US Nuclear Weapons Lab Loses 67 Computers

pnorth writes "Officials from New Mexico's Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory have confessed that 67 of its computers are missing, with no less than 13 of them having disappeared over the past year alone. A memo [PDF] leaked by the Project on Government Oversight watchdog brought the lost nuclear laptops to the public's attention, but the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration dismissed fears the computers contained highly-sensitive or classified information, noting it was more likely to cause 'cybersecurity issues.' Three of the 13 computers which went missing in the past year were stolen from a scientist's home on January 16 and the memo also mentioned a BlackBerry belonging to another staff member had been lost 'in a sensitive foreign country.' The labs faced similar issues back in 2003 when 22 laptops were designated as being 'unlocated.'"

Anyone RTFA?

[conureman]

Which "sensitive foreign country"?

Los Alamos is a laughing stock at other labs

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked at Sandia National Labs for 4 summers, and Los Alamos was in the news no less than three times during that period for losing sensitive documents and hardware. By comparison, the biggest event at Sandia was a missing disk that turned out to have never existed - it was simply an order form that was never processed. That didn't matter, though - everyone in the department was required to sit through additional security classes as a precaution.

Re:Alternative fuel for Laptops

[Thelasko]

so now they have nuclear laptops. WOW and mine still runs solar power.

From the sound of things, they have a whole Beowulf cluster of them!

Cybersecurity Issues

[Hordeking]

noting it was more likely to cause 'cybersecurity issues.'

This is a no-duh! type statement. Since actual classified material wasn't obtained, somehow the problem is less severe, right? After all, those 'cybersecurity issues' would never be used for anything as piddly as obtaining classified information.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the point of espionage?

Re:Morale at the lab was so bad

[n6kuy]

That was then.
This [blogspot.com] is now.

Re:Morale at the lab was so bad

[DougDot]

Sorry to post a follow-up to my follow-up.

No, I'm not either -- you really need to see this post from the current LANL blog. It does a nice job of conveying the current level of morale there:

http://lanl-the-rest-of-the-story.blogspot.com/2009/02/larry-moe-and-kevin.html [blogspot.com]

The "Kevin" referred to in the post is Kevin Roarke, the "truth-challenged" official lab spokesperson.

Re:Look on the bright side,

[jmizrahi]

Sure they did: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/11/0139225 [slashdot.org]

Re:Oh hey

[Zouden]

You're condemning government in general because of the actions of a few despotic regimes?

Your argument that we should examine the deaths caused by government vs those caused by terrorism is pretty weak. More people die in car accidents than from terrorists. Perhaps the problem is the propaganda being spread by those pro-car people (driving instructors)?

Analogies aside, government is just a tool of the people. Government itself doesn't hurt anyone. The army might. Blame them, if you like.