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Sheriff's Online Database Leaks Info On Informants
Tootech writes with this snippet from NPR:
"A Colorado sheriff's online database mistakenly revealed the identities of confidential drug informants and listed phone numbers, addresses and Social Security numbers of suspects, victims and others interviewed during criminal investigations, authorities said. The breach potentially affects some 200,000 people, and Mesa County sheriff's deputies have been sifting through the database to determine who, if anyone, is in jeopardy. ... The FBI and Google Inc. are trying to determine who accessed the database, the sheriff said. Their concern: That someone may have copied it and could post it, WikiLeaks-style, on the Internet. 'The truth is, once it's been out there and on the Internet and copied, you're never going to regain total control,' Hilkey said. Thousands of pages of confidential information were vulnerable from April until Nov. 24, when someone notified authorities after finding their name on the Internet. Officials said the database was accessed from within the United States, as well as outside the country, before it was removed from the server."
I hope someone at the Sheriff's office will be charged with felony negligence for this. I know that leaving a weapon where it can be accessed by a child or a felon is against the law so it should be logical that leaving a database of information open to the world that could easily destroy many lives is worth a felony too.
"To Serve And Protect"...
Deputies have used the database since 1989 to collect and share intelligence gathered during the course of police work. It contains 200,000 names — Mesa County's population is about 150,000 — and includes investigative files from a local drug task force.
Is it just me or does it seem odd to you that they have 200,000 confidential informants in a county with a population of 150,000? What the frack is going on in Mesa County?
What I can't fathom is how a database from a county with 120.000 people can affect 200.000 of them.
Am I missing something here?
right...
What if annual security training was mandatory for all the IT staff connected with law enforcement IT equipment -- just like weapons training is mandatory for all law enforcement officers. This includes the CIO [if they have one], the city manager, the systems architect [whichever poor IT technician is erroneously saddled with this responsibility], and all law enforcement officers who access this data. Failure to pass security training and any breach of security by any individual would initiate immediate administrative leave and/or an Internal Affairs or FBI investigation.
Certain data is a lethal weapon and should be treated appropriately.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
No they are the POLICE just like in Training Day. I have actually had a cop walk into my shop and ask me to hack into the state's email servers so if he could see if his wife was cheating on him. He actually had the brass balls to say "I'm the police, it's okay" like those are magic words or something.
Sadly if anyone thinks those cops actually give a shit about the lives of snitches after they have served their usefulness you got another thing coming. I bet if it wasn't for the stink the attitude would have been "oh well, too bad so sad". I can't speak for how it is up north but down here in the south the snitches have to worry about the crooked cops as much as their fellow junkies. A cop here in "meth alley" makes a grand total of 35k a year to get shot at and can easily make that in a month and NOT get shot at just by giving the dealers a heads up and looking the other way. I used to be friend's with a dealer's son and she used to get a call from a cop in the dispatchers office before the cops were even given out the assignments so she knew when they were gonna be in the neighborhood before they did.
In the end this kind of crap is just more proof the stupid drug war is just another monumental waste of taxpayer dollars. You would think after the failed booze war we would have learned, but I think a speech I heard years ago from an ultra conservative no less (I think it may have been William F Buckley) made the stupidity of the drug war clear as a bell for even the most clueless I've spoken to: "If I put a bottle on the table with a skull and crossbones on it and say 'This is poison. it will destroy your health, family, marriage, and ultimately kill you' and you push me out of the way and down the bottle? Well then frankly your are too stupid to live. Why should I have to spend billions building a fence around the bottle and cages to put you in, just to keep you from drinking it?"
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Well, with security breaches like this one, they do go through a LOT of informants...
They are EXTREMELY accident prone. Brake failures, falling anvils, gas furnaces blowing up, allergy attack's, you name it, it's happened to informants in the area.
Authorities have no idea why.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!