more public and private information, networking the information together for easy retrieval, and not focusing on the most important secrets which leads to a total mess.

Re:Outdated spook mentality

[Anne Thwacks]

You do realise that political embarrassment in the context of the military generally doesn't mean the Permanent Undersecretary having an affair,

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.)

Oh man

[Intoblivion]

The Irony Department is going to get it for this.

2400 pages?

[DamienNightbane]

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.

Re:2400 pages?

[Entropius]

I ran the text of the DMCA -- yes, all untold pages of it -- through an advanced semantic data compression algorithm.

The output was just the string "CITIZENBENDOVER".

Re:2400 pages?

[Hurricane78]

Let me guess: It went something like this (pseudo-code):

while (!stdin.eof) buf = stdin.read();
print("CITIZENBENDOVER");

Re:2400 pages?

[Adambomb]

Robert Jordan fans.

Quick solution

[s1lverl0rd]

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.

Re:Quick solution

[jimicus]

But there's a problem with that.

You see, s1lverl0rd, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with secrets. Whoâ(TM)s gonna do it? You, s1lverl0rd? They have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for the truth and you curse the government.

You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what they know: that secrets, while tragic, probably save lives. And their existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives...

You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want them on that wall. You need them there.

Re:Quick solution

[Aceticon]

I think we all understand the need to for the intelligence services to keep some secrets.

What most of us are worried about is their focus on protecting information:

that causes political harm or embarrassment

- When people find out that MPs submitted expenses to parliament for buying duck-houses or cleaning moats ... that's politically embarrassing.
- When people find out that sitting ministers are evading taxes ... that's politically embarrassing.
- When people find out each and every situation of waste, incompetence and pure and simple disregard for the money that we pay in taxes on the part of politicians or people directly nominated or overseen by politicians ... that's politically embarrassing.

Those leaks are often also politically damaging for those responsible for the problem.

And here we have the intelligence services' manual for protecting information from the which amongst other things directs them to protect "information that causes political harm or embarrassment" from the prying eyes of such evil people as ... journalists.

If I didn't already believe that the UK is a corrupt and decadent nation, this would convince me.

Yo dawg..

[Datamonstar]

I heard you like leaks...

To be followed up by a secondary document..

[Goodl]

How not to be seen (Caption on screen: 'HM GOVERNMENT, PUBLIC SERVICE FILM NO. 42 PARA 6. "HOW NOT TO BE SEEN"') Voice Over: In this film we hope to show how not to be seen. This is Mr. E.R. Bradshaw of Napier Court, Black Lion Road London SE5. He can not be seen. Now I am going to ask him to stand up. Mr. Bradshaw will you stand up please In the distance Mr Bradshaw stands up. There is a loud gunshot as Mr Bradshaw is shot in the stomach. He crumples to the ground Voice Over: This demonstrates the value of not being seen.

Re:To be followed up by a secondary document..

[Goodl]

How is my post in any way informative, it was meant to be titter worthy for the Python crowd