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Hackers Publish Personal Data On Thousands of US Police Officers, Federal Agents (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: A hacker group has breached several FBI-affiliated websites and uploaded their contents to the web, including dozens of files containing the personal information of thousands of federal agents and law enforcement officers, TechCrunch has learned. The hackers breached three sites associated with the FBI National Academy Association, a coalition of different chapters across the U.S. promoting federal and law enforcement leadership and training located at the FBI training academy in Quantico, VA. The hackers exploited flaws on at least three of the organization's chapter websites -- which we're not naming -- and downloaded the contents of each web server. The hackers then put the data up for download on their own website, which we're also not naming nor linking to given the sensitivity of the data. The spreadsheets contained about 4,000 unique records after duplicates were removed, including member names, a mix of personal and government email addresses, job titles, phone numbers and their postal addresses. The FBINAA could not be reached for comment outside of business hours. If we hear back, we'll update. "We hacked more than 1,000 sites," said the hacker. "Now we are structuring all the data, and soon they will be sold. I think something else will publish from the list of hacked government sites." When asked if they were worried that the files they put up for download would put federal agents and law enforcement at risk, the hacker said: "Probably, yes." The hacker claimed to have "over a million data" [sic] on employees across several U.S. federal agencies and public service organizations.
A lot of people say, if you do nothing wrong what do you have to hide? Well... this.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
It would be interesting if the 'structure' they offer will be ways of finding all the cops that murdered black people because they're trigger happy around dark skin. I can't say if I'd be upset hearing some vigilantes decide to murder the racist cops who have all taken innocent black lives.
> Are you 14 years old? Go and fucking kill yourself, you degenerate retard.
Their data is legally required to be public record anyway.
Secret Police, like the East German STASI, always lead to abuse. Like this post, by a secret police, who commits a criminal violation of the anti-cyber-bullying laws.
Criminal complaint filed. Demand for victim restitution registered.
These breaches illustrate is what is possible today. Personal information is still relatively harmless and could in principle be collected by anybody from publicly available information. Imagine forced backdoor technology (as proposed again and again both from democrat and republican politicians) is implemented: then also bank, tax, health or business information of a larger population can be collected and be made available on a large scale. If FBI affiliated sites can not keep their data safe, what guarantees that backdoor information will be kept away from the wrong hands, once such technology is implemented.
This incident (among many others) should be kept in mind when the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies insist on backdoor keys for smartphone and computer encryption.
Federal agencies that can't their own data secure certainly won't be able to keep yours secure.
You know, between warrantless cell-phone surveillance, civil forfeit (ie theft), cops trying to arrest people for filming them and claiming it's illegal, and police shooting unarmed people ... I'm afraid I have little sympathy for law enforcement.
They seem to think we have no privacy and anything they do is legal, even when they know damned well it isn't.
As far as I'm concerned, this same shit should happen to everybody who works for Facebook or any other analytics company, anybody who makes surveillance products and doesn't seem to care they sell it to, and all of the other sacks of shit who actively erode our privacy.
Boo mother fucking hoo.
The police don't give a fuck about the law or your rights, so why the fuck would we think their privacy matters more than ours?
Police cannot just tap a family members phone. The paranoid crap on here is not even close to how things actually work. It takes a near act of god to get a Title III wiretap. The Justice dept has to sign off and all other possible investigative methods must be exhausted.
LMFAO, yes all cops play by the book. Same for the people working in the telecoms companies, nobody has ever misused their position.