Data Breach Exposes RAF Staff To Blackmail 153
Yehuda writes "Wired reports, 'Yet another breach of sensitive, unencrypted data is making news in the United Kingdom. This time the breach puts Royal Air Force staff at serious risk of being targeted for blackmail by foreign intelligence services or others.
The breach involves audio recordings with high-ranking air force officers who were being interviewed in-depth for a security clearance. In the interviews, the officers disclosed information about extra-marital affairs, drug abuse, visits to prostitutes, medical conditions, criminal convictions and debt histories — information the military needed to determine their security risk.
The recordings were stored on three unencrypted hard drives that disappeared last year.'"
It's no wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell me... (Score:4, Insightful)
why didn't they just encrypt the disks? If it's supposed to be sensitive information, store it securely!
I feel MUCH safer now! (Score:5, Insightful)
These are the same idiots who are putting surveillance cameras everywhere, fingerprinting and taking DNA samples from musicians who are simply visiting the UK to play in a few clubs (then denying them entrance because the clubs hadn't paid a fee and agreed to report on them), and generally acting like fascists.
They're great at grabbing reams of private information they would have no right to if Britain were still a free society. Protecting it from unauthorized access? Not so much.
Goddamn wankers!
Damned if you do... (Score:3, Insightful)
the officers disclosed information about extra-marital affairs, drug abuse, visits to prostitutes, medical conditions, criminal convictions and debt histories -- information the military needed to determine their security risk
If yes to any of the above do you want these as officers? Even the extra-marital affairs in most circumstances provide proof that the person is capable of disloyalty.
The real problem is if they have done any of this and don't admit to it, they're disloyal, liars that shouldn't be given clearance. If they do admit it, they're too stupid to be in a position of authority. The only way time you want to ask these questions is if you know the answer in advance and the answer is "squeaky clean".
Re:Tell me... (Score:5, Insightful)
why didn't they just encrypt the disks? If it's supposed to be sensitive information, store it securely!
Because that would require common sense and competence.
Re:Damned if you do... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Damned if you do... (Score:2, Insightful)
If they rule out every officer who's ever cheated on their wife, screwed a hooker or gotten stoned... there'd be no candidates left :-P Hell, two out of those three are pretty much standard issue for the military.
Plus, remember that most of these guys got to where they were on qualifications (save a few from nepotism). Can this person lead soldiers (well, pilots, but the point stands), can they give orders, obey orders, and maintain their calm under adverse conditions? If they can, they're qualified (and sorely needed). If they also happen to be an unfaithful indebted crazy coke-headed john, oh well.
Re:I feel MUCH safer now! (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. I find it ironic that a nation that increasingly acts as if every citizen were a potential enemy of the state, is so free with information that could aid real enemies of the state.
I do so wish George Orwell were alive to see the UK now.
please explain (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone wanna explain to me how drug-using hooker-banging ex-cons are OFFICERS IN THE ROYAL AIR FORCE?
Looks like goverment works the same across the oce (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Damned if you do... (Score:4, Insightful)
If yes to any of the above do you want these as officers?
If you threw out everyone who has ever done that one "immoral" thing, you'd have no one left. Everyone makes mistakes. Its even in the bible somewhere--a story about throwing stones (disclaimer: never read the bible). These are officers of a military. They are trained to kill people. Measure the morality of their actions against that fact and you'll find that indulging in something like and extramarital affair is minor by comparison. My only surprise is here is the lack of encryption.
Re:Damned if you do... (Score:2, Insightful)
How sick would a person have to be to be incapable of disloyalty?
This is a good question. This is also known as asking the wrong question. Please turn in your security credentials now and report to the Division of Thought Alignment for an adjustment.
Re:I feel MUCH safer now! (Score:4, Insightful)
He didn't need to. He was writing about the UK 60 years ago.
Now he'd just kill himself.
Re:please explain (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a limit. I.e., if you're the sort of person best described as a "drug-using hooker-banging ex-con" and that's it, you're not getting in. But if you're basically an upstanding citizen who in your younger days smoked a joint or two, visited a prostitute once or twice, or got caught shoplifting some low-value item, it would be stupid for the service to reject you on that basis alone. (Actually, as far as the prostitution bit goes, fighter jocks and hookers go together like ducks and water.)
Re:It's no wonder... (Score:4, Insightful)
Bad as it is, the amount pales into insignificance when compared to what we have given banks.
I bet there are a lot of bankers breathing sighs of relief that the focus of the public's ire has switched away from them.
Re:Tell me... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's no wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)
I suppose the difference is that we expect bankers to be lieing, theiving cheats but our politicians are at least supposed to have some regard for decent behaviour.
Yes the politicians are supposed to have decent behaviour but, I for one have yet to meet a single person that expect them to.
Re:Disappeared == data breach? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because with information of sufficient importance the very fact we don't have an exhaustive audit trail would be worrying (someone may of gotten access). The fact that we don't even know where it is? That, is scary. Not only is the risk that this data still exists, meaning that either careers will be ruined or national security will be endangered. But additionally it is a further reminder of how incompetent government can be with obviously important data.
Although you may find the strength of feeling some people have regarding this breech to be unfounded, I expect I am not alone in finding your opinion that nothing bad will happen because "it rarely does" incredibly naive.
Re:please explain (Score:5, Insightful)
They're humans just like the rest of us?
The list mentioned in the summary is probably from the topics/questions asked about. That doesn't mean that everyone of the subjects - or even just one of them - has an affirmative answer in all of them. I suspect the truth is rather boring, with one officer having done some drugs in his youth, a different one having an affair, a third one preferring professionals, several with completely clean sheets, someone with a conviction for some minor (but criminal) stuff done before he joined the force, etc.
If you have to lay open your entire history - and background checks work like that - then it's very unlikely that you would find enough people with perfectly white shirts in the entire commonwealth to staff even one airforce base.
only one way to keep data secure (Score:3, Insightful)
Keep it in your head. There is no such thing as absolute security, therefore there is no such thing as security. If you don't want to share something, don't share it with anybody.
.
late news...? (Score:2, Insightful)
So losing sensitive data "last year" is only being reported now as a problem!?
I hope that between losing the material and reporting it (several months later), some action has already been taken to minimise the potential for blackmail. ...or were they waiting a certain length of time to see if it turned up somewhere or was posted back to them before panicking.
(I would say that I hope action has already been taken to prevent this from happening again, but I'm not that naive)
Re:Mind boggling (Score:3, Insightful)
Because it's cheaper to blackmail loyality than to buy it? Duh...
Re:When were we a free society? (Score:5, Insightful)
We gained more and more freedoms over time. Looking back, we certainly enjoy more freedoms today than we did a hundred years ago, at least in Europe. Most of mainland Europe was ruled by autocratic kings and emperors who restricted the exchange of ideas and discussions, criticising the government was often close to high treason. We sure came a long road from this.
When you look at it with a finer grained system, you'll notice, though, that liberties are in decline, though, and have been since the 1960s, at least in my perspective. It's been especially rough in the last ten or so years, when people all over the world could easily communicate with each other and exchange ideas much more easily and rapidly than ever before. Such things frighten governments and other powerful people. Because it's also never been easier to "spill the beans" and whistleblow.
Government and industry are quite close to each other these days, and neither wants some of their practices to be smeared all over the planet, for everyone to read. It's never been easier for people to get information into circulation, content is not just music and movies, it's also information and ideas, and they can be spread, multiplied and distributed just as quickly.
And that's what scares not only the content industry, but everyone who could be threatened by the quick distribution of any kind of information.
Re:It's no wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)
The moat thing was a few grand! And this is a "scandal", is the word thrown about... compare that to other "scandals", such as stuff with stanford, madoff, aig, enron, to name a few off the top of my head... major collapses, hundreds if not thousands of people losing their jobs and/or life savings, and what do we have going on here? "A couple grand to clean my moat please!" *lol* I've never been so proud to be British.
Re:It's no wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)
The focus of the news has certainly switched, and so the focus of the people who are just angry at whatever they're told to be angry about by what's in the news that day has switched...
But at least we're not all dying of swine flu now.
I wonder what's going to destroy society next week. One thing's certain - it's either going to be really really scary, or it's gonna make us really really angry! Maybe if we're really lucky, both!
Re:Mind boggling (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't matter so much whether the information is false or true, what matters is if you have control of the means of communication. Just ask John Kerry about the Swift Boat Veterans. Baseless information can do great damage if you have the power to shout it loudly enough. Meanwhile, BAE systems bribed a Saudi Prince over US$1billion to direct his country to make various arms purchases and when the UK authorities began investigations, our own British government stepped in and order the investigation stopped. Corruption on a massive scale that dropped from the national press like a scab from a leper.
I think this post [slashdot.org] further down has one of the most insightful takes on why the information might be gathered. Not that I feel it fully excuses the gathering of the information and certainly doesn't excuse its loss. The RAF officers who gave this information to their employers had a simple choice - tell the truth about their more shameful behaviour or lie to cover it up. They chose wrong.
Re:It's no wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Damned if you do... (Score:1, Insightful)
The most important part of that quote is that Jesus, the only one there who was without sin (according to other canon or general interpretation or both) and therefore qualified to start the stoning, chose not to throw a stone. Those who interpret the passage as an incentive to be sinless in order to be just in retribution for sins perceived or actual have grossly perverted the message and the intent of the one they claim to follow.