DHS Mistakenly Releases 840 Pages of Critical Infrastructure Documents

wiredmikey (1824622) writes The Operation Aurora attack was publicized in 2010 and impacted Google and a number of other high-profile companies. However, DHS responded to the request by releasing more than 800 pages of documents related to the 'Aurora' experiment conducted several years ago at the Idaho National Laboratory, where researchers demonstrated a way to damage a generator via a cyber-attack. Of the documents released by the DHS, none were related to the Operation Aurora cyber attack as requested. Many of the 840 pages are comprised of old weekly reports from the DHS' Control System Security Program (CSSP) from 2007. Other pages that were released included information about possible examples of facilities that could be vulnerable to attack, such as water plants and gas pipelines.

Comments

Yeah, right

[slapout]

"Mistakenly" Sure...

These don't seem "critical"

[timrod]

From what the article shows, it seems like a lot of this information is public knowledge - where substations and water plants are and how they operate. Pretty much everyone in my town knows where the local substations are, and it doesn't take a genius to know that an attack that disables or destroys a substation would have a massive impact on the people living there. None of these documents appear to be classified, which means they don't contain anything that DHS was afraid of the general public knowing.

It would be a different story if these were classified documents containing things like the floor plans for nuclear plants and gaps in security at said plants that could actually be useful in an attack, but this seems like a non-story other than that DHS's FOIA officer got lazy and just CTRL+F'd for "Aurora" and blindly copied anything with that word in the name.

Re:These don't seem "critical"

[Mr D from 63]

Yes, I think the article would more aptly be entitled, "DHS Releases Documents that Weren't Requested".

Does anyone get the impression..

[bluegutang]

that nothing can be kept secret anymore? Whatever you want not to be exposed, whether diplomatic communications or technical documents or "intellectual property", will eventually reach the internet either by whistle-blowing or human error? And once it reaches the internet, if anyone cares about it then it will be perpetuated forever?

There are advantages to such a situation, of course, but also disadvantages.

Re:Does anyone get the impression..

[DoofusOfDeath]

that nothing can be kept secret anymore?

It's hard to say, because in general we don't know about the things that have remained secret. We know the numerator, but not the denominator.

Re:Does anyone get the impression..

[Creepy]

There is no such thing as whistle blowing in the US, since the US classifies giving classified information to "someone that is not supposed to have it" as treason under the Espionage Act of 1917.

And it isn't just whistle blowing - the White House recently committed treason by exposing the CIA operative in Afghanistan, for instance (and then said "whoops"). Note that the White House decided not to prosecute itself, just as it chose not to prosecute Dick Cheney and Richard Armitage for the same crime (in Plamegate).

Re:Does anyone get the impression..

[K. S. Kyosuke]

This principle used to be called "information wants to be free", but then, people with poor language skills started shouting that information can't want anything.

Re:Does anyone get the impression..

[ewieling]

My hope is the "do-baders" spend so much time keeping things secret they have difficulty "doing bad".

DHS better flee to Russia while they still can..

[PortHaven]

Er...ya...or something.

Re:This is just naming confusion

[PPH]

Isn't there supposed to be some gov't office or book of code names to ensure that secret project names are not re-used? Someone looks up 'Aurora' and sees that this was declassified years ago. So they upload it to the public site. Whoops.

I'm doing a study on architecture in New York City. I think I'll call it the Manhattan Project.

IRS

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

Were the missing IRS emails in there?

Mistake? Suure...

[WegianWarrior]

Step one: Release a bunch of 'critical' documents by 'mistake'.

Step two: Twiddle thumbs while terrorists / criminals abuse information released in step one.

Step three: Point to attack in caused by step two, argue that DHS should be exempt from FOI Request because 'national security'.

Step four: DHS can do anything they like without the public oversight.

Re:Why I vote Democrat

[coldfarnorth]

Now that I've got my flip answer out of the way, it's probably best that I don't leave your little talking points unaddressed.
(UPDATE: Comboman's response is probably wittier and more concise - someone send 'em a gold star please. But I went to the trouble to type all this, so I'm going to post it anyways. It's the internet way.)

I vote Democrat because I believe it’s okay if our federal government borrows $85 Billion every single month.

Yup. Years of neglect have left our infrastructure in a sorry state, inherited wars cost money(!), and let's not even talk about the shitpile that was the economy. When Bush II handed over the reins. (A resounding win for Financial deregulation, wouldn't you say?)

I vote Democrat because I care about the children but saddling them with trillions of dollars of debt to pay for my bloated leftist government is okay.

This is really the same as the last one, but hey, it's still better than inventing evidence and starting a war that result in the deaths of ~4,500 of our kids, and maiming or otherwise injuring ~32,000 more (and totally ignoring the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens as a result of said war).

I vote Democrat because I believe it’s better to pay billions of dollars to people who hate us rather than drill for our own oil, because it might upset some endangered beetle or gopher.

Last I checked, we'd rather reduce our dependence on oil altogether (By jump-starting the wind and solar industries in the US), but big oil and coal has been lobbying like there's no tomorrow to prevent that.

I vote Democrat because I believe it is okay if liberal activist judges rewrite the Constitution to suit some fringe kooks, who would otherwise never get their agenda past the voters.

No worries, the conservatives engage in plenty of this too, especially in cases involving the 2nd ammendment and abortion rights (Hobby lobby decision was decided by 5 men who were conservative Catholics).

I vote Democrat because I believe that corporate America should not be allowed to make profits for themselves or their shareholders. They need to break even and give the rest to the federal government for redistribution.

Dude, you are crazy. No company should be able to avoid paying taxes through financial sleight of hand, but really, you think GE is paying too much tax for the benefits of being an american corporation? Apple?

I vote Democrat because I’m not concerned about millions of babies being aborted, so long as we keep all of the murderers on death row alive.

As opposed to that other party, who preaches the sanctity of life, but is giddy to kill inmates.

I vote Democrat because I believe it’s okay if my Nobel Peace Prize winning President uses drones to assassinate people, as long as we don’t use torture.

Guess what? Most humans don't think that anyone should either engage in torture, or send drones to kill other humans. Shocking! One of two is a reasonable start, and we're working on the other one. At least we don't have Bush/Cheny in charge any more, they were fine with both.

I vote Democrat because I believe people, who can’t accurately tell us if it will rain on Friday, can predict the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years if I don’t start driving a Chevy Volt.

You do know the difference between climatology and meteorology, right? It's like the difference between socialism and communism (or patriotism and fascism, if you swing that way.) The later is a tiny subset of the former.

I vote Democrat because Freedom of Speech is not as important as preventing people from being offended.

Aw, here you're just trying to stir things up. I'm pretty sure the courts have a well-used system in pl