Re: Oops again. (A biggie, this time)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Labmanager <labmanager () gmail com>
Date: July 6, 2009 11:49:31 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Oops again. (A biggie, this time)

Dr. Farber

I saw the Frontline piece on electronic dumping which broke this  
story.  I'd like to add that while Northrup may have procedures in  
place to make sure hard drives are destroyed, they do not destroy the  
hard drives on the personal home based computers of their employees.   
I have known Northrup employees and I've known employees of other  
defense contractors, all are under pressure to meet deadlines and  
offen work from home to meet those deadlines.  Company policy or not,  
sensitive material is regularly brought home in electronic form and  
placed on personal computers, which in turn could easily end up in  
foreign dumping grounds.

For years I've believed this issue to be a huge nationwide security  
breach.  As the Frontline investigators demonstrated, it's very easy  
to track a computer to a shipping container then to a specific  
country.  Think about it, countries like China have tremendous cheap  
labor reserves, which they could easily use to scan hard drives for  
personal data.  Imagine foriegn agents tracking electronic junk  
shipments from federal employee and contractor rich states like  
Maryland, DC, Virginia, then directing it to places where the data can  
be recovered.

Even if the drives don't contain sensitive government data , there is  
personal information such as financial records, tax records, stored  
pornography, etc. etc. All of which can be used to blackmail existing  
federal and state employees.  Personal debt is the # 1 reason  
Americans sell classified da

This is an intelligence gold mine.  Everytime I go to the land fill, I  
see mounds of computers in bins which have been separated from the  
other waste, all ready to be shipped out.  This story is just the tip  
of a very large iceberg.

Jerry

On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 4:38 PM, David Farber <dave () farber net> wrote:


Begin forwarded message:

From: Randall Webmail <rvh40 () insightbb com>
Date: July 3, 2009 4:02:43 PM EDT
To: johnmacsgroup () yahoogroups com, dewayne () warpspeed com, dave () farber net
Subject: Oops again.  (A biggie, this time)

Northrop Hard Drive Turns Up in Ghana
Published: 2 Jul 2009 14:46

Canadian journalism students bought a computer hard drive for $40 in  
the West African nation of Ghana and discovered that it contained  
sensitive information about U.S. defense contracts.

The drive apparently once belonged to Northrop Grumman or a Northrop  
Grumman employee, and it contained information about contracts the  
company had with the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland  
Security.

The students were in Ghana to work on a television report on the  
dumping of old electronic equipment there.

According to the University of British Columbia, the students bought  
the hard drove in an open-air market in February. It contained  
information about a number of contracts, some that had been recently  
finished, others that were still ongoing. It also contained  
information about Northrop's effort to win a $1.2 billion contract to  
perform personnel management work for the Transportation Security  
Administration. Ultimately, the agency hired Lockheed Martin to  
perform the work.

In a written statement, Northrop said, "we believe this hard drive may  
have been stolen after one or our asset-disposal vendors took  
possession of the unit."

The company says it has "a detailed asset-disposal procedure in  
place," but "no company can inoculate itself completely against crime."

The university said the discovery of the data-laden hard drive was  
reported to the FBI.
Northrop Hard Drive Turns Up in Ghana - Defense News (3 July 2009)
 http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4169158
 http://snipurl.com/lpx0o





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