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MoD's Error Leaks Secrets of UK Nuclear Submarine
Tasha26 writes "UK's Ministry of Defence admitted that secret information about its nuclear powered submarines was leaked on the internet by mistake. A 'technical error' (i.e. turning the background colour of certain text to black) meant that sensitive blacked-out parts of the online MoD report could be read by anyone who copy-pasted it into another document. This accidental leak reveals, among many other things, how easy it would be to cause a Fukushima-style reactor meltdown in a sub, and details of measures used by the US Navy to protect its own nuclear submarines."
Why are the people who control dangerous things always so stupid?
Simple: The vast majority of people are stupid.
Or perhaps
Step 1 ) Remove sensitive information
"This accidental leak reveals, among many other things, how easy it would be to cause a Fukushima-style reactor meltdown in a sub"
Is that it, now? Is every single thing to do with nuclear reactors going to be compared to Fukushima from now on? What about if terrorists wanted to create a Chernobyl-style meltdown, or how about a three-mile-island-style meltdown?
No really, it's fine, I don't mind throwing random keywords in there to grab extra attention when it's completely unnecessary.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
From the article:
The senior technology consultant at web safety firm Sophos said: “It’s a staggeringly stupid thing to do. Anyone with even an elementary knowledge of computing would know how to read it. I can only assume they gave it to a junior member of staff to deal with.
On the contrary, a junior member probably would have had some computer know-how. They probably gave it to some old-timer who knows nothing about computers (apologies to all /. {1,2,3} UIDs; I am talking about mere mortals, and I will be sure to get off your lawn) and he just thought that if he changes the background, the words will remain blacked-out forever.
Oh, and BTW, what's with the last sentence?
Two weeks ago two officers were shot – one fatally – on HMS Astute, when it was docked in Southampton. Sailor Ryan Donovan, 23, has been charged with murder.
I don't see how it is related to the article, except in regards of it talking about one of Britain's submarines. Talk about tangentiality.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
On another note, why in the name of fuck is Slashdot posting anything from the Daily Star? The newspaper is most famous for its page-3 topless girls and their sheer determination to use words with as few syllables as possible.
Have a look at the website, the topics along the top, they've got an entire section dedicated to "Babes" and what's more the bottom of the article has the words "More 'News' Here". That's right, not even the website itself genuinely believes that it has real news there, instead opting to put the term in quotes.
Seriously...the daily star? Is this what slashdot has come to?
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Obviously, this is all the fault of wikileaks & Julian Assange! It was his actions that awoke the appetite of the general public to consume dangerous information that they are not allowed to have. Even the safeguards put in place by the government to protect its people from such dangerous information, the Freedom of Information Act, is now no longer effective. We need to pass new legislation quickly to correct this issue at once!
Therefore, I submit the following legislation for review:
1) Make using Copy/Paste illegal
2) Remove the color black from all computer monitors
3) Imprison anyone with a daily subscription to The Sun, as they have been exposed to this dangerous information and need to be contained.
With these 3 simple steps, we can insure the security of our nuclear submarines, and therefore our people, for the next 100 years!
DO NOT look at the Star newspaper it's like looking at the national inquirer....
the people who broke the news where UK channel 4
see this link for the story
http://www.channel4.com/news/britains-nuclear-subs-potentially-vulnerable-to-accidents
the document seems flattened but is here
http://robedwards.typepad.com/files/declassified-report-to-mod-defence-board.pdf/a
anyone actually able to copy and paste from it ?
why does the MOD use microsoft word for these type of things is beyond me...
regards
John Jones
p.s. do you think china et. al. have the same problems...
Most users are non-technical. This is an old issue and it's not excusable that the application didn't give a warning.
The Daily Star doesn't cost very much in the UK because they don't need to pay for clothes for some of the models.
Here's the BBC link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13107413.
Apparently something to do with blacking out parts of a report but the text still being there when you paste it into another document.
Not if they are full of leaks.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The problem is using programs that advertise themselves as WYSWYG editors when in fact they're not.
Now it's unreasonable to expect the every computer-literate but non-expert user to understand the data format, encoding and specific behaviour of every document editor. The blame here rests solely on the management that should have trained users how to manipulate sensitive documents using approved tools.
Have you actually LOOKED at the document?
Its original classification was "RESTRICTED - UK EYES ONLY" which is basically a rather quaint old fashioned form of "UK RESTRICTED".
RESTRICTED is the lowest level that requires any special handling to speak of. We would tend to assume that foreign intelligence agencies already have everything that is RESTRICTED.
CONFIDENTIAL is the lowest level at which any serious effort is taken to prevent FISs getting hold of the information, and then exponentially more protective measures are taken as one moves through SECRET and TOP SECRET.
So whilst embarrassing, it doesn't contain anything that any halfway competent FIS would not have already been aware.
Move on, nothing to see here....
It absolutely boggles my mind that this can still happen.
Adobe specifically have put in a redaction feature into Acrobat Pro just to do this, and it couldn't be easier to use.
You select the redaction tool and drag your mouse over the text to redact. Select as many pieces of text as you want, they're hilighted while you're doing it so you can see what you're doing.
Then, when you're done, click the Apply Redactions button and it's done.
Not only is the text on the page redacted, but any metadata (and there's often quite a bit in your average PDF) that could potentially leak important information is removed too. You now have a PDF that's safe to distribute and I'd wager that it's actually easier to do it this way than it would be to draw black rectangles over everything you want to hide.
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
Or perhaps
Step 1 ) Remove sensitive information
Hasn't this bitten people in the past when they shared a Word document that had quick save enabled or something like that?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Or perhaps Step 1 ) Remove sensitive information
Exactly. Why the hell would you put ANYTHING sensitive like that on any computer connected to the internet?
I think these nuclear subs are well worth the expense. How else will Britain deal with Taliban aircraft carriers?
And a highschool chemistry lab probably contains all you need to read exactly what was under the blacked out portions of a "real" document too. If they used those thick pens to black out printed ink (e.g. laserprinter ink), all you need is some alcohol. Of course, in the general case, it requires a bit of knowledge.
But If you're lucky with the paper type, all you need is a lightbulb.
Laserprinter ink can be made to perform an especially cool trick, saving a lot of time. For at least 48 hours after printing the ink will still attract other pieces of metal (not big ones, obviously). So no matter how well it's blacked out, metal filings can easily reveal whatever was printed. Just drop em on the paper and shake it a little bit.