Security Incidents mailing list archives
Re: Biggest Incident This Week: Missing Hard Drives at Los Alamos
From: bjsetnic () SPRINTPARANET COM (Benjamin Setnick)
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2000 16:50:42 -0500
Most likely the data is encrypted. It is the media, not the government that is concerned with the leaking of secret information, I have not seen any quotes from anyone in the know that indicate that national security has been compromised. All of the official statements have been to the contrary, that they do not believe this is an espionage attempt, or a security breach, but a case of mismanagement. The real question is, if disk drives containing classified information were stolen, why on earth would that information not be classified as well? Could there be a political reason behind the release of this information?
From ABCnews.com:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/losalamos000614.html "Air Force General John A. Gordons nomination to head up the quasi-independent nuclear weapons agency had been held up for months as Democratic senators tried to make the new agency less independent from the Energy Department as a whole. But his confirmation passed easily today, 97-0. Gordon is currently deputy CIA director." Benjamin Setnick
-----Original Message----- From: Incidents Mailing List [mailto:INCIDENTS () SECURITYFOCUS COM]On Behalf Of Dante Mercurio Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2000 4:01 PM To: INCIDENTS () SECURITYFOCUS COM Subject: [INCIDENTS] Biggest Incident This Week: Missing Hard Drives at Los Alamos Ok, everyone knows about the missing hard drives at Los Alamos. My question to the security community is this: If the data on the drives was so sensitive, why weren't the drives encrypted? Even something as simple as PGP disk would render the data on that drive useless for many, many years. I encrypt my mobile user's laptops, and I can safely say that their data is nowhere near the sensitivity of nuclear secrets. Most likely, it's the latest Joe's cartoon they recieved in email. I am basing my assumption that the drives were not encrypted on the fact that there has been no comment to the contrary in the news. If there had been, it would not be a very good news story: "Two Hard Drives Valued at $200 Stolen From Government Facility" It would seem to me that if the drives were encrypted, the government would say so to prevent the negative publicity that is now occuring. Is this just a case of the government never learning or is there something I don't know? --Dante
Current thread:
- Biggest Incident This Week: Missing Hard Drives at Los Alamos Dante Mercurio (Jun 13)
- Re: Biggest Incident This Week: Missing Hard Drives at Los Alamos Joe Dark (Jun 14)
- Re: Biggest Incident This Week: Missing Hard Drives at Los Alamos Benjamin Setnick (Jun 14)
- Re: Biggest Incident This Week: Missing Hard Drives at Los Alamos Eric the Fruitbat (Jun 15)
- Re: Biggest Incident This Week: Missing Hard Drives at Los Alamos Daniel K. Boyd (Jun 16)
- Re: Biggest Incident This Week: Missing Hard Drives at Los Alamos Eric Johnson (Jun 16)
- Re: Biggest Incident This Week: Missing Hard Drives at Los Alamos Pierre Vandevenne (Jun 16)
- Re: Biggest Incident This Week: Missing Hard Drives at Los Alamos Ejovi Nuwere (Jun 16)
- Re: Biggest Incident This Week: Missing Hard Drives at Los Alamos Eric the Fruitbat (Jun 15)
- Re: Biggest Incident This Week: Missing Hard Drives at Los Alamos Kee Hinckley (Jun 14)
- foreign HTTP requests Vladimir Ivaschenko (Jun 14)
- Re: foreign HTTP requests Pavel Kankovsky (Jun 16)
- Re: Biggest Incident This Week: Missing Hard Drives at Los Alamos Slam (Jun 15)