"Microsoft Windows Users"
There's also a serious problem with our security clearance process which only looks at the actions, rather than the attitudes and intent, of the subjects of investigation.
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 ...
You are 15 years off on copiers (they were reasonably common at the Pentagon c. 1970), and ~25-30 years on cameras.
"Microsoft Windows Users"
There's also a serious problem with our security clearance process which only looks at the actions, rather than the attitudes and intent, of the subjects of investigation.
People are lazy as hell. It takes considerable effort and planning to compartmentalize data and restrict access to the least possible number of people.
Logged, yes, but monitored? Who knows. Maybe their log-collection script had been broken for years, and they've got an 22-year-old entry-level Windows administrator who doesn't realize that the absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.
Gaygay sucker?
Beginning? I've been convinced of this since the first dump. Digital Reichstag fire?
You really think they're that clever?
The story we are getting just doesn't add up.
Why was the soldier allowed to bring in a RW CD? Why did the computer have a USB/floppy/CD Writer drive installed? Were there no plans at all to prevent this sort of thing?
Scary....
It’s not easy for an untrained eye to distinguish between a commercial CD, a closed CD-R, and a CD-RW.
All computers these days have USB - otherwise the keyboard and mouse don’t work. You probably can’t even buy a computer these days that doesn’t have USB. Nearly all computers come with DVD/CD writers. Read-only CD or DVD is about 10-year-old technology.
There were plans to prevent this sort of thing, but one important part of the plan was some level of trust in the process of granting a security clearance to a given individual.
well most of the message traffic I wrote in the 90s was still typed or hand written and then provided (after chopping through the chain for approvals) to the radio room for entry into the encrypted part of the machinery. I didn’t have a need to know how the machinery worked so I was never allowed to type my own messages despite a TS. So the radioman typed it into the encryption hardware.
It wasn’t like every computer on the ship or in an embassy has encryption hardware on it - there are limited sets - though things change and maybe today they do, but I doubt it. I’d rather have a limited # of people that have access then try to prevent loss of a machine because then you loose much more than the specific messages in question.
That being said someone screwed up his background check, and the opsec on hardware in and out of the room was atroscious (sp).
Not that I don't believe it, it's just hard for someone who hasn't seen it to understand such slow acceptance of far superior methodology, especially since by the 90s the computer technology required was pretty cheap.
We live in an era when our country's laws are disregarded. Yes, they are disregarded by those who are in charge of carrying out the laws. Men can come to a polling place with sticks intimidating voters, people can voter mulitple times and vote when inelligible, enter the country and stay illegally and then get tuition discounts at colleges and free public schools and health care. There is no legal penalty for disobeying our laws. In fact, because our country may have done this, that or the other to this group or that, to enforce our laws is now deemed racist.
Likewise, apparently those in the current administration view the leaks as part of the transparency process and so far have refused to aggressively stop or at least go after those who would like to maximize the damage to U.S. security by releasing damaging cables piecemeal.
How much more damage can the current administration do, by its actions and inactions?
encryption hardware in my mind includes any terminals - my bad for improper terminology.
1. Ideological subversion is the process which is legitimate, old word, and open. You can see it with your own eyes. All American mass media has to do is to "unplug bananas" from their ears, open up their eyes, and they can see it. There is no mystery.It has nothing to do with espionage. I know that espionage intelligence gathering looks more romantic. It sells more deodorants through the advertising. That's probably why your Hollywood producers are so crazy about James Bond types of films. But in reality the main emphasis of the KGB is NOT in the area of intelligence at all.According to my opinion, and the opinions of many defectors of my caliber, only about 15% of time, money, and manpower is spent on espionage as such. The other 85% is a slow process which we call either ideological subversion, active measures, or psychological warfare. What it basically means is: to change the perception of reality of every American that despite of the abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country.It's a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and is divided into four basic stages.The first stage being "demoralization"...---KGB Defector Yuri BezmenovSoviet Subversion of the Free Press (Ideological subversion, Destabilization, CRISIS - and the KGB)
Thanks for the ping to your comment. I just pinged to a heart breaking article, since I can’t remember if you are on the HA ping list or not.
Screaming nosedive into the freaking abyss doesn’t even describe it.
I think we are now past the first three boxes and heading towards the fourth box.
ive been on SIPR computers before. USB drives are always disabled. CD drives are always read only. The ability to change any settings always require Admin Rights.
PLAYBOY: Why would professional criminals confide their secrets to an outsider?ALINSKY: Why not? What harm could I do them? Even if I told what I'd learned, nobody would listen. They had Chicago tied up tight as a drum; they owned the city, from the cop on the beat right up to the mayor. Forget all that Eliot Ness shit; the only real opposition to the mob came from other gangsters, like Bugs Moran or Roger Touhy. The Federal Government could try to nail 'em on an occasional income tax rap, but inside Chicago they couldn't touch their power....
"Working in Chicago and other commnities between 1938 and 1946 Alinsky refined his methods...."
So it seems clear that he wasn't using a SIPRnet system, which is not particularly surprising. Probably just a run-of-the-mill NISPOM Chapter 8 classified IS.
PL1, that is.
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