It Was Sensitive Data From a US Anti-Terror Program -- and Terrorists Could Have Gotten To It For Years, Records Show (latimes.com) 40
The Department of Homeland Security stored sensitive data from the nation's bioterrorism defense program on an insecure website where it was vulnerable to attacks by hackers for over a decade, according to government documents reviewed by The Times. From a report: The data included the locations of at least some BioWatch air samplers, which are installed at subway stations and other public locations in more than 30 U.S. cities and are designed to detect anthrax or other airborne biological weapons, Homeland Security officials confirmed. It also included the results of tests for possible pathogens, a list of biological agents that could be detected and response plans that would be put in place in the event of an attack. The information -- housed on a dot-org website run by a private contractor -- has been moved behind a secure federal government firewall, and the website was shut down in May. But Homeland Security officials acknowledge they do not know whether hackers ever gained access to the data.
Internal Homeland Security emails and other documents show the issue set off a bitter clash within the department over whether keeping the information on the dot-org website posed a threat to national security. A former BioWatch security manager filed a whistleblower complaint alleging he was targeted for retaliation after criticizing the program's lax security. The website shared information among local, state and federal officials. It was easily identifiable through online search engines, but a user name and password were required to access sensitive data.
Internal Homeland Security emails and other documents show the issue set off a bitter clash within the department over whether keeping the information on the dot-org website posed a threat to national security. A former BioWatch security manager filed a whistleblower complaint alleging he was targeted for retaliation after criticizing the program's lax security. The website shared information among local, state and federal officials. It was easily identifiable through online search engines, but a user name and password were required to access sensitive data.
"It was?!" (Score:3)
it was...
What was?! Have you no idea how to even begin a sentence??
Fucking cretin.
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English is also not my first language, where's my participation trophy?
Hint: Nobody gives a fuck about you trying. What counts is results.
Re:"It was?!" (Score:4, Insightful)
Hint: Nobody gives a fuck about you trying. What counts is results.
English is an error tolerant language.
Many years ago I was visiting a lab of my company in the US. At the table in the cafeteria there was guy from China and a guy from India.
The English which they were speaking would have caused my 8th grade English teacher to throw a hissy fit, tear her hair out, burn down the school and put on a belt of dynamite and blow up the whole place.
However, the guy from China and the guy from India were able to communicate with each other.
So my conjecture is that you can say a lot of things wrong in English . . . but people will understand what you mean anyway.
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English is an error tolerant language.
Meaning obtained from it is not. We're not talking about grammar or spelling mistakes, we're talking about an entire sentence which utterly fails to convey what the heck it is talking about.
See that first sentence I wrote there? The only reason it makes sense to you is because we're mid conversation.
Re: "It was?!" (Score:2)
So my conjecture is that you can say a lot of things wrong in English . . . but people will understand what you mean anyway.
Going to a foreign land, learning the language - as best you can - and winging it: Admirable.
Entering the field of journalism and pretending you can write when you don't know how (regardless where you're from): Entirely millenial.
Re: "It was?!" (Score:1)
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English is also not my first language, where's my participation trophy?
Hint: Nobody gives a fuck about you trying. What counts is results.
Well, English is my first language and that is fine.
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Its cromulent and helps embiggen the US politics of the story.
Won't someone think of the illegal immigrants.
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it was...
What was?! Have you no idea how to even begin a sentence??
Fucking cretin.
I don't even know how demean you adequately. Even Charles Dickens begins his great work, A Tale Of Two Cities, with "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."
Grammar is not your friend.
Re: "It was?!" (Score:2)
Even Charles Dickens begins his great work, A Tale Of Two Cities, with "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."
This was modded up?! Dicken's vagueness was obviously intentional; an accidental diarrea splatter does not a Jackson Pollock make.
Geez.
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Even Charles Dickens begins his great work, A Tale Of Two Cities, with "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."
This was modded up?! Dicken's vagueness was obviously intentional; an accidental diarrea splatter does not a Jackson Pollock make.
Geez.
Whether "It was" has lexical meaning, its use here is grammatically correct. Msmash's headline is a good, appropriate attention grabber meant to entice the typical /. viewer to read the online content.
Perhaps the real problem is that you'd be happier with clickbait from another submitter. In that case, you should become that submitter. Why, you'd be the perfect wordsmith for the job. With your grammatical, technical and aesthetic acumen, I'd be a devoted follower. And who knows, maybe your scholarly abili
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msmash is a graduate of the Bulwer-Lytton school of journalism.
dogshit clickbait headline (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you hire a millenial clickbait writer intern to ghostwrite that crap?
Whats wrong with "Sensitive Data From a US Anti-Terror Program May Have Been Accessed by Terrorists"?
What a joke.
Re:dogshit clickbait headline (Score:5, Interesting)
What's wrong is that it is mealy-mouthed bullshit. Data "from a program." Much more mysterious and potentially scary than "data from an anthrax detection program made public." There is no reason to even be talking about terrorism, this type of terrorism never even happened.
If they don't make information about security theater related to low-probability threats public, how will anybody feel safer from it?
It is like any placebo; you need somebody the patient trusts to give them a real inert pill. If you give them a stuffed animal instead and say, "Oh, that fake medicine doesn't do anything anyway" they don't get better as fast, they don't receive their placebo at all. If you secretly note that the placebo effect exists but nobody drinks any snake oil, nobody received the placebo effect. Of course the damn data was made public!
Anthrax isn't a serious threat unless the attacker is highly trained. In which case they probably know about detection systems anyways. They're either put off by the systems, or not. That true anyways. And why would they believe you told them all the locations? And how would a journalist know if there were more locations that were secret, and never disclosed, or not? Oh, right, they wouldn't know, only people who needed to know would know.
The title has the word "terror" twice. That alone is should cause deep suspicion.
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Agreed. The LA Times is pretty much trash.
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Did you hire a millenial clickbait writer intern to ghostwrite that crap?
Whats wrong with "Sensitive Data From a US Anti-Terror Program May Have Been Accessed by Terrorists"?
What a joke.
I would much prefer "terrorists may have accessed sensitive data from us anti terror program". Who do I need to write to?
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Even better.
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Besides, the US has been running the largest terrorist recruitment program ever for the last few decades. Whatever they gained from this server pales in comparison to the boost they got from certain American voters in 2016.
Re: dogshit clickbait headline (Score:2)
Did you hire a millenial clickbait writer intern to ghostwrite that crap?
Someone else with a clue.
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Did you hire a millenial clickbait writer intern to ghostwrite that crap?
Whats wrong with "Sensitive Data From a US Anti-Terror Program May Have Been Accessed by Terrorists"?
What a joke.
If I'm on a news website I will intentionally not read articles with clickbait headlines. I miss the days of journalism where the title actually told you what the story was about. That's how you would know if the article was actually worth reading. Now, I just assume none of them are, otherwise they wouldn't have to try and entice/trick you into reading them.
Pretty much shows "terror" is a non-issue (Score:2)
Except when the government is talking to the press, obviously. But internally, they have a more realistic evaluation: Mostly irrelevant.
What are you talking about? (Score:3)
Pretty much shows "terror" is a non-issue
Have you already forgotten the El Paso mass shooting? Domestic terrorism is a far greater threat then overseas actors.
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9/11 was international, considering the passports?
The passports that somehow survived the crash and fireball unscathed?
Re: What are you talking about? (Score:2)
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Re:Pretty much shows "terror" is a non-issue (Score:4, Funny)
The closest thing to "terrorism" I experience is poorly labeled construction detours, and the drivers attempting to follow them.
Just remember (Score:3)
This is the government that wants to know details about every fart you pass, unable to even keep their own secrets guarded. Feeling secure already?
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This is the government that wants to know details about every fart you pass, unable to even keep thontent)eir own secrets guarded. Feeling secure already?
Not sure if the irony and sarcasm will be registered by many on the Left. These are the same people that scream about abusive multinational corporations, but when social media giants censor ( in case you didn't notice, that increasingly includes Left-leaning content and creators) and attempt to influence US elections as well as foeign votes and elections, they reply "muh private company" like some corporate shill. To top it off, they protest about how corrupt the government is, orange man bad/orange Hitler,
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Well, a lame candidate and messages that divides rather than unify worked out quite nicely in 2016.
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About as well as it did in 2012. Or are you going to defend the "racists deplorables clinging to their God and guns" comments as unifying?
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Nah. It's hard to show a difference between candidates when they're essentially from the same party with a similar outlook on practically any matters that count, so you have to create an artificial difference. It's the same dog and pony show every four years.
Could have, should have, would have ... (Score:2)
It could have been news for nerds, it _should_ have been, but it would have needed a miracle.
What's the problem? (Score:2)
"but a user name and password were required to access sensitive data."
Sounds quite secure to me. "Guest/password" ... how much more secure could it be?
*sarcasm mode off* for the clue impaired.
Insecure bioterrorism defense website (Score:1)
Apologies for asking on this technology forum but what was the name of the Operating System this website ran on and what was the nature of the insecurity?