Posted on 04/01/2007 8:57:04 AM PDT by jdm
An internal audit has discovered that twenty computers have disappeared from a critical counterintelligence agency tasked with protecting America's nuclear secrets. Fourteen of the computers contained classified material, marking yet another in a string of embarrassments for the Department of Energy:
The office in charge of protecting American technical secrets about nuclear weapons from foreign spies is missing 20 desktop computers, at least 14 of which have been used for classified information, the Energy Department inspector general reported on Friday.This is the 13th time in a little over four years that an audit has found that the department, whose national laboratories and factories do most of the work in designing and building nuclear warheads, has lost control over computers used in working on the bombs.
Aside from the computers it cannot find, the department is also using computers not listed in its inventory, and one computer listed as destroyed was in fact being used, the audit said.
“Problems with the control and accountability of desktop and laptop computers have plagued the department for a number of years,” the report said.
The White House fired Linton Brooks in January for the security problems noted in this report. Earlier audits had revealed over 140 computers which investigators could not find. The National Nuclear Security Agency got its start because of the DoE security breaches of the 1990s, including the Wen Ho Lee scandal, but it appears just as plagued by incompetence as the DoE was back then.
Only two months have passed since the departure of Brooks, and these problems will not be solved overnight. However, one would hope that the NNSA could conduct an accurate inventory of its computers, especially considering the kind of material stored on them. Most likely, the discrepancies come from paperwork errors, but that gives little confidence in the ability of the NNSA to secure the nation's secrets.
The new management at NNSA should improve this immediately. The new Congress will not be shy about hauling managers into committee hearings, if the protection of our nuclear secrets does not provide enough incentive itself during a war on terror.
So, whatever nuclear secrets we had left after Slick Willie's re-election fire sale to the Chinese have now walked out the door in classified laptops. Guess we should go bomb the crap out of Iran because they might misuse nuclear technology. Uh-huh, Right.
OK, so putting it on laptops wasn't a good idea, nor are desktops.
Put this info on mainframes.
So the successful theft of some of our nuclear secrets makes Iran a trustworthy nation? Strange thinking. In my way of thinking, the theft of our nuclear secrets makes Iran even potentially more dangerous than before. So yes, as Ronald Reagan once said, "let the bombing begin".
I don't understand the inability to lock this down.
And how about do a REAL security check on people before clearing them.
Oh and be mindful of folks carying stuff out the front door and check their socks & pants.
Security in this country has been sloppy for a long, long time.
But then the Mainframes would turn up missing also. And they're much more expensive...
A government that is out of control & every last one of these pols & GW want to make gov bigger. This ponzi scheme is on its last leg. Corruption at every level of gov & NO accountabliity.
Taxpayers' money at work again.
I don't, either. It's not complicated. Every laptop needs to belong to somebody. Once a month (at least), an auditor just goes to each person, says "show me all this equiptment checked out to your name", verifies the serial numbers match what is on his list, with noting missing and nothing extra, and moves to the next person. When a person leaves or is terminated, they check that all stuff listed to his name has been turned in.
Ah-h-h-h the benefits of the civil 'servant' never-can-be-fired employment practices of the government...
And you have a security device hardwired in to prevent unauthorized access to data.
I don't understand the inability to lock this down.?
It's simple. Someone/s are stealing and selling.
Clinton holdovers.
(SS) Flax Soapwort, Mendocino, CA
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