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Air Force Has Lost 100,000 Inspector General Records (thehill.com)

schwit1 shares an article from The Hill: The Air Force announced on Friday that it has lost thousands of records belonging to the service's inspector general due to a database crash. "We estimate we've lost information for 100,000 cases dating back to 2004," Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek told The Hill in an email. "The database crashed and there is no data..." The database, called the Automated Case Tracking System (ACTS), holds all records related to IG complaints, investigations, appeals and Freedom of Information Act requests.... "We also use ACTS to track congressional/constituent inquiries."
The Air Force said they were "aggressively" trying to recover the data, adding that they had no evidence of malicious intent.

116 comments

  1. Simple: Restore from your backup by gavron · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You... do... have a backup, ... right?

    E

    1. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "Real men don't do backups - but they often cry."

    2. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Ask Israel or PRC or Russia, they probably have a copy.

    3. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by khasim · · Score: 1

      That's my problem with this story.

      It's 2016. We know how to make backups. And databases compress nicely so the backup won't take anywhere near as much space as the original.

      We'll see ... but I'm willing to bet that there won't be ANY higher officers fired for this. Even though it means that some IG investigations/reports are now lost. Unless that is a feature that they wanted.

    4. Re: Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "No evidence of malicious intent"

      Ugh, they have a system up and running since 2004 -- a production system for 12 friggin years! -- with no backups.

      THAT is malicious intent.

    5. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly, criminal negligence cases should be started against the responsible parties.

    6. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by macs4all · · Score: 5, Informative

      You... do... have a backup, ... right?

      E

      Exactly what I came here to say.

      At this point, people employed by a Government Agency claiming "Lost Data" that cannot be restored from a Backup should be CRIMINALLY culpable for Obstruction of Justice and Breach of the Public Trust. Period.

      It's 2016, FFS, there is ABSOLUTELY no excuse for not having Backups. Especially not with the Goddamn AIR FORCE'S Budget!!!

    7. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by gweihir · · Score: 0

      Naa, that would be professional and efficient use of taxpayer money. The military is not in the habit of doing that.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    8. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      You did read (the very short ) article right?

      "The Air Force said it was notified on June 6 by a contractor that administers the database of records that the data within was "corrupted," according to a statement."

      Since the military thinks all their data and networks are safe in the hands of contractors, they'll probably just fire one contractor, put the blame all on them and hire another contractor.

      I really don't understand all the military confidence in contractors. IMO they use contractors far too often. They've also eliminated military personnel positions regarding military network administration and replaced with contractors.

    9. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1
      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    10. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      It is the job of the Inspector General to ensure that proper procedures and best practices are followed. I would say it was ironic that the IG office itself is the one with no backups, but then someone would say "That's not what 'ironic' means".

    11. Re: Simple: Restore from your backup by JcMorin · · Score: 1

      agree even if you don't have some automated backup I can't believe the machine was not backup once in a while in 12 years!!!

    12. Re: Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trying to do a job that you can't do is ironic.

    13. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by BoRegardless · · Score: 2

      Hey, Mr. General in charge of ACTS; no backup, no job, no pension ...

    14. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Same contractors who can't even ground a showerhead, causing electrocution.

      The reason why contractors are used is simple... Campaign contributions. You contract out, the elected officials get the contract agencies paying the way of the campaign, which means the officials will make sure to farm out as much work as possible. I would not be surprised to read about a contracting agency getting a H-1B to do a job where a TS/SCI clearance might be normally needed.

    15. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "happening in the opposite way to what is expected, and typically causing wry amusement because of this"

      not only is this a good example of irony, your own statement saying it's not is ironic

    16. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "What does an inspector general do? Inspect Generals? No, an inspector general generally inspects. That is, they expect him to inspect generally, if they are expecting an inspector general. But an exceptionally generous inspector general who made an exception and had no inspection would cause suspicion, which in his condition he couldn't accept. Thank you."

    17. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by mrbester · · Score: 1

      There's more than five types of irony. The irony is most don't understand even the most commonly used type.

      --
      "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
    18. Re: Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The DoD has a severe problem of not recognizing and retaining real talent. In the last forced riff, they randomly deleted jobs. In fact, most of their knowledge level of leadership in IT is extremely low). It surprises me not one bit that they don't have backups, they probably fired a key person that maintained them, replaced by someone who does three jobs and not well, and never realized the difference.

    19. Re: Simple: Restore from your backup by jader3rd · · Score: 1

      Well the SAN vendor sells you on the superior redundancy of the SAN. It's so superior that there are no need for backups. Plus with disks as big as they are now, you can create databases so big that even incremental backups are taking more than 24 hours. What the SAN vendor won't tell you is that a SAN is a single point of failure in the system. When it decides to corrupt the data, there goes your data.

    20. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He didn't say it's not ironic, he said someone would say it's ironic.

    21. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The reason why contractors are used is simple... Campaign contributions.

      Campaign contributions are only part of the problem. Another big factor is revolving door jobs. Most senior military officers serve for 30 years, from their early 20s to their early 50s. Then they "retire" on 75% pay, and are ready to move on to a civilian career. If they steer deals to the contractor during their service, there is often a wink-wink deal that they will get a job offer upon retirement. Then they can use their connections and contacts to work out similar deals with their former subordinates who have now moved up in rank.

      I used to work for a defence contractor, and all the senior executives were former generals or colonels.

      Of course, you can avoid all the expense of hiring they officers, by instead just providing them with hookers and cigars.

    22. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "I'm sorry, sir, we have no record of you earning a pension. I'm afraid those records were lost and there were no backups. If only someone had done a better job..."

    23. Re: Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Honestly I'd rather have that than rain on my wedding day.

    24. Re: Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The linked article does not state there are no backups. It does not provide data to assume that this is anything more than a temporary access issue which is being investigated. Keep in mind that this is the military. Investigative reports are a matter of course for all deviating events affecting efficiency (whether catastrophic or circumstantial) in order to prevent or mitigate occurrences which could adversely affect combat effectiveness. (IE, Incident reports are SOP, as opposed to the civilian world where they often imply identification of what parties to blame or punish).

      Note that the journalist selectively quotes a spokesperson and does not address key information... causing readers to make the assumption that there are no backups. The database being non accessible would plainly affect open investigations and research, and that is the reason why this issue was important enough to be reported via media. That the journalist chose not directly address data retention is rather curious.

    25. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because you'll need to keep hiring gov't people until you find one who actually has, you know, work ethic. However, the ones who do get work done, don't stick around (because doing all the work and taking shit from their lazy-ass jealous co-workers gets old). On the contractor side, I've worked with folks who can move mountains when given the opportunity, but it's more profitable to sub-divide tasks and hire lots of mediocre IT folks instead. Not sure which is worse, but gov't people and contractors do deserve each other. Most of them can't survive in the real world and tax payers get screwed either way.

    26. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You... do... have a backup, ... right?

      E

      Sadly, I can attest to this being frighteningly common. I work in the data storage industry (on the software side) and some of our customers don't have proper backups. I don't want to think of all the times we've had a customer escalation that was almost exactly like this. The customers frequently expected our support staff to be able to wave a magic wand and get their data back. It's really impressive how incompetent some system and storage administrators can be. And incidentally, only one of the ones I remember was a government account. Most of them were medium or large sized companies that just didn't have good people running the place. Although, the one that was government was the most spectacular one. They ended up paying a big consulting team to actually go back in and reconstruct most of the data by hand from the bits and pieces left intact on the storage. It was also the one that was basically admitted to have been intentional sabotage.

    27. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Ask Israel or PRC or Russia, they probably have a copy.

      Why so complicated man ? Just ask the NSA, I'm sure they'd be happy to oblige.

    28. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      They had enough budget to buy planes, but were likely not allowed to buy a backup, they were required to use a Congressman's son's IT services company to do it, which is why it didn't happen. They don't have the power to be competent. The government has outlawed government competency. But that's what you get when one of the major parties campaigns on a "hate the government" platform.

    29. Re: Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You would rather die of electrocution while showering?
      Well, nobody is stopping you.

    30. Re: Simple: Restore from your backup by Gr8Apes · · Score: 2

      Once again, if you can't detach and take that "backup" with you (even if you need a forklift and an 18 wheeler or three) and plug it into a different system and view the data, it's not a backup.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    31. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They use contractors because the military pay scale is to low to attract the kind of talent they need. Experts in system analysis, application developers OS programming, and general IT related technical support is expensive. A good private sector developer probably gets paid more than an Admiral or a General. The government out sources all of their high level technology needs because the government pay scale is also not high enough to attract top level talent. There are a lot of soldiers, sailors, and airman who go into the military to get technology related experience so they can leverage that experience when their military service is complete and they enter the civilian job market.

    32. Re: Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, it was an in-memory database, they didn't need disk backups....

    33. Re: Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe "convenient" is the word

    34. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by DraconPern · · Score: 1

      Bet they are in the same situation as I am. I have a back up. The backup restores correctly, all the data is there. Except the application can't connect to the db because it is trying to login with a hard coded password. And the database is on mssql 7. The company that made the software has long been dead. We still use the application, but trying to upgrade it to sql 20xx has been a challenge.

    35. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      can the FUCKING NSA use their GODDAMN powers for good as well as evil ?

      I'd almost swallow a bit of fucking spying if they'd just get this shit into shape.

      FUCK.

      Didn't we just build some 5 jigawatt eleventy million gigabyte datacenter for recording all our data ? Fucking use it to back shit up.

      Fuck.

    36. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by Hylandr · · Score: 0

      Just in time to save Hillary's ass in the coming investigations.

      The Chair-Force may have just screwed the nation completely.

      --
      ~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
    37. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by hackwrench · · Score: 1

      Yeah, ""talent". Just another word for "magic". Can't say for certain, but I suspect that most people have what it takes for the military's "advanced training" to get them the rest of the way, but then who trains the trainers?

    38. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by ExXter · · Score: 1

      If not then you know thatit was deleted (crashed*) in the first place. Something was in there that should not be touched/uncovered and or made public. But lets stay with the truth. America is fast with features but not safety. The word backup is not from America its something that is despised. Sorry being nonconstructive.

    39. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by cusco · · Score: 1

      Wonder how much of the lost data pertained to investigations of the DB contractor . . .

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    40. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by cusco · · Score: 1

      The best way to prove to your constituents that government doesn't work is to break it yourself.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    41. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by davester666 · · Score: 1

      We're throwing them into a fire as fast as we can in our attempt to recover the data.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    42. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mod up.

      They have said nothing about what backups exist or when was the last 'test' or DR.
      There was no independent review.
      More so if not one spineless employee never put the issue of backups in writing.
      I bet the contractor was not a member of any computing or engineering society.
      All contractors have oversight - and the big cheese or scrambled eggs sign on the dotted line all is well.

      For the above reasons the contractor and THREE people above him need to be summarily dismissed.

    43. Re: Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The NSA, they have a copy but can't find it anymore...

    44. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by currently_awake · · Score: 1

      Failure to keep backups of official government records should be considered negligence. Proper SOP should be a monthly full backup with daily incrementals..

    45. Re: Simple: Restore from your backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed. I don't even know what a backup is, any more though. Where I work the tape robot was relegated to the trash heap after it was EOLed and not replaced due to expense, and what we're doing now is taking GFS snaps off of our two newer SANs and placing them on an older SAN which we maxed out on capacity (which still has a support contract) two buildings away.

    46. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      You don't ground a showerhead.

      What incompetent electricians will do is use the cold water pipe as a ground. Still more incompetent electricians will attach a hot wire to the the cold water pipe (that isn't even grounded because it's attached to plastic pipe).

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    47. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Why would you have to? It's plenty broken, mostly by the do gooders trying to make it do stupid things.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    48. Re:Simple: Restore from your backup by BlueCoder · · Score: 1

      Contractors are used because they often fall outside regulations. Requirements are stipulated as part of their contract which is physical and the size of a phone book. This is also how the executive branch of government currently gets around laws. And intentionally lose information. And lie.

      A contractor can be fired. He can then go bankrupt and or reform under a new business name and then be rehired. We don't currently hold the government responsible for the actions of it's contractors. There is no buck stops here. By definition the contractor can only be held liable for what's in the contract and it's vary easy for those contracts to be vague. The governments can always point clauses to the public and say see this clause... but the contractors know what is legally enforceable. And again the contractors can more or less at any time jump ship or be fired and then rehired with a new name and contract. Win Win for the executive branch. The contractor is happy so long as it and it's employees get paid very well.

      For example Snowden was an employee of a Dell. Then he became part of the NSA contractor, Booz Allen Hamilton.

      Real spies don't work directly for the government. Plausible deniability.

  2. Lucky bastards! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This sounds very fortunate (and convenient) to the powers that be.!

    1. Re:Lucky bastards! by Tailhook · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yep. Something was in those records someone wanted disappeared. This is SOP in government now; systematically destroying disk drives, deleting PST file content, wiping servers.... just another cover-up.

      --
      Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
    2. Re: Lucky bastards! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's no need to destroy anything, just leave it running for a decade with no backups. I wonder how frequent these stories will get as the referendum approaches.

    3. Re:Lucky bastards! by Woldscum · · Score: 0, Troll

      Anything with the word "Benghazi" or "Clinton Foundation" or "Pay for Play" maybe?

    4. Re:Lucky bastards! by ninthbit · · Score: 2

      So is gross negligence. I can easily believe these idiots only maintained a years worth of backups and that there was no process in place to verify data integrity over time. It's a very common problem with government systems. They backup corrupted data and eventually no longer have a good version to record from. This of course is when there actually is a backup to begin with. Often a productive underling will develop a system to make his job easier and it will grow into a poorly supported critical system. It's even worse in the DOD where the staff rotate every 3-5 years.

    5. Re:Lucky bastards! by cusco · · Score: 1

      That's a point generally forgotten when setting up backup systems; do test restores frequently to verify that they work and that you're still backing up the data you need. Nothing like having supposedly successful error-free backups for months, then when you need to restore something finding that all the tapes are blank (thanks Backup Exec!)

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
  3. Trump 2016 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It was probably just some healthy food recipes that were lost anyway.

    1. Re:Trump 2016 by mrbester · · Score: 1

      Blame the BBC for that one

      --
      "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
    2. Re: Trump 2016 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What does a big black cock have to do with anything?

    3. Re: Trump 2016 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ask your mother.

  4. Whose airforce? by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 0

    As a matter of marginal relevance, is the the US Air Force, the (British) Royal Air Force, or some other bunch of random clowns with an aeroplane somewhere?

    --
    Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    1. Re:Whose airforce? by Rick+Zeman · · Score: 3, Funny

      Let's see, it's a US Capitol Hill newspaper, and the article shows US airmen and a US transport in the photo. So, obviously, it's about the Kenyan Air Force.

  5. This calls for a Congressional Inquiry! by mykepredko · · Score: 1

    I wonder where they'll store the request?

    1. Re:This calls for a Congressional Inquiry! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They'll store it in the IG's database, duh. There's so much free space now!

  6. Re: Did Hillary Wipe It? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    That database had it coming.

  7. US Government "efficiency" by surfdaddy · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Given that what our government agencies do usually costs 2-10x what a private corporation would cost, I guess it was too much to expect a database backup for all of those extra inefficiency dollars, huh?

  8. To hide proof of UFOs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or were they using an IRS server?

  9. Obama's Razor by Rick+Zeman · · Score: 4, Funny

    Never attribute to happenstance which can be attributed to a cover up.

    1. Re:Obama's Razor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Since he's a Muslim it must be a Sheik.

  10. "aggressively" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So they're done asking nicely?

    1. Re:"aggressively" by war4peace · · Score: 1

      Slam the HDDs with a big hammer until data confesses...

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
  11. No need for RAID, Distributed DBs or Backups by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No need for that fancy stuff since it wasn't mission critical data
    Must have been designed by Carnegie Mellon grads

    1. Re:No need for RAID, Distributed DBs or Backups by hawguy · · Score: 4, Informative

      No need for that fancy stuff since it wasn't mission critical data
      Must have been designed by Carnegie Mellon grads

      RAID and distributed DB's are for HA, they are not a substitute for backups. Neither RAID nor a distributed DB will protect against corruption or accidental data loss - if someone deletes the wrong records, they'll be gone from both the primary and secondary database.

      Any many people still think RAID-5 gives adequate protection against drive loss, which is no longer the case with modern large hard drives.

    2. Re:No need for RAID, Distributed DBs or Backups by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I remember one time we sent Dell out to replace a bad drive in a RAID 1 box (our hardware, but sitting at a client's location). He swapped out the bad drive, put a new, blank drive in, and then proceeded to rebuild the RAID... from the blank drive.

    3. Re:No need for RAID, Distributed DBs or Backups by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 1

      Honest question though: are distributed systems plus snapshots a "backup?" What really makes a backup-- beyond ensuring no common mode failure option.

    4. Re:No need for RAID, Distributed DBs or Backups by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the snapshots are taken offline & checked for consistency then yes.

      If it's on the same storage as the RAID, or always online & susceptible to deletion by an incompetent/vengeful admin or hacker, then no.

    5. Re:No need for RAID, Distributed DBs or Backups by cusco · · Score: 1

      Better than the Compaq tech which removed the GOOD drive, degaussed it, then couldn't figure out why the RAID wouldn't rebuild.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    6. Re:No need for RAID, Distributed DBs or Backups by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

      You should have used triple drive RAID 1 then. The probability of deleting everything is less than 50%.

  12. Yes Minister said it best by whoever57 · · Score: 4, Funny

    James Hacker: Was 1967 a particularly bad winter?
    Sir Humphrey Appleby: No, a marvellous winter. We lost no end of embarrassing files.

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    1. Re:Yes Minister said it best by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      or this from the same show:

      Bernard: “I’ll just say, ‘The Minister has asked me to thank you for your letter’ and something like ‘The matter is under consideration’, or even ‘under active consideration’.”

      Hacker: “What’s the difference?”

      Bernard: “Well, ‘under consideration’ means we’ve lost the file, ‘under active consideration’ means we’re trying to find it.”

  13. Newspeak by qbast · · Score: 2

    What is aggresive recovery? Waterboarding the hard disks or straight to rubber hoses?

    1. Re:Newspeak by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, if you stand outside the server room, you'll hear lots of banging and cursing...

    2. Re:Newspeak by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      Don't give Cheney any new ideas.

  14. They have to be in violation of something by meerling · · Score: 1

    Let's mention the first 3 laws of computing:
      1 - Backup
      2 - BACKUP
      3 - See Rules 1 & 2

    On top of that, when I was in the USAF working in the missile shop, we had FIVE copies of all the records, and they were stored in different places. Losing the records to a missile would mean your ASS! More than one would crucify the entire shop!
    And now someone is trying to complain that the Inspector General has lost a huge amount of records because of a single database crash?
    Is someone incompetent running the Inspector Generals Office?
    Do they freaking need some of us old time computer geek veterans to come over there and show them how NOT to be a total embarrassment?!

    1. Re:They have to be in violation of something by Rick+Zeman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Let's mention the first 3 laws of computing:

        1 - Backup

        2 - BACKUP

        3 - See Rules 1 & 2
      ]

      1 - Backup
      2 - BACKUP
      3 - Test restoration of backup

      There, fixed it for you.

    2. Re:They have to be in violation of something by cusco · · Score: 1

      Is someone incompetent running the Inspector Generals Office?

      They contract out the IT work, so yeah.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
  15. Obviously no malicious intent by houghi · · Score: 1

    If what you did had the results you where going for it is not called "malicious intent". Oh, you mean in general, yeah, well, awkward.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  16. This is how it's handled - by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You send the MPs in with automatic weapons and pull that disk under gunpoint. It goes straight to On-Track by defense courier, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

  17. No it wasn't some other bunch of random clowns by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your first guess was correct.
    Clowns don't make these funny mistakes by accident, making you laugh is intentional.

  18. Obama does what he wants. Clinton cover-up since by raymorris · · Score: 2

    I don't know about that; Obama has been pretty open about wiping his ass with the Constitution.

    Contrast Hilary Clinton, who has been involved in government since 1977 and her primary responsibility for 38 years has been cover ups and white-washing.

    Trump is another who is pretty open about doing and saying things that people don't like.

  19. THIS. Most untested backups don't work by raymorris · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You hit the nail on the head. I've probably encountered more broken backups than ones that work. Web hosting providers frequently provide backups that stopped working 10 months ago, but nobody noticed. If you haven't recently tested restoring your backups, you probably have no backups.

    I like to use remote backups that I can restore from conveniently, so that I restore a file from time to time just because I messed up a couple paragraphs of text or something. These real-life, low-impact restores serve to verify backup and restore is working properly.

  20. Bobby Tables by Macdude · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sound like the Air Force may have added Booby Tables to the Inspector Generals Records.

    https://xkcd.com/327/

    --
    "Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
    1. Re:Bobby Tables by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Booby Tables" sounds more like a Navy puke from the Tailhook era...

  21. Mission Accomplished! by rsborg · · Score: 1

    We'll see ... but I'm willing to bet that there won't be ANY higher officers fired for this. Even though it means that some IG investigations/reports are now lost. Unless that is a feature that they wanted.

    Money quote. Corruption is the feature, oversight/inspections are the bugs. Now you're thinking like upper brass and/or contractors.

    --
    Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
  22. It may have been a ColdFusion problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A friend works on that system and says it works best with MSIE 5.5, but 6 also works. I've got the user manual in front of me, and it looks like the screenshots are all from MSIE 5.5. Also, the site only support SSL 128-bit so you can't use newer browsers anyway. The site is written in ColdFusion, and when you edit a record, it deletes the record then recreates it when you hit save. He said deleting the record was done to prevent concurrent updates. If you forget to hit save or if MSIE or Windows crashes, then the record is lost.

    1. Re: It may have been a ColdFusion problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The URLs on the system do end in .cfm. I wonder how many millions of dollars the taxpayers wasted on it.

    2. Re: It may have been a ColdFusion problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even sadder is that they probably use Oracle as the db so they have great transaction support but don't take advantage of it. I say probably because the three DoD ColdFusion projects I worked in used Oracle.

  23. Do not attribute to incompetence... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...that which can be adequately explained by malice.

    Everyone and their mother knows how to do backups. The US military - contrary to popular belief - is fairly well organised and does not employ idiots.

    If all records and all backups of records are corrupted, it's because someone wanted it to be so. A contractor will be paid a huge amount of money to take the blame, and another contractor will take the mantle. Like WWE, only people take it seriously.

  24. Fire contractor, announce name by myid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    From the article:

    The Air Force said it was notified on June 6 by a contractor that administers the database of records that the data within was "corrupted," according to a statement.

    How many contractors administered the database? I wonder if that was part of the problem: "Oh, I thought you guys were going to back up the database ... No you were supposed to back it up."

    If just one contractor was clearly responsible for the backup, then I wish the government would:

    1) Fire the contractor, and never use them again.

    2) Publicly announce the name of the contractor, so that we know not to use them.

    (Of course a lot more needs to be done, such as making sure this doesn't happen again in any govt. dept.)

    1. Re:Fire contractor, announce name by evilviper · · Score: 1

      2) Publicly announce the name of the contractor, so that we know not to use them.

      The contractor was Oracle... Be sure to NEVER use their products. Good luck.

      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  25. Re:Obama does what he wants. Clinton cover-up sinc by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Trump is another who is pretty open about doing and saying things that people don't like.

    Trump is a grade-A bullshit artist.

    He'll piss on you, and then charge you for the shower.

  26. Lost or purposely deleted? by shubus · · Score: 1

    Delete on purpose to hide IG findings or are Hillary's server guys moonlighting?

  27. Just let it go by h33t+l4x0r · · Score: 1

    So you lost all your data and didn't have a backup? It's happened to all of us and somehow, life goes on.

    At least you didn't spend the past 10 years implementing, maintaining, and testing a foolproof backup system, because that sounds like a real drag.

  28. Cross-reference former assistant IG at Pentagon by mcleland · · Score: 1

    Take a look at this: http://www.thenation.com/article/the-national-security-expose-so-secret-even-edward-snowden-didnt-know-about-it/ where a former assistant Inspector General for the Pentagon claims whistleblowers were treated illegally. Neither the parent article nor that linked one inspire confidence in any DoD related Inspector General office.

  29. Re:Obama does what he wants. Clinton cover-up sinc by Required+Snark · · Score: 0
    I think it's the exact opposite. If the Republican House, (which is overtly a part of the Republican Party, as opposed to a part of the US government) is freaking out over Hillary Clinton's emails, why aren't they raising hell over this? It wouldn't have anything to do what a partisan witch hunt, would it?

    Maj. Bradley Podliska, an intelligence officer in the Air Force Reserve who describes himself as a conservative Republican, told CNN that the committee trained its sights almost exclusively on Clinton after the revelation last March that she used a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state. That new focus flipped a broad-based probe of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, into what Podliska described as "a partisan investigation."

    Podliska, who was fired after nearly 10 months as an investigator for the Republican majority, is now preparing to file a lawsuit against the select committee next month, alleging that he lost his job in part because he resisted pressure to focus his investigative efforts solely on the State Department and Clinton's role surrounding the Benghazi attack.

    And it would be really really nice if we ever had a congressional investigation into why we invaded the wrong country. You know, Iraq. Have you forgotten that? No involvement in the 9/11 attacks, no weapons of mass destruction (except the left over ones from when Regan and Cheney were best buds with Saddam Husein).

    There has never been a official accounting for why the US invaded Iraq. There lots of hearings about "faulty intelligence", which were grand political theater to lay blame on the CIA, FBI, NSA, FCC, FAA, NBC, CNN, CBS, ASPCA, FFA (Future Farmers of America), Girl Scouts, etc. But the decision was made in the White House, not by intelligence agencies or the Congress or the judiciary.

    There was the Iraq Study Group, which was just about as useful as it sounds. It was not done by a government entity, it was just funded by Congress. It had no subpoena power, so no one could be compelled to testify, and nobody with any direct involvement showed up. Not a surprise. It was designed to produce no useful result, and it succeeded brilliantly.

    The one other official investigation was about Chaney leaking Valery Plame's covert position at the CIA, which lead to the conviction of Scooter Libby for obstruction of justice. Libby took a bullet for Chaney, and then got his sentence committed by Bush. You want to see how a real successful government coverup works, that's how it's done. Democrats aren't anywhere in that leage, but then the Republicans get so much more practice.

    --
    Why is Snark Required?
  30. Ah, I remember stage 1 by raymorris · · Score: 1

    I remember when I said stuff like that. You're pissed that parties are partisan. So cute. At this stage, you're still rooting for the team you picked, thinking that they aren't just as corrupt, playing you like a piano. Clinton has your name on a list of people like you. At this stage, you don't quite know the politicians' names (Chaney and Regan lol), but you're sure that the politicians on the other team are evil, while the politicians on the team you chose are good. You don't know the names of the Congressional commitees or agencies, or treaties, but you can almost get them half right as you parrot the propaganda you heard on last night's comedy show.

    Later, you'll learn the names and start to understand a little bit about what they do. You'll be able to parrot the party propaganda and actually get it right. Hillary will move your name to another list.

    Assuming you have an IQ above 87, after that you'll eventually realize what you've been regurgitating is silly propaganda, that Clinton's job since 1977 has been to figure out which lies stage 1 and stage 2 people will fall for.

  31. Hey shit happens 9 out of 11 times by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Probably everything is fine. Anybody know any spies they can find out from?

  32. Of course they have no evidence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    of their own malicious intent. And who's gonna prove you did it, and take you to court? No one.

  33. Re:Obama does what he wants. Clinton cover-up sinc by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    got his sentence committed by Bush

    Clearly you are very well educated and experienced in legal matters.

  34. criminal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is criminal negligence at best. But obviously it's a conspiracy of willful obstruction of justice.

    How they hell can there not be emergency offsite backups?

    I guess the US Air Force would like us to believe that they have some keystone network server at the bottom of a ventilation shaft somewhere that will completely destroy the US military should it ever be attacked, because "Redundancy? ".

  35. Systematic Deletion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If the records are lost, then the Air Force benefits. Cases are closed, investigations are upended, liability ceases.

    This happens every so often. I have a friend that was chemically burned by Agent Orange. The Army claimed that his records were destroyed in a fire and denied him 100% disability status for almost 50 years. The story changed when he became good friends with a retired general. A few pulled strings later and voila, documentation of his injuries suddenly appeared.

  36. This admin has "lost" more records than any other. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ..including Richard Nixon

    The American public (aided greatly by press core that was hostile to that President) supported removing Nixon from office after hearing that 18 minutes of audio tape that were not even official public records were "missing" and hearing the weak explanation of Rose Mary Woods. Nixon's support was further weakened when he asserted that "executive privilege" meant he did not have to hand over things like his personal audio tapes to congress. Nixon certainly did wrong, and I was and remain OK with his removal, but I want the rules applied equally to both parties. Any politician who deletes records which are being sought by the courts, or sought by citizens with valid FOIA filings, or sought by the national archives should be prosecuted, jailed, and banned from ever holding office again - no matter WHAT party they belong to.

    President Obama, has eliminated the equivalent of railroad cars full of actual documents from numerous agencies including the VA, State, DoD, EPA, DoE, etc and asserted a huge number of "executive privilege" claims over things like his "Fast & Furious" gun running and Benghazi embassy debacles, both of which involved actual loss-of-life. Obama has a press however who mostly voted for him and support his goals (90%+ admit it in polls) and therefore either do not report this stuff or put it in the best light possible and in places with minimal audience attention. On Obama's watch, a large number of USAF purchasing scandals have occurred. The scandals themselves are probably the fault of the bureaucracy the contractors etc rather than Obama personally, but suppressing the scandals is probably in his personal political interests as will as the interests of those more-directly involved. As CEO of the federal govt, it's Obama's job to get off the golf course and make clear to his cabinet people that this sort of loss in unacceptable BEFORE IT HAPPENS. It's not as though nobody has come up with a way to back-up computer data....

    Oh, and Hillary is hardly a novice at this. When she was in the White House, she hid documents which were under subpoena and were from her old company, the Rose Law firm, in the private residence of the White House until the statute of limitations expired. The draft indictments against her from that time are still under seal and the subject of ongoing lawsuits. After 9-11, Clinton consigliere Sandy Burger was caught in the national archives stuffing Clinton admin docs into his socks and underwear to spirit them out, thereby erasing the nation's ability to ever see them. There's no telling how many documents he managed to remove and destroy before being caught, but there's something probably related to Bin Laden that the Clintonistas never want the American people to know. Her 30K deleted e-mails (she claims were about yoga and wedding dresses) are hardly her first foray into the wonton destruction of documents.

  37. err.. backup? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    come on. you want us believe you aren't backing all this up?

  38. Files by Winkkin · · Score: 1

    figures