Office of Personnel Management IT Was Running Out of… China

Ars Technica via Breitbart.com ^ | 18 Jun 2015 | John Hayward

[Rockitz]

The House Oversight Committee

[Rockitz]

Gross incompetence. Typical....

[Publius]

It’s what happens when you outsource security.

[henkster]

insisting that she can’t answer questions because everything is classified.

Well, hell, let's just ask the Chinese; I'm sure they have the answers. And while we're at it we can ask them for Hillary's e-mails, because I'll bet a dollar they've got them, too.

[Billthedrill]

I had to read the article because I thought you were kidding. Now let me see...you outsource the crown jewels to a Chinese sysadmin and give him root...and somehow the data therein turn up in Chinese hands? There has to be a pattern there...let me think...cause and effect, no, that’s not it...what could it be?

[econjack]

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that President Obama still had confidence in her.

She's just another political hack doing a job for which she has no credentials. Read her bio...she a political airhead. It appears that she got the job because she worked on Obozo's campaign and she Latino. And now she says she can't answer any questions because everything classified. Really? If that's the case, why are the Chinese reading it at this very moment, you imbecile.

[setha]

Or IT, especially when cost overrides doing things correctly.

[Rockitz]

It’s like every day I wake up to bizarro-world with this administration. God help us to survive this last 18 months.

[varyouga]

what could it be?

[VRWCarea51]

What did you expect? You have a Muslim in the White House, his chief advisor is Iranian, enemies in the State Department, Queers running the Military and Commies half filling both chambers of Congress.

[AFreeBird]

Security, competence, common sense, responsibility.....

They outsourced management of OPM to third party foreign nationals!

For the love of......

[Lazamataz]

“Social engineering?” Presumably that means the Chinese raiders were able to cadge valid credentials from system users through some variety of human-intelligence and phishing tactics. Once good user names and passwords were in hand, there was basically nothing to stop the intruders, because the interior of the OPM system is a time capsule back to Nineteen Seventy Something. It was revealed in testimony that they’re still running legacy systems more than 20 years old processing COBOL code....

I don't fault COBOL use. Many of the biggest banks still run COBOL, and they are the absolute world's best in security. Even over governments.

Now, I *DO* fault the use of foreign nationals as contractors in Federal Contracts. I've seen it myself.

[DannyTN]

[kaehurowing]

The government is focused on more important things, like what woman is going on the $10 bill.

[kaehurowing]

The U.S. government is the Peter Principle in action, from the president down.

[RetiredArmy]

The Obama Lack of Administration, screwing Amerika into the ground one turn at a time.

[cynwoody]

Quoth the author, "Sweet mother of COBOL!"

You do have to wonder what Rear Admiral Hopper's assessment of this debacle would be.

I don't buy that you can't use encryption with Cobol. You can graft encryption onto pretty much anything.

[tbw2]

Why hack the database, when you can get paid by the government to maintain it AND copy it while you maintain it?

[Rockitz]

So the $64B question... Was this gross or calculated incompetence?

[DiogenesLamp]

She's just another political hack doing a job for which she has no credentials. Read her bio...she a political airhead. It appears that she got the job because she worked on Obozo's campaign and she Latino. And now she says she can't answer any questions because everything classified. Really? If that's the case, why are the Chinese reading it at this very moment, you imbecile.

Any time I see an unfamiliar name in the Obama administration, I do a search to see what they look like. Generally they are a "Person of Color" as if it is reasonable in a population that is 63% white to have a staff that is 80% something else.

This is not "color blind" this is deliberately appointing people just because they are not white. This is going out of your way to do so.