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Comments: 141 +- Your Rights Online: Ministry of Defense's "How To Stop Leaks" Document Is Leaked on Tuesday October 06, @03:16AM
Posted
by
samzenpus
on Tuesday October 06, @03:16AM
from the there's-no-fighting-in-the-war-room dept.
from the there's-no-fighting-in-the-war-room dept.
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samzenpus writes "A restricted 2,400 page-document put out by the MoD designed to help intelligence personnel with information security has been leaked onto the internet. Wikileaks notes that Joint Services Protocol 440 (JSP 440), was published in 2001 and lays out protocols to defend against hackers, journalists, and foreign spies. it says, 'Leaks usually take the form of reports in the public media which appear to involve the unauthorized disclosure of official information (whether protectively marked or not) that causes political harm or embarrassment to either the UK Government or the Department concerned... The threat [of leakage] is less likely to arise from positive acts of counter-espionage, than from leakage of information through disaffected members of staff, or as a result of the attentions of an investigative journalist, or simply by accident or carelessness.' " Looks like it's time to write JSP 441.
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May I be the first to say (Score:4, Insightful)
Documentation security - you're doing it wrong.
Re:May I be the first to say (Score:5, Insightful)
that causes political harm or embarrassment
Other than military secrets like we have a spy in such and such position. I'm going to call upon.. "If you don't act in a manner that would embarrass yourself/department you should have nothing to worry about." They have been using it to justify countless forms of monitoring.. let's see how they like it when the positions are switched.. Yes I know I'm living in fantasy land.
Parent
Re:May I be the first to say (Score:5, Informative)
that causes political harm or embarrassment
Other than military secrets like we have a spy in such and such position. I'm going to call upon.. "If you don't act in a manner that would embarrass yourself/department you should have nothing to worry about." They have been using it to justify countless forms of monitoring.. let's see how they like it when the positions are switched.. Yes I know I'm living in fantasy land.
I think the UK government reached an all time low in this is when Thatcher's government tried to use the official secrets act to prevent it becoming public knowledge that they had encouraged Matrix Churchill and Sheffield Forgemasters to make Saddam Hussain's supergun [millbanksystems.com], even though keeping it quiet would have resulted in the directors going to prison. So they were prepared to see innocent men who had cooperated with the intelligence services (even offering to fit a tracking device) go to prison rather than be embarrassed.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think they reached their new all time low each time they took [wikipedia.org] rights [wikipedia.org] away [schneier.com] from their own citizens.
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now, please place a dna sample in the cup provided and move right along.
I might need some magazines or an internet connection before I can accommodate your request ;)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The article on th efront page does not draw attention to the most remarkable - and horrible - aspect of the MoD document.
It consistently groups "investigative journalists" into a category with "terrorists", "criminals" and "computer hackers".
The document states "the "enemy" is unwelcome publicity of any kind, and through any medium". This is the military. "Enemy" is not a metaphor to these people.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That really hit me, as I read the article. By extension, any taxpaying citizen who would read the work of an investigative reporter would also be an enemy of the state. There is simply no way to justify the logic of their classification. Expect a new expose' in the US - people who request information under the FOI act are investigated by FBI/NSA/CIA etc ad nauseum.
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October 6, 2009. Today, a comedian died in Slashdot.
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yep, that was a recursive fail
Not twisted enough (Score:5, Funny)
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This Noone must be a real good agent then. If he's on weed, is he then called "High Noone"? And is he in any way related to the German singer "Heinoone"? Or rather to "Nooneien Soong"?
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Britain (Score:5, Funny)
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Our anti-leak memo leaked.
That... that's ironic, right?
Yeah, that's the motherfucking definition of irony.
(http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/3/9/)
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Outdated spook mentality (Score:3, Interesting)
These people are unable to adapt to a world where information can be sent around the world in seconds. They are the stupid, violent policemen who might punch you for looking at them but won't stop crime, terrorism, or anything else because they belong to some WW2 era not the current world.
They want to play stupid games with hidden codewords so they can pretend they are more important than 'civilians', all they really do is waste resources.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry that you struggle to accept the fact that not all information belongs in public view. Perhaps you can explain your position to me while you hand over your bank account numbers and routing codes.
I hate to shatter your world view, but sometimes keeping things from certain groups of people is the right thing to do and that doesn't change just because one of the entities is a government. Yes, it will be abused. Yes, abuse should be punished. No, that does not mean the concept is without merit or
Re:Outdated spook mentality (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry that you struggle to accept the fact that not all information belongs in public view. Perhaps you can explain your position to me while you hand over your bank account numbers and routing codes.
Don't be ridiculous, they just admitted they were hiding dirty secrets "political harm or embarrassment", and generally destroying political transparency, and that is corrupt and undemocratic. Also using your bank account analogy their job Is not just to protect their account number, but also to steal yours (they call this information gathering). and all without any public or even legal oversight into their actions.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You are obviously unfamilar with UK politics. That is indeed the most frequent meaning.
Other meanings include, but are not limited to, minsters being caught beaking the law they themselves are responsible for enacting, and various assorted high-ups being caught in various forms of large scale corruption, or acts which could reasonably be desribed as treason, whil
Re:Outdated spook mentality (Score:4, Interesting)
Gee, it seems to me that the banks already give your account information to reporting agencies who will sell it to anyone with the money to buy it. So, despite my desire to keep the information secret, the governemt has already decided that we do not deserve this privacy.
The problem with government secrecy is that rather than concentrating their efforts on information that is vital to keep secret, they mark almost everything as secret with very little justification. The more pieces of information you claim are secret, the more likely that some of that information will leak through the cracks. Meanwhile the attempt to keep many secrets removes focus from the truly vital pieces which makes any given secret more likely to slip out from divided attention.
Couple this with the technology and recent government directives and we end up collecting even more public and private information, networking the information together for easy retrieval, and not focusing on the most important secrets which leads to a total mess.
Parent
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I hate to shatter your world view, but sometimes keeping things from certain groups of people is the right thing to do and that doesn't change just because one of the entities is a government. Yes, it will be abused. Yes, abuse should be punished. No, that does not mean the concept is without merit or that it's not worth trying.
Hiding evidence that western governments have funded racist killers and dictators isn't in anyone's interest. If they have done wrong the evidence should be given to the public so democracy can work its magic. This document is about how to keep dirty secrets private from the very people who funded them, i.e. me and you.
If people are allowed to hide wrongdoing it will only encourage them to do wrong.
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because they belong to some WW2 era not the current world.
If you are also referring to the inability to keep an information secret, I should point out that during that WWII, the research on Enigma done by Alan Turing [wikipedia.org] was kept secret for years after the end of the war, including to his close friends or relatives.
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This reminds me of the last released episode of Family Guy (S08E02) when Quagmire finds out about Internet Porn. We should make these people more aware of the fact that there is lots and lots of porn on the Internet and maybe they'll learn a thing or two about it out of "need".
Oh man (Score:2, Funny)
2400 pages? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoever drafted and approved the document should be shot. Same with all the people that write bills that are hundreds or thousands of pages long, and doubly so for the people that vote for and sign them without having ever read them.
Re:2400 pages? (Score:4, Funny)
I ran the text of the DMCA -- yes, all untold pages of it -- through an advanced semantic data compression algorithm.
The output was just the string "CITIZENBENDOVER".
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Let me guess: It went something like this (pseudo-code):
while (!stdin.eof) buf = stdin.read();
print("CITIZENBENDOVER");
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I could be wrong, but I don't think the intention is for anyone to read all of it. I think in general even people who are Security Checked [wikipedia.org] tend not to have access to all of the document, even though it is only Restricted and SC lets you have regular access to Secret material.
Doesn't quite excuse 2400 pages, but it does make it seem more like "we've mashed what could have been lots of documents in to one".
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Re:2400 pages? (Score:5, Funny)
Robert Jordan fans.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Ow. That hit close to home. I'm re-reading the entire series in prep for the final books. ;D
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You have got it wrong.
The MOD produced this document that apparently nobody was reading. It doesn't really contain much that is contentious, so why not leak it and have everyone reading it.
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Seriously? Who the fuck would read something that long?
Nobody in the DoJ. Obviously.
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Who the fuck would read something that long?
Nobody..Hence the leak.
Quick solution (Score:2, Insightful)
A quick solution would be to just have less secrets. Telling everyone what you are doing isn't that hard - and the foreign spies, hackers and journalists will find out anyway.
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A quick solution would be to just have less secrets. Telling everyone what you are doing isn't that hard - and the foreign spies, hackers and journalists will find out anyway.
Creating and looking after secrets is whats keeping half the organization employed.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But there's a problem with that.
You see, s1lverl0rd, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with secrets. Whoâ(TM)s gonna do it? You, s1lverl0rd? They have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for the truth and you curse the government.
You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what they know: that secrets, while tragic, probably save lives. And their existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives...
You
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If the walls are porous by design, should we care?
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You see, s1lverl0rd, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with secrets.
If they had less secrets, they wouldn't need so many walls. And most of those secrets were caused by greed and resulting corruption, or perhaps I have that backwards.
Re:Quick solution (Score:5, Insightful)
I think we all understand the need to for the intelligence services to keep some secrets.
What most of us are worried about is their focus on protecting information:
- When people find out that MPs submitted expenses to parliament for buying duck-houses or cleaning moats ... that's politically embarrassing. ... that's politically embarrassing. ... that's politically embarrassing.
- When people find out that sitting ministers are evading taxes
- When people find out each and every situation of waste, incompetence and pure and simple disregard for the money that we pay in taxes on the part of politicians or people directly nominated or overseen by politicians
Those leaks are often also politically damaging for those responsible for the problem.
And here we have the intelligence services' manual for protecting information from the which amongst other things directs them to protect "information that causes political harm or embarrassment" from the prying eyes of such evil people as ... journalists.
If I didn't already believe that the UK is a corrupt and decadent nation, this would convince me.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
If you're too weak to handle reality, then someone failed at raising you. Terrible, unspeakable c
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Yo dawg.. (Score:3, Funny)
To be followed up by a secondary document.. (Score:4, Funny)
tag (Score:2, Funny)
epic fail
Re:It's like.. a good idea (Score:2)
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Surely leaking this document is good practice? It's the opposite of 'security through obscurity'. Like peer-review, comments from the wider world would only help harden their leak-prevention methods.
They can't prevent leaks, they are just too stupid to realize it.
What they can do is control the media and that alone controls the majority.