250 Navy Secrets are E-Mailed to Schoolgirl

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/shtml/NEWS/P11S1.shtml

Monday 12th Jun 2000

A SCHOOLGIRL has been bombarded with 250 emails sent to her by mistake
by a Navy officer.

They include sensitive documents marked "security restricted".

Claire McDonald, 15, and her mum Sharon, 37, alerted the Navy soon
after the messages started arriving in December, but her warning was
ignored and she continued to receive about 11 a week.

She said last night: "I think it is appalling that this sort of
sensitive defence material should be sent to me."

The emails were intended for Royal Navy Commander Jamie Hay, an
information management specialist at the Defence Ministry in London.

They were sent by RN Commander Jim Dale who works at the Pentagon in
Washington. They include:

-Cdr Dale complaining about communications problems on Britain's two
largest warships, the aircraft carriers Invincible and Illustrious;

-Cdr Dale discussing the merits of rival software systems being tested
by the British and US Navies;

-A 64-page document on a defence information management system between
the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the UK - and how to keep
the most sensitive details away from other allies;

-An 82-page document containing the entire information technology
strategy for the New Zealand Navy.

One message contained a comic list of phrases to describe senior
officers and managers.

"Seagull manager" was defined as "a manager who flies in, makes a lot
of noise, craps on everything and leaves!"

Claire, from Exmouth in south Devon, said: "I use my computer for
school work and only go on the internet to chat to friends
occasionally. I am not any kind of hacker - this stuff just keeps
arriving and I want it to stop." Exmouth Community College student
Claire, who plans to take a computer course when she leaves school,
added: "I sent an email to Cdr Jim Dale but he replied telling me
there must be a problem with my internet service provider."

The new computer security blunder follows another recent embarrassing
incident when The Mirror recovered and returned a missing laptop,
containing secrets, to the Defence Ministry.

Security experts in Britain and America are investigating the latest
slip-up. Last night, the Ministry denied that any of the emails sent
to Claire were secret.

A spokesman for internet service provider Freeserve said: "Customers
register a domain and Claire chose this address and it belongs to her.
The Ministry of Defence have quoted the wrong address and it is their
mistake."


*-------------------------------------------------*
"Communications without intelligence is noise;
Intelligence without communications is irrelevant."
Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
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C4I Secure Solutions             http://www.c4i.org
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