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Security Government Privacy United States

Hackers Publish Personal Data On Thousands of US Police Officers, Federal Agents (techcrunch.com) 161

Posted by BeauHD from the out-in-the-open dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: A hacker group has breached several FBI-affiliated websites and uploaded their contents to the web, including dozens of files containing the personal information of thousands of federal agents and law enforcement officers, TechCrunch has learned. The hackers breached three sites associated with the FBI National Academy Association, a coalition of different chapters across the U.S. promoting federal and law enforcement leadership and training located at the FBI training academy in Quantico, VA. The hackers exploited flaws on at least three of the organization's chapter websites -- which we're not naming -- and downloaded the contents of each web server. The hackers then put the data up for download on their own website, which we're also not naming nor linking to given the sensitivity of the data. The spreadsheets contained about 4,000 unique records after duplicates were removed, including member names, a mix of personal and government email addresses, job titles, phone numbers and their postal addresses. The FBINAA could not be reached for comment outside of business hours. If we hear back, we'll update. "We hacked more than 1,000 sites," said the hacker. "Now we are structuring all the data, and soon they will be sold. I think something else will publish from the list of hacked government sites." When asked if they were worried that the files they put up for download would put federal agents and law enforcement at risk, the hacker said: "Probably, yes." The hacker claimed to have "over a million data" [sic] on employees across several U.S. federal agencies and public service organizations.
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Hackers Publish Personal Data On Thousands of US Police Officers, Federal Agents More

Hackers Publish Personal Data On Thousands of US Police Officers, Federal Agents

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    • Nothing like protesting anarchists who think it's funny to destroy other people's property by having them all end up dead.

      Nothing like protesting all those hackers who think it's funny to release information on people by having them all end up dead.

      Same thing.

    • Re:Nothing like protesting bad cops giving tickets (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13, 2019 @11:50AM (#58431580)

      Nothing like protesting bad cops giving tickets by having them all end up dead.

      You know, between warrantless cell-phone surveillance, civil forfeit (ie theft), cops trying to arrest people for filming them and claiming it's illegal, and police shooting unarmed people ... I'm afraid I have little sympathy for law enforcement.

      They seem to think we have no privacy and anything they do is legal, even when they know damned well it isn't.

      As far as I'm concerned, this same shit should happen to everybody who works for Facebook or any other analytics company, anybody who makes surveillance products and doesn't seem to care they sell it to, and all of the other sacks of shit who actively erode our privacy.

      Boo mother fucking hoo.

      The police don't give a fuck about the law or your rights, so why the fuck would we think their privacy matters more than ours?

    • Published by a former New Hampshire Legislator. Live Free or Die!
      Billyâ(TM)s Reward [slashdot.org]

  • This (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Saturday April 13, 2019 @09:07AM (#58431046)
    A lot of people say, if you do nothing wrong what do you have to hide? Well... this.

    • Re:This (Score:5, Insightful)

      by i.r.id10t ( 595143 ) on Saturday April 13, 2019 @09:12AM (#58431060)

      Indeed. I work for the state of Florida, and on request our HR dept has to supply names, salaries, job titles, etc. Unless you are a cop or related to a cop or a DA or judge or ...

      And there are plenty of other laws that restrict people, other than cops. Heck, every single gun control law passed in the last 30 years has exemptions for police officers, even if the stuff isn't issued as a duty weapon/accessory.

      Whatever happened to "equal protection under the law" ?

      • To me it's already scary that people think they need to own guns there because the police won't come in time. I fear it won't end well.

        • Re: This (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          In the U.S. freedom means being allowed to carry a gun to feel safe. In Canada freedom means not needing to own a gun to feel safe.

          • Re: This (Score:3, Funny)

            by Anonymous Coward

            You must live in the parts that don't have moose.

            • Including the majestik møøse A Møøse once bit my sister... No realli! She was Karving her initials on the møøse with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given her by Svenge - her brother-in-law - an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian møvies: "The Høt Hands of an Oslo Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Mølars of Horst Nordfink"... We apologise for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible have been sacked.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward

            Freedom has nothing to do with feeling safe, it is about living your life without intrusion. If you think you need a reason to be free, you already failed in understanding.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by quonset ( 4839537 )

          because the police won't come in time.

          The only possibility for police to come in time if a crime is being committed or if your life is in danger is to have police on every street corner.

          What's scary is you don't grasp this simple concept.

          • Oh, right. We do have our Canadian "cop on every corner" program.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by fluffernutter ( 1411889 )
            Listen, my point is, if you really need a cop on every corner or a gun to feel safe do your family a favour and move to a safe country.

            • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

              by msauve ( 701917 )
              Are you claiming that where you live, crime never happens unless there's a cop around? I see a simple solution to your crime problem.

            • if you really need a cop on every corner or a gun to feel safe do your family a favour and move to a safe country.

              Name a safe country.

              Hint: There is no such thing

            • Re:This (Score:5, Insightful)

              by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Saturday April 13, 2019 @11:13AM (#58431416) Homepage Journal

              Listen, my point is, if you really need a cop on every corner or a gun to feel safe do your family a favour and move to a safe country.

              Look, in the US, likely as not, your chances of having a home invasion, or having to use a weapon to defend yourself, for most people not in a gang is VERY low.

              Violent crime has been going down for decades.

              HOWEVER, there is a chance. Even people in good neighborhoods get home invaded. Guess what, the criminals know the good houses have stuff in them that is valuable.

              In the best of cities, the police response time for emergency is like 8 minutes.

              A LOT can happen in 8 minutes.

              It think it is a good thing in the US to have the choice to be able to defend yourself with firearms. Criminals have them, you should be able to have them too.

              For the most part, the police are not there to prevent crimes, they are there to investigate crime scenes and find people to charge with crimes.

              Hell, there are even court cases in the US that establish that the police actually aren't under obligation to protect you.

              It's not the legal gun owners you have to worry about. Most gun crime in the US is by hand gun, rifles (even the "scary" semi-auto rifles like the AR or other models) account for a VERY small number of gun crimes.

              And of the majority of gun deaths (let's remove suicides, that shouldn't be included)...are gang members shooting each other with stolen hand guns.

              Yet...all the gun control being promoted, is not targeted at the largest problem. See this article The Assault Weapons Myth [nytimes.com].

              To me, it is like insurance, you likely won't need it, you hope you NEVER need it, but it is good to have around in case you do.

              If you don't want a weapon in your house, fine...your decision.

              If you don't want to carry concealed in your daily life, then don't.

              But if "I" want to, and do so legally, then there is nothing that should prevent me from doing so, as insurance for my home, family and personal safety.

              When seconds and minutes count, it is 100% up to YOU to protect and defend yourself, no one else is going to be there.

              8 minutes is a lifetime when intruders are breaking into your home with you there.

              • Yep, hand guns and combat rifles are pretty much the two kinds of gun designed specifically for killing people. And hand guns are designed to be covert and convenient as well. Never fails to amaze me how much more violently people react to combat rifles, when handguns are the more dangerous weapon in almost any non-battlefield scenario.

              • Re: This (Score:1)

                by Anonymous Coward

                So, if most gang members are shooting each other with stolen guns, where do they steal the guns from? If there are fewer legally-owned guns on the street and in people's homes, doesn't that mean there are less guns to steal?

                • So, if most gang members are shooting each other with stolen guns, where do they steal the guns from? If there are fewer legally-owned guns on the street and in people's homes, doesn't that mean there are less guns to steal?

                  So...there is a tiny minority of people that are gang members.

                  So, we curtail the rights of the VAST majority of legal, law abiding citizens, just to cater to the lowest denominator ? A few ruin it for the vast majority?

              • Well I chose to live in a neighborhood where the neighbors talk and there have been no crimes that anyone can remember. I mean the old man down at the end of the street remembered when the other house was built and how the plumbing ran through the yard but there is no talk of crime ever.

                These places do exist if you look for them and they are often affordable places to live. Owning a gun in itself represents a risk to your family so that can never be the best choice statistically speaking.

            • Re:This (Score:4, Insightful)

              by TigerPlish ( 174064 ) on Saturday April 13, 2019 @12:01PM (#58431626)

              Listen, my point is, if you really need a cop on every corner or a gun to feel safe do your family a favour and move to a safe country.

              Like England, who disarmed their populace and allow no firearms AND has ridiculous knife laws now has knife-murder problem?

              Beware any government who wishes to disarm its people. If you can't understand that, you don't understand freedom.

              • How many knife murderers kill 58 people and wound 422 all in one go? I guess the trick is to be able to throw the knives really far from the hotel room you barricaded.

            • Listen, my point is, if you really need a cop on every corner or a gun to feel safe do your family a favour and move to a safe country.

              Moving to another country is usually easier said than done.

              [ Just ask the people traveling North at the U.S. Southern Border -- who are trying to do exactly what you just recommended. ]

              • How disappointing for them that they only get a reprieve from violence for one or two years, and then America will be just as bad.

        • To me it's already scary that people think they need to own guns there because the police won't come in time.

          Don't call the police. Call a personal injury lawyer. They will be immediately there.

          On the downside, you will get a hefty bill for the matter.

          Maybe we need an emergency dispatcher number for lawyers . . . ?

          How about 666 . . . ?

        • As the old saying goes I'd rather own a gun and never need it versus needing a gun and not owning one.

      • Heck, every single gun control law passed in the last 30 years has exemptions for police officers, even if the stuff isn't issued as a duty weapon/accessory.

        What?

        I may be misunderstanding this, but are you saying that Florida police have to actually buy their own guns? So, one cop in a patrol car could be carrying a 9.0678 mm bore weapon, and the cop in the passenger seat carrying an 11.43mm bore weapon, and neither able to use the other's ammunition?

        Assuming that guns are fairly expensive, I assume they'

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      When asked if they were worried that the files they put up for download would put federal agents and law enforcement at risk, the hacker said: "Probably, yes."

      Instead of using their skill to make the world a better place or even keeping it as is, they're using it to put people at risk. Regardless of their motivation (money) that's just so sad and a prime example of what's wrong with (some) people, organizations and governments.

      Sad.

      • Re:This (Score:4, Interesting)

        by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Saturday April 13, 2019 @10:03AM (#58431206)
        I still think the US will fall to rampant crime and chaos very soon. Really it's something I don't want to be right on, but there are too many people there who don't think they should have a responsibility to society. People like thrive in chaos. They are the warlords.
        • Aall you folks who think that it's only the right that engages in scaremongering and hyperbole and doesn't care about the facts... observe! Observe and be disillusioned.

          Why do you think the USA will fall to "rampant crime and chaos very soon"? We survived the gangster Prohibition years and the huge violent crime wave of the 70s-80s. The last time I checked, crime levels today are nowhere near either of those eras (including minors being murdered).

          The really worrying thing about the right-wing versio
          • Yeah, you aren't exactly 'helping' your case.
            • My only "case" here was to point out that liberals aren't helping their own case because the right wing's hysterics are less detached from reality. The left demagogues are less competent than the right's demagogues. This is the truth, and I do not believe in holding one's tongue re: the truth in the service of some larger "case".

    • Robert Peel's 9 principles for policing by consent

      To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.
      To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.
      To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the will

  • We use to have all this public before (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    It was called a Phone Book.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday April 13, 2019 @09:17AM (#58431076)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Use a RFID blocking wallet or bag. https://www.amazon.com/Blockin... [amazon.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nadass ( 3963991 )

      I know an adult woman, her dad is 'stalking' her via her cellphone, he's a cop. Constantly texts her how he knows exactly where she is and she is paranoid about it. I explained to her how yes, he can tap into her cellphone unless she pulls out her battery. Advised her to change her cellphone number and take screenshots of all texts he's sent to her. Smartphones are spy devices with antennas, anyone can stalk someones location. Now she knows to get an order of protection against him.

      That's a lotta FUD. Is the "Find my iPhone" function turned on? Or the feature where friends share their locations with their contacts? Or do they constantly post their own GPS coordinates on social media?

      As for "smartphones are spy devices"... everything is a "spy" device. Your use of a computer right now, sharing this story but without being an "anonymous coward," has already placed your adult woman's life in danger, because now people can connect the dots between you and them...

      At any rate, I,

      • I object to government spying on all its citizens, not because I'm special or have anything to hide, but because of the leverage this gives the government to do wrong. It lets them know about every CEOs affair, and can manipulate stock prices or force them into cooperating. It allows for insider trading such that the only limit on making money is getting too big and obvious so as to be caught. It lets them dig up dirt and prosecute just some political opponents or activist groups while protecting others.
      • Where's the uncertainty? Individual police officers have direct access to real time E911 location data. This is not a conspiracy theory. It is well documented. There doesn't need to be a vast network of federal agents watching you, there just needs to be one cop who's an asshole.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Reversible encryption (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Hey, they wanted reversible encryption. There ya go, the results delivered.

  • It would be interesting if the 'structure' they offer will be ways of finding all the cops that murdered black people because they're trigger happy around dark skin. I can't say if I'd be upset hearing some vigilantes decide to murder the racist cops who have all taken innocent black lives.

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It would be interesting if the 'structure' they offer will be ways of finding all the cops that murdered black people because they're trigger happy around dark skin. I can't say if I'd be upset hearing some vigilantes decide to murder the racist cops who have all taken innocent black lives.

      The vast, vast, VAST majority of the time that a black person is shot to death, the perpetrator is a black male. This is well established fact. If black people want to show that Black Lives Matter they need to start within their own communities and set the example there.

      By the way, also established fact: when inter-racial murder happens, a black person kills a white victim NINE TIMES more often than a white person kills a black victim. See FBI crime stats for all of the above (there's your reference).

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by elrous0 ( 869638 )

      Hey asshole, contrary to what the mainstream media would have you believe, the vast majority of cops are decent people just trying to do their jobs. They don't want to ever have to shoot anyone, black or otherwise. And they get little to no thanks for a job in which they routinely have to deal with the biggest scumbags and nastiest situations that our society has to offer, so the rest of us won't have to.

      So fuck off with your SJW fantasies of hordes of racist cops roaming the streets just aching to find for

    • Do cops more often shoot black men? Sure. Of course after you account for more encounters to begin with, and for threat level, that disparity is barely even significant.
      See this is the problem with SJWs, you think that minor difference is the problem, obsessed with turning everything into a racial thing. Guess what? Police shoot, beat, and tase unarmed white people too. They're trigger happy with everyone. THAT is the problem. We need to address that issue, to stop police abuse against everyone. The slight

  • MAGA (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Lemme guess... password was "MAGA".

  • imagine if (Score:5, Insightful)

    by e**(i pi)-1 ( 462311 ) on Saturday April 13, 2019 @10:20AM (#58431262) Homepage Journal
    These breaches illustrate is what is possible today. Personal information is still relatively harmless and could in principle be collected by anybody from publicly available information. Imagine forced backdoor technology (as proposed again and again both from democrat and republican politicians) is implemented: then also bank, tax, health or business information of a larger population can be collected and be made available on a large scale. If FBI affiliated sites can not keep their data safe, what guarantees that backdoor information will be kept away from the wrong hands, once such technology is implemented.

  • Isn't this what the FBI wants for the rest of the sheep? Weak or zero encryption?

    Govt lists are never a good idea, especially unencrypted.

    Everyone deserves their privacy, unless they are under, active, directed, investigation. EVERYONE.

    Privacy was the intention of the 4th amendment. They never expected cameras, gps, and browsers to follow our every action around the world, storing the data forever.

  • Cops support taking our privacy.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13, 2019 @10:52AM (#58431342)
    So why should they have any privacy themselves? Fuck 'em. No sympathy here.
  • If you want something secure, you don't put it on a computer system. Paper files have much more security to them. And I read that the Kremlin went back to paper for some critical activities long ago. And people who put their passwords in online password sites, well, they are asking for it.

  • Already been done... (Score:5, Informative)

    by sdinfoserv ( 1793266 ) on Saturday April 13, 2019 @11:33AM (#58431504)
    4000 records, small potatoes. The OPM hack did the same thing on a much larger scale 4 years ago. Back in 2015 the Federal Office of Personnel Management had their UN-ENCRYPTED files taken containing every single current and past Federal employee, and everyone who had ever applied for a top secret clearance. Over 21M people's personal information was taken, where as this was only 4000 unique records... .
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

      And whatever happened to that? It appears it went to a foreign government, like China and they're not disclosing it.

      I know the Government was upset about that and they're taking steps to stop it. Moving from the joke that is fisma to cdm. Cdm says - no access unless you have a PIV card. No password to hack any more. DHS is doing all of the non-dod agencies. You won't be able to even login to anything without a piv card. Shell to Linux host - need your piv card. They're taking the stupid idiots out of the eq

  • Oh, the irony ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by timholman ( 71886 ) on Saturday April 13, 2019 @11:45AM (#58431548)

    This incident (among many others) should be kept in mind when the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies insist on backdoor keys for smartphone and computer encryption.

    Federal agencies that can't their own data secure certainly won't be able to keep yours secure.

  • Not Shocked (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This does place police types at rick as well as their families and is a sad state of affairs. Yet, we do have a broken justice system that frequently enforces rotten laws, acts with discrimination, and is frequently ineffective or totally wrong as to whom they arrest and who they are willing to protect. At some point people do act up and strike back. Our laws need to be carefully over hauled with serious consideration as to the end consequences for the chain of events following arrest.

  • Assange's "Deadman Switch" [wikileaks.org] clicked last night (and you have to love the file dates. . .)

    And the "insurance torrents" are all back up:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/The_D... [reddit.com]

    • I hadn’t thought about that... the timing of Assange’s arrest along with the upcoming 2020 US campaign where The Donald is worried about losing the Senate too.

      We all know how he loves WikiLeaks... I mean, how he doesn’t know anything about Wikileaks.

  • A million data [sic] --- ? (Score:3)

    by DavenH ( 1065780 ) on Saturday April 13, 2019 @01:33PM (#58432098)
    Why 'sic' when it's grammatically correct?

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