Posted on 11/29/2010 8:24:00 AM PST by Rutles4Ever
It was childishly easy, according to the published chatlog of a conversation Manning had with a fellow-hacker. "I would come in with music on a CD-RW labelled with something like 'Lady Gaga' … erase the music … then write a compressed split file. No one suspected a thing ... [I] listened and lip-synched to Lady Gaga's Telephone while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history." He said that he "had unprecedented access to classified networks 14 hours a day 7 days a week for 8+ months".
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
It’s not impossible. People were just lazy it sounds like.
First, you have to have great background checks. (I have a feeling those are not as thorough as they used to be.)
Second, you have secure networks. You just can’t be on the web. The networks are in secure buildings. You limit who has access to the data. (How did this kid get access to so much data???? Whatever happened to need to know?)
Third, when you do send messages, you send it on a secure network, and you encrypt it.
It sounds like our government has gotten extremely sloppy. I know the Clinton administration was known for being very lax with security. I was hoping the Bush administration would put things back in order, but maybe they didn’t. I’m betting that the Obama administration is even more lax than Clinton.
(I worked for a defense contractor for many years, and worked on secure networks.)
What's going on?
,P> I can tell ya...
This is right up there with Bush rolling out the red carpet for a conga-line of *millions* entering illegally, during wartime...
This is right up there with Bush's Homeland Security Chief Chertoff, when it was discovered he had people wandering around the inside of his private residence, that had entered this country illegally.....
*During war time*.
It should be, of course.
Perhaps you can answer something I’ve wondered about relevant to this issue.
Isn’t there software available that detects when copying, to flash drive or CD, is started?
Why wasn’t such software installed on “secret” computers?
How does someone get that kind of access tpo classified data?
Can’t we shoot him for that?
i call BS.
i dont remember exactly what his job was in the Army, but how the hell did he access to department of State cables and communications?
didnt he only have a secret clearance? why would an army soldier have access to that traffic?
This guy was evidently a trouble-making gay activist in school. And he was busted back to corporal for some offense, details not made public.
Why was he allowed to enlist? Why wasn’t his secret clearance taken when he was busted? Where were his superiors during all of this.
There is also basic “need to know.” His job involved access to secret files on Afghanistan. Why was he permitted access to secret files everywhere else? There is just ONE secret database for ALL military and state department secrets, and a corporal had access to the whole thing?
Finally, why was he permitted to bring read/write CDs into the office? It might have said Lady Gaga on the label, but it also would have said that it was CD-RW. What the hell was the matter with his supervisor?
All rhetorical questions, I suppose. I was the classified documents clerk for my company for a while, back in the sixties, and no one ever bothered to supervise me at all. Except for an occasional lieutenant passing through who gave me a perfunctory uniform check. But I didn’t have access to top secret information all over the world, only classified documents about the radar systems we were working with.
And, it must be admitted, an occasional secret document having nothing to do with our job that somebody passed down the line so I would be the guy who had to take it out and burn it. That’s how I knew about claymore mines before they were used in battle. But I kept my mouth shut.
Uh - It's first designated as SECRET, a classification level, then it's deemed NOFORN, a status that keeps it away from allies who might otherwise have access to that level of classification.
It all makes sense to me now. the powers that be in the government are being black mailed by the queers with this info.. IOW allow open faggotry in the military or we’ll leak all your secrets..
Needs to be some hanging going on over this crud.
Clearly, this is simply Army incompetence. Any elementary school would have better security for their computer records. Not only should he be fed to the fishes, but also his superiors. If this theft was so easy to pull off, just think what the Chicom & Ruski hackers have cracked into from our gov’t...
I keep on wondering how he had access to so much data. My husband and I worked for the same company, and we both had top secret clearances.
At times, we worked on different projects. I wasn’t allowed into his project area, and he wasn’t allowed into mine.
The secure data was always on removable disks that would be locked away when someone wasn’t on the computer.
I just can’t believe he had access to so much data.
I don't blame you...No one believes anything this government says anymore...
American leadership has been basically non-existent for *many* years.
ML/NJ
That’s what I’m thinking too...
Ya know, the whole “watch the other hand” magic trick. I wonder if this is just a “distraction” for something else?
I agree with others, This does not add up. I believe he is lying and protecting higher-ups. If I am wrong, and if he is telling the truth, what does that say about our military?
That sounds really cool....Until ya realize your country is literally crawling with tens of millions of foreigners, that entered illegally, *during war time*.
This story stinks. The soldier was probably working in a SCIF (Secured Compartmented Information Facility). That’s an educated guess. Given the volume of leaked documents, that is the only place he could retrieve that amount of information. OPSEC and COMSEC, that’s operational and communication security, have strict guidelines and controls that must be administered and adhered too. I.E. logs. anything in or out is logged and monitored. Any computer activity and traffic is logged and monitored. No way he get’s in or out with a CD, piece of paper, or memory stick. Any download or burn would have been caught almost immediately. Unless this kid is the Einstein of hackers, I ain’t buying it.
The wikileaks guy stole 250,000 cables.
My point is merely that his doing so was only possible in a digital world, as the logistics of stealing 250,000 hard copies makes it quite literally impossible.
I know. Sucks big fat green ones.
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