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Encryption “would not have helped” at OPM, says DHS official (Outsourced to China)
Ars Technica | June 16, 2015 | Sean Gallagher

Posted on 06/17/2015 4:37:13 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

Link only due to copyright issues: http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/06/encryption-would-not-have-helped-at-opm-says-dhs-official/


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; Government
KEYWORDS: china; computers; computing; databreach; dhs; hackers; identitytheft

1 posted on 06/17/2015 4:37:13 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: All

Link to article:

http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/06/encryption-would-not-have-helped-at-opm-says-dhs-official/


2 posted on 06/17/2015 4:37:37 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (You can help: https://donate.tedcruz.org/c/FBTX0095/)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Of course not.

Nothing anyone could do. No one’s fault.

No one here is responsible.

The floors sure are waxed to a high shine every day though.


3 posted on 06/17/2015 4:39:36 PM PDT by Steely Tom (Vote GOP: A Slower Handbasket)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
" He asked Seymour pointedly about the legacy systems that had not been adequately protected or upgraded. Seymour replied that some of them were over 20 years old and written in COBOL, and they could not easily be upgraded or replaced. These systems would be difficult to update to include encryption or multi-factor authentication because of their aging code base, and they would require a full rewrite."

"Some of the contractors that have helped OPM with managing internal data have had security issues of their own—including potentially giving foreign governments direct access to data long before the recent reported breaches. A consultant who did some work with a company contracted by OPM to manage personnel records for a number of agencies told Ars that he found the Unix systems administrator for the project "was in Argentina and his co-worker was physically located in the [People's Republic of China]. Both had direct access to every row of data in every database: they were root"

The Democrat/Republican Uniparty US Government really knows what it is doing. And now the Uniparty want's to control your health care and your health records and in its latest grab for power over our lives, the US gov wants to determine what type of neighborhood you may live in. They're so smart you know --- they know what's best for everybody.

4 posted on 06/17/2015 4:58:08 PM PDT by StormEye
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To: Steely Tom

Well, ....Mistakes were made....


5 posted on 06/17/2015 5:01:33 PM PDT by Paladin2 (Ive given up on aphostrophys and spell chek on my current device...)
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To: StormEye

Really? No one has transferred COBOL databases to another format?


6 posted on 06/17/2015 5:02:46 PM PDT by Paladin2 (Ive given up on aphostrophys and spell chek on my current device...)
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To: StormEye

Uniparty. Wow.


7 posted on 06/17/2015 5:04:37 PM PDT by Lumper20 ( clown in Chief has own Gov employees Gestapo)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet; fieldmarshaldj; AuH2ORepublican; Impy; GOPsterinMA; randita; Sun; NFHale; ...

The DOD has outsourced national security to a nation with atomic missiles pointed at us. Does that make any sense to anyone?


8 posted on 06/17/2015 5:19:15 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued (The War on Drugs is Big Government statism)
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To: Clintonfatigued

You keep forgetting who sits in the White House.


9 posted on 06/17/2015 5:20:53 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (You can help: https://donate.tedcruz.org/c/FBTX0095/)
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To: Steely Tom

Has anyone else noticed that almost every one of the administrators involved in these breakdowns are incompetent Obama appointees selected solely because of race and/or gender?


10 posted on 06/17/2015 5:31:48 PM PDT by Timber Rattler (Just say NO! to RINOS and the GOP-E)
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To: Paladin2
"Really? No one has transferred COBOL databases to another format?"

Apparently not.
I guess OPM will eventually use the excuse that that there were no funds to upgrade the system. But apparently there are tens of millions of dollars for Moochelle and family to vacation in Europe at taxpayers expense. And The US Government can also try to find the six billion dollars Hillary Clinton lost while playing at being the US Secretary of State.

11 posted on 06/17/2015 5:32:22 PM PDT by StormEye
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Can’t encrypt or do two factor authentication in cobol? What a pantload. I code legacy systems using rpg. Even more esoteric than cobol. They could have and should have done it. This pure lazy incompetence on their part.


12 posted on 06/17/2015 5:51:54 PM PDT by CyberSpartacus
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To: Paladin2
Really? No one has transferred COBOL databases to another format?

COBOL forever!

The knock on COBOL used to be "It takes four pages of code to say "HELLO WORLD". With all the code bloat brought on by "reusing" code and the availability of cheap RAM, COBOL must be looking positively svelte by now!

Either that or the writers of the original COBOL programs neglected to document their code adequately (job security).

"REM, what's a REM?"

Sometimes it's just easier to start from scratch.

13 posted on 06/17/2015 6:09:58 PM PDT by BwanaNdege
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To: BwanaNdege

As it turns out COBOL is fine, just a low level language.
Like FORTRAN, and Assembly.


14 posted on 06/17/2015 6:13:20 PM PDT by Paladin2 (Ive given up on aphostrophys and spell chek on my current device...)
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To: Clintonfatigued

OPM is not part of the DoD.


15 posted on 06/17/2015 6:55:26 PM PDT by Henry Hnyellar
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To: Steely Tom

And they have a crew of minimum three guys to change a light bulb too.


16 posted on 06/17/2015 6:56:39 PM PDT by Rome2000 (SMASH THE CPUSA)
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To: Rome2000
And they have a crew of minimum three guys to change a light bulb too.

Oh yeah.

17 posted on 06/17/2015 9:33:40 PM PDT by Steely Tom (Vote GOP: A Slower Handbasket)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The OPM Data Breach – What To Do Now and In the Future to Protect Ourselves

http://tamarawilhite.hubpages.com/hub/The-OPM-Data-Breach-What-To-Do-Now-and-In-the-Future-to-Protect-Ourselves


18 posted on 06/18/2015 1:50:29 PM PDT by tbw2
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