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Hackers Publish Personal Data On Thousands of US Police Officers, Federal Agents (techcrunch.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the out-in-the-open dept.

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.

31 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. This by fluffernutter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:This by i.r.id10t · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Indeed. I work for the state of Florida, and on request our HR dept has to supply names, salaries, job titles, etc. Unless you are a cop or related to a cop or a DA or judge or ...

      And there are plenty of other laws that restrict people, other than cops. Heck, every single gun control law passed in the last 30 years has exemptions for police officers, even if the stuff isn't issued as a duty weapon/accessory.

      Whatever happened to "equal protection under the law" ?

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
    2. Re: This by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      In the U.S. freedom means being allowed to carry a gun to feel safe. In Canada freedom means not needing to own a gun to feel safe.

    3. Re: This by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      You must live in the parts that don't have moose.

    4. Re:This by fluffernutter · · Score: 2

      Oh, right. We do have our Canadian "cop on every corner" program.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    5. Re:This by fluffernutter · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I still think the US will fall to rampant crime and chaos very soon. Really it's something I don't want to be right on, but there are too many people there who don't think they should have a responsibility to society. People like thrive in chaos. They are the warlords.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    6. Re:This by fluffernutter · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Listen, my point is, if you really need a cop on every corner or a gun to feel safe do your family a favour and move to a safe country.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    7. Re:This by ArchieBunker · · Score: 2

      As the old saying goes I'd rather own a gun and never need it versus needing a gun and not owning one.

      --
      Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    8. Re:This by cayenne8 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Listen, my point is, if you really need a cop on every corner or a gun to feel safe do your family a favour and move to a safe country.

      Look, in the US, likely as not, your chances of having a home invasion, or having to use a weapon to defend yourself, for most people not in a gang is VERY low.

      Violent crime has been going down for decades.

      HOWEVER, there is a chance. Even people in good neighborhoods get home invaded. Guess what, the criminals know the good houses have stuff in them that is valuable.

      In the best of cities, the police response time for emergency is like 8 minutes.

      A LOT can happen in 8 minutes.

      It think it is a good thing in the US to have the choice to be able to defend yourself with firearms. Criminals have them, you should be able to have them too.

      For the most part, the police are not there to prevent crimes, they are there to investigate crime scenes and find people to charge with crimes.

      Hell, there are even court cases in the US that establish that the police actually aren't under obligation to protect you.

      It's not the legal gun owners you have to worry about. Most gun crime in the US is by hand gun, rifles (even the "scary" semi-auto rifles like the AR or other models) account for a VERY small number of gun crimes.

      And of the majority of gun deaths (let's remove suicides, that shouldn't be included)...are gang members shooting each other with stolen hand guns.

      Yet...all the gun control being promoted, is not targeted at the largest problem. See this article The Assault Weapons Myth .

      To me, it is like insurance, you likely won't need it, you hope you NEVER need it, but it is good to have around in case you do.

      If you don't want a weapon in your house, fine...your decision.

      If you don't want to carry concealed in your daily life, then don't.

      But if "I" want to, and do so legally, then there is nothing that should prevent me from doing so, as insurance for my home, family and personal safety.

      When seconds and minutes count, it is 100% up to YOU to protect and defend yourself, no one else is going to be there.

      8 minutes is a lifetime when intruders are breaking into your home with you there.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    9. Re:This by sarren1901 · · Score: 2

      I'm definitely pro-gun but banning bump stocks really didn't seem so bad. Literally anyone that could fire a gun could likely add the bump stock. Modifying a semi-auto rifle to full, while definitely doable, is not something even the typical gun owner can do.

      Sure, they could learn to do it and likely it isn't so hard with a little practice and the proper tools but it definitely requires you be determined to buy all the stuff needed, learn to use it and then successfully mod your rifle. That's a big leap from driving to the store to buy your bump stock and away you go.

      Besides, it was an easy thing to ban since it really did effectively make semi-auto a full auto. You can get full auto, but requires a lot more paperwork. It's reasonable.

    10. Re:This by TigerPlish · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Listen, my point is, if you really need a cop on every corner or a gun to feel safe do your family a favour and move to a safe country.

      Like England, who disarmed their populace and allow no firearms AND has ridiculous knife laws now has knife-murder problem?

      Beware any government who wishes to disarm its people. If you can't understand that, you don't understand freedom.

      --
      The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
    11. Re: This by nospam007 · · Score: 2

      Including the majestik møøse A Møøse once bit my sister... No realli! She was Karving her initials on the møøse with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given her by Svenge - her brother-in-law - an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian møvies: "The Høt Hands of an Oslo Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Mølars of Horst Nordfink"... We apologise for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible have been sacked.

    12. Re:This by Dunbal · · Score: 2

      Mass murder is not something the typical gun owner can or would do, either.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    13. Re: This by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Freedom has nothing to do with feeling safe, it is about living your life without intrusion. If you think you need a reason to be free, you already failed in understanding.

  2. People abusing positions of power by Iwastheone · · Score: 5, Informative

    I know an adult woman, her dad is 'stalking' her via her cellphone, he's a cop. Constantly texts her how he knows exactly where she is and she is paranoid about it. I explained to her how yes, he can tap into her cellphone unless she pulls out her battery. Advised her to change her cellphone number and take screenshots of all texts he's sent to her. Smartphones are spy devices with antennas, anyone can stalk someones location. Now she knows to get an order of protection against him.

    1. Re:People abusing positions of power by tquasar · · Score: 2

      Use a RFID blocking wallet or bag. https://www.amazon.com/Blockin...

    2. Re:People abusing positions of power by nadass · · Score: 2

      I know an adult woman, her dad is 'stalking' her via her cellphone, he's a cop. Constantly texts her how he knows exactly where she is and she is paranoid about it. I explained to her how yes, he can tap into her cellphone unless she pulls out her battery. Advised her to change her cellphone number and take screenshots of all texts he's sent to her. Smartphones are spy devices with antennas, anyone can stalk someones location. Now she knows to get an order of protection against him.

      That's a lotta FUD. Is the "Find my iPhone" function turned on? Or the feature where friends share their locations with their contacts? Or do they constantly post their own GPS coordinates on social media?

      As for "smartphones are spy devices"... everything is a "spy" device. Your use of a computer right now, sharing this story but without being an "anonymous coward," has already placed your adult woman's life in danger, because now people can connect the dots between you and them...

      At any rate, I, too, know some paranoid people. They think the federal government is interested in them! Of all 7.8 BILLION humans currently alive on the planet earth, THEY (the 1 person) is somehow top of the list! It's not logical thinking, it's barely rational, but they're paranoid and believe they're "next."

    3. Re:People abusing positions of power by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:People abusing positions of power by burtosis · · Score: 2

      I object to government spying on all its citizens, not because I'm special or have anything to hide, but because of the leverage this gives the government to do wrong. It lets them know about every CEOs affair, and can manipulate stock prices or force them into cooperating. It allows for insider trading such that the only limit on making money is getting too big and obvious so as to be caught. It lets them dig up dirt and prosecute just some political opponents or activist groups while protecting others. On and on. It's bad enough what private companies can do with data, the last thing we need is the government taking all of the private data and adding thier own layer of spying underneath it by hijacking communication backbones and installing malware everywhere.

    5. Re:People abusing positions of power by shplopt · · Score: 2

      Where's the uncertainty? Individual police officers have direct access to real time E911 location data. This is not a conspiracy theory. It is well documented. There doesn't need to be a vast network of federal agents watching you, there just needs to be one cop who's an asshole.

  3. Will police lives matter? by Jharish · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re:Wakeup call, more like by RecycledElectrons · · Score: 2, Insightful

    > 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.

  5. imagine if by e**(i+pi)-1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  6. Cops support taking our privacy.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So why should they have any privacy themselves? Fuck 'em. No sympathy here.

  7. Already been done... by sdinfoserv · · Score: 5, Informative

    4000 records, small potatoes. The OPM hack did the same thing on a much larger scale 4 years ago. Back in 2015 the Federal Office of Personnel Management had their UN-ENCRYPTED files taken containing every single current and past Federal employee, and everyone who had ever applied for a top secret clearance. Over 21M people's personal information was taken, where as this was only 4000 unique records... .
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  8. Oh, the irony ... by timholman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  9. Re:Nothing like protesting bad cops giving tickets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nothing like protesting bad cops giving tickets by having them all end up dead.

    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?

  10. I suspect this is just the start. . . by Salgak1 · · Score: 2

    Assange's "Deadman Switch" clicked last night (and you have to love the file dates. . .)

    And the "insurance torrents" are all back up:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/The_D...

    1. Re:I suspect this is just the start. . . by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

      I hadn’t thought about that... the timing of Assange’s arrest along with the upcoming 2020 US campaign where The Donald is worried about losing the Senate too.

      We all know how he loves WikiLeaks... I mean, how he doesn’t know anything about Wikileaks.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
  11. A million data [sic] --- ? by DavenH · · Score: 2

    Why 'sic' when it's grammatically correct?

  12. Re:Wakeup call, more like by McFortner · · Score: 2

    Hey... "if they haven't done anything wrong, they have nothing to worry about."

    What an interesting idea. And since they like releasing personal info, how about those hackers release and publish THEIR personal info too?

    --
    Beware of Sales Reps bearing gifts.