Re: Biggest Incident This Week: Missing Hard Drives at Los Alamos

[bjsetnic () SPRINTPARANET COM (Benjamin Setnick)]

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. Gordon’s 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