US Military Leaks its Secrets Online

athloi writes "Detailed schematics of a military detainee holding facility in southern Iraq, geographical surveys and aerial photographs of two military airfields outside Baghdad and plans for a new fuel farm at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan are among the items accidentally left online by government agencies and contractors."

From the article

[nlitement]

But it's already out there, posted carelessly to file servers by government agencies and contractors, accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.

How did they end up "posting carelessly"? I thought they have an Intranet that is separate from the web servers.

"Accidently"??

[iminplaya]

Please! So those were the "real" plans, huh? Nod Nod Wink Wink..

Re:How egalitarian

[Elemenope]

I'm fine with the government invading privacy just as long as they don't get to have any either.

I'm not, but it is still vaguely funny. Funny in the sense that the military is even more obsessed than the famously obsessed Federal Government (of which it is a prominent member) is with controlling information could make a mistake this stupid. Not funny in the sense that often (though not always), military secrets are secrets for good strategic or tactical reasons, and our military is at least nominally on our side. (It's like rooting for the home team. ;) )

Privacy isn't supposed to be a two-way street between a citizen and their government; symmetry of relation is inappropriate. Governments by definition are in service to the public, and act on behalf of that public; thus, there are precious few acceptable reasons why any corporeal manifestation of that government can assert a reason to keep its actions from those whom it serves, whereas a private citizen is private until and unless it gives ample reason for a public agency to believe they are doing something illegally naughty. The names almost give it away. Public Government. Private Citizen.

As a citizen, I don't want my government thinking it is in some egalitarian relationship with me and my fellow citizens. The government ought to consider itself subordinate to its citizens.

And I know this is taking your joke and dragging it unkindly into unfunny territory, but the 'you show me yours, I'll show you mine' meme is, I think, destructive to any defensible notion of privacy.

Doubt this is a mistake.

[detain]

I have no problem believing that there are countless incompetent people within both our government and military, but they are both run in maners that should prevent mistakes like this from happening. Its my guess that these documents were intended to be 'leaked' and that its no real threat to us to have anyone aware of them. I dont see something like this being an accident at all. Its probably more a strategic move than a mistake.

Re:"Accidently"??

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, sometimes it's nice to believe your government is sneaky rather than stupid. On the other hand, in a society where the government seeds disinformation, it seems that enemies of said government cannot be held ethically responsible for their actions.

I.e. if the government intentionally tries to present the misinformation that it is committing torture when in fact it is not*, and only doing so to intimidate its enemies, then those enemies can't in my mind, be held culpable for the traditional ethical violations they commit in retaliation.

* God I only wish I really believed that...

It's sad that the majority of americans seem to be ignorant of how not-torturing people, encouraging-free-speech, and not-lying-to-the-public actually INCREASE NATIONAL SECURITY. While the actions of the current administration are DECREASING NATIONAL SECURITY.

Re:How to improve your security...

[Rearden82]

That's much more "Insightful" than "Funny".

I had the unfortunate experience of dealing with a government agency whose website was hacked. After a month-long "security audit", their in-house security experts devised a comprehensive plan to lock down their server and prevent it from ever being compromised again.

The solution, in its entirety, was to turn http://www.dumbass.agency.gov into the new, "secure" https://www.dumbass.agency.gov.

I wish I was kidding.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:How egalitarian

[Elemenope]

Point. That's why the option I *personally* favor is 'stop playing and go home'. Means both teams get to go home to play another day. But so long as they are playing...

What was that sound? That sound was the spirit of a sports metaphor dying in agony. ;)

Stupidy and Misinformation

[RexRhino]

The military accidentally leaks valuable information, and the military intentionally "leaks" disinformation. It is not an either/or thing.

"Leaking" disinformation would be useless if the military didn't actually leak real information. And if you do accidentally leak real information, it only makes sense to also release disinformation to create uncertainty.

But there is probably no way that layman like most of us here can determine if this is fake or real simply from the information in the article.

Re:Doubt this is a mistake.

[Scratch-O-Matic]

Here's an exercise for you:

1. Drive around Arlington, VA (where the Pentagon is) and observe all the buildings with the names of defense contractors on them.

2. Say to yourself, "Everyone in all of these buildings understands that when they upload a file to the company server, it is available to anyone around the world."

3. Reflect.