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Classified Data Missing From Los Alamos 176

Posted by timothy from the or-maybe-we-lost-them dept.
LightSaber writes: "Here we go again. This time it is computers and hard disks with nuclear weapons data that are missing from the lab vaults. This is really becoming pretty much a regular feature by now." Similarly, bapya writes: "CNN reports a secret nuclear information leak from Los Alamos lab. Apparently, the disappearance of the records was reported on June 1. One official said part of the problem in tracking down the missing data is that the record keeping is so unorganized it is difficult to tell who had access to the lab and who could have legitimately signed out the material. How can we manage our critical information???" Oscarfish points out coverage of same on Excite News.
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Classified Data Missing From Los Lamos More

Classified Data Missing From Los Lamos

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  • First they infiltrate our popular culture with Neil Young, Anne Murray, and Peter Jennings. And now they're after our top-secret hard drives!

    It's scary, very scary. They look like Americans, talk like Americans (except for "eh", "zed", and better grammar), and are pretty much allowed to cross the border willy-nilly.

    Meanwhile, they're driving energy prices up (they're the U.S.'s biggest petroleum supplier, if you include natural gas), and for god sakes, they have nationalized health care!

    God save us!

  • new /. topic (Score:5)

    by fsck! ( 98098 ) <{moc.liamg} {ta} {redle.bocaj}> on Monday June 12, 2000 @06:58PM (#1006807) Homepage
    don't you all think it's about time that articles about stolen nuclear weapons tech got it's own icon?
  • Enough with this closed proprietary secret information - open source it!!!!

    Let the masses have a play with the source - it can only make it better - better yet, GPL the weapons information :)


  • I kind of thought the shot that blew Kennedy's head off was right on the money screw up's my ass!!!

    Thank you for the most amazing bit of political journalism that I have ever read

    PS ever thought of working for a Government Think Tank or the NSA they need genius like yours!!!
  • My comment was intended as humor. While I'm sure that he has the resources to build or buy a nuclear weapon, I don't think he has the desire, especially when weighed against the risks.

    Bill Gates is not an evil genius, but, pretending he is makes for Quality Humor, IMO.

  • Old (Score:1)

    by BWing ( 22774 )
    This is getting pretty old. I remember not too long ago when I happend across a Department of Defense garage sale (so to speak). Once I got my new hardware home and checked out the hard drive, I found plans for my very own personal nuclear reactor. Apparently *someone* had forgotten to format the hard drive. Sufficed to say I made a nice amount of money off of eBay (I think the high bidder was in Pakistan).

    But let's not worry about this new missing information, it was probably just Tom Cruise looking for the NOC-List.

    Do I get bad movie reference Karma?
  • If they're going to keep this up I think it's about time Los Alamos got its own news icon.
  • So you're wondering why we've been bombing the Chinese embassy, handing them designs for multiple-warhead ICBMs, kick-starting a new cold war over a ridiculous ballistic missile defense system and fumbling every nuclear secret extant? Look at it through the lens of a bunch of tired military contractors that have less and less clout in the new economy and you'll be less confused.

    Night
  • Even if the drives got into the wrong hands, can't we assume that they are quite well encrypted, and that not all people with oppertunity to steal the drives had the (complete) password ??? As for at "stolen nukes" icon, might I suggest a broken arrow ??
  • As the other poster said, most disks are not encrypted. I programmed nukes back in my USAF days and once you entered the vault area of the bunker I worked in it was Top Secret open storage. TS materials typically sat on my desk without coverpages, etc. Same with our mainframes and tapes. This is not unusual at all in military/government offices.
    The interesting part is that all NATO classified materials were required to be locked in a safe and signed out when in use. Likewise, despite it not required by regs we used 2 man control procedures on our COMSEC crypto keys just as we did with the nuclear certified devices/information.

    ObUselessInfo: 1 target listed on a piece of paper is classified Secret. 2 or more are TS.

    rodent...

  • Re:Other Los Alamos Security Links (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Also note that Dr. Lee was never charged with espionage, but rather with a lesser charge--mishandling of classified documents, that he has been held without bail in solitary confinement for many months, that he is kept shackled so as to prevent flight from his Santa Fe jail cell, that he is allowed 1 hour of sunlight per day, that his family may not visit with him without FBI agents present, that a primary reason given for why he cannot be allowed to go free is that, though no evidence has been presented connecting him to espionage, he is now a flight risk because of how poorly he has been treated by his country. (He is a U.S. citizen who suffers from the unforunate coincidence of having brown skin, black hair, and brown eyes). If he were convicted of a crime his treatment could be construed as cruel and unusual punishment.

    We tread no moral high ground where Dr. Lee is concerned, and we set a dangerous precedent: The civil rights of a solitary individual are meaningless when confronted with almighty politics and a bloodthirsty public.
  • or the plans to construct a good one.

    They had the plans, but then some guy in marketing decided to integrate IE and WMP into the warhead. Then they changed the colour. Then they decided aluminuim would be cheaper than enriched plutonium. Last i heard, they're working on a public beta right now, but the date has slipped 'til 2005.
  • Why is that flamebait? Just remember, an elephant is just a mouse designed by a government committee.
  • You can't blame Clinton for ALL of the problems with the Chinese getting our nuclear secrets. Some of the blame should go to Janet Reno too. :-) Of course, Clinton denied all knowledge of the campaign contributions from the Chinese. That may or may not be true, but I wonder... If the (communist) Chinese wanted him elected so badly, why did the (ostensibly deomcratic-republican) American people also want him? 100 or 200 years ago, the man would have been hung as a traitor. Now we elect him President. Then, someone will flame me because they like Clinton. What is this world coming to...
  • I have been involved in similar areas for different countries. In my experience there is no way anything that is particularly sensitive could go missing without it being noticed in a very short time frame. Surely this data whatever it may be could not be particularly sensitive. Most likely it would be low classification data or perhaps something that has been over classified. Over classification is not uncommon. It takes only one super paranoid person and everybodies lunch orders are TS and you are working in a shielded vault. When stuff is overclassified people become lazy because so much stuff that shouldn't be treated like TS has to be. People eventually become lazy and then bad things happen.

  • We don't have any sort of war going on right now, so which Chinese embassy do we blow up and how do we make it look accidental? Seriously, though, this pisses me off. If we go to war with somebody and anybody dies because the enemy used an American-designed nuke, I'm going to be really enraged. Sure, the first Soviet A-Bomb was based entirely on the original plans drawn up at Los Alamos, and that is what the Chinese currently have (presuming they haven't started building W88's from the plans they swiped last year). But most of the major Soviet nuclear designs were their own. With all the recently missing computer hardware, I cannot believe for a second that some of this stuff isn't the direct result of espionage, no matter what the government tries to tell us. Get your act together before you end up forking over the entire SDI plan to everyone, damnit!

  • More about the missing data (Score:4)

    by Oscarfish ( 85437 ) on Monday June 12, 2000 @07:04PM (#1006822) Homepage

    The Reuters [excite.com] story at excite is pretty thorough; basically it's unclear whether the two hard drives were destroyed, lost, or stolen. Funny thing is, they were discovered lost May 7 - but the Energy Department wasn't notified until June 1. Employees are to take lie detector tests, and it seems they whole search setup is becoming a big mess.

    The Washington Post story [washingtonpost.com] also has a good wrap-up. According to most sources, the drives were last seen in a suitcase in a vault in a Los Alamos lab. I think the confusion of the evacuation due to the recent fires might have something to do with this...

    And here's the Los Angeles Times [latimes.com] article.

    By morning I guess most major newspapers will have it in print and on their websites, but in the case of something like this I've always thought earlier is better. Let's just hope the drives are recovered...

  • Burn thousands of acres of foliage around the top secret facility to force it evacuated, then move in and steal the data. Yeah, the fire was just a controlled burn that somehow got out of the control of the "experts" who set it. Musta slipped up, eh? Oops. Then the fire and smoke forces Los Alamos to evacuate. Now data and files turn up missing. Wow, that's quite a coincidence. It'll all look legit and no one will suspect... until it's too late.
  • hey, where can I sign up for the Borg collective?
    ...looks like you've been assimilated.

  • I was once astonished by the ineptitude of our various national organizations; now I realize that they're simply composed of people, most of whom are just trying to get their jobs done in a timely way.

    Scientists (even top secret burn-your-publications-before-submitting-them nuclear fizzicists) are smart enough to outwit almost any security scheme -- especially one thought up by the kind of "experts" who end up in government jobs rather than academia. Witness Wen Ho Lee, who, while under investigation for possibly sharing secrets with the Chinese government, was able (for whatever reason) to smuggle hundreds of megabytes of ultrasecret bomb simulation data through the security barrier onto insecure tapes.

    Further, the motivations for leaking data are so numerous -- from carelessness through the simple convenience/laziness factor, right up to giant moral dilemmas (such as was explored in Durenmatt's The Physicists [amazon.com]) that it's impossible to address them all. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

    On some level, it doesn't really matter if someone leaked classified data. There's probably nothing there that can't be computed with Metropolis, Runge-Kutta, and a gazillion-node Beowulf cluster of next year's K6's. The basic principles are an open book, and compute technology is growing too quickly for the radiation transfer and nuclear reaction simulations to be more than a few-year barrier. In the long run, everyone interested knows everything.

    "When people treat items of a highly classified nature just like it's ordinary stuff, something's wrong," Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., chairman of the Senate intelligence committee,told NBC News (in the MSNBC writeup). Arguably, the real problem comes when people treat items of a highly classified nature just like they're going to stay secret forever. These kind of debacles are just a wake-up call for those who would pretend otherwise.

  • > Well, a report from MSNBC suggest the missing data is more likely related to the wildfire that took place recently than espionage.

    Dear god...Microsoft is just covering it up! BILL GATES HAS THE BOMB!
  • Isn't this the same nuclear lab that wouldn't let Furbies in for fear that they might "hear" a secret and repeat it later?
  • >> Over classification is not uncommon. You're right about that! It's a common tool used by our elected officials to avoid accountability - that to say, taking any responsibility - for what they do in office. It makes it that much harder for any citizen to find out what's really going on...and even after getting information through the Freedom of Information Act, many times, anything that would implicate someone is STILL blacked out...in the name of "national security," of course. Give me a break.
  • Articles have indicated that the information concerns how the US would approach the terrorist-hidden-nuke contingency, as well as information on the Russian nuclear program.

    That's hardly information that needs to be publicized.
  • Somewhere I read that somplace was so paranoid about info leaks that hard disks were actually dissolved in acid. I think it was the old removable disk paks.
  • I can't help noticing that there's a lot of news regarding nukes. (this article, the news on pakistan having loads of nukes). In my oppinion it is not a coincident that this happens at a time where the US tries to push Russia and other countries to accept their so called rocket shield.

    This controversial, billion dollar project will require their support but also the support of the tax paying citizens in the USA. I'm cynical enough that the US is trying to convince their own people that such a shield is needed by 'leaking' this sort of news.
  • Actually, given the Clinton stands to the right of *Nixon* on taxes, labor, the environment, civil rights, corporate welfare, etc... basically everything except abortion and gay rights, I don't really think he can be described as anything but a conservative. It's just that there's been a concerted effort in the corporate media to push the political scale in the US to the right, and the widespread belief that Clinton is a liberal shows just how successful it's been.

    Clinton is a liberal, Bob Dole is a moderate (and no, he hasn't exactly moved to the left since the '70s.), Rush Limbaugh is a serious political commentator, and Pat Buchanan is a serious political candidate. Face it, if good 'ol Tricky Dick, McCarthy's sidekick, were running for office these days, he'd be lambasted as a flaming commie.

    Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it.

    --
  • Procedures for dealing with a nuclear-armed terrorist (i.e. search methods, for instance) are fairly secret for the obvious reason -- if procedures are known and codified, there may be possible countermeasures.

    Information known about foreign nuclear capabilities can be VERY important to keep secret -- not only might the info itself not be something normally shared with others (even allies), but one must consider protecting the sources involved.

  • ...the classified data on these stolen computers wasn't encrypted.

    Ah, well, you see, that particular computer was supposed to be sent overseas...and they couldn't get an export license from the BATF.

    ------

  • Textbooks won't tell you how to design a set of highly miniaturized thermonuclear warheads suitable for delivery via an intercontinental MIRV. And, in general, they don't provide the detail. The theory of U235 fission does NOT automatically lead to the exact engineering details for even a primitive uranium fission device. The latter takes time, skill and money -- or theft and (a fair bit less) money.

    Normal explosives also likely won't do the trick -- one would suspect shaped charges are far more useful for an implosion effect.
  • ...Does this sound like the intro to a Syphon-Filteresque video game to anyone else?

  • Hmmmm (Score:3)

    by haus ( 129916 ) on Monday June 12, 2000 @06:32PM (#1006837) Journal
    Don't you just hate it when you misplace your hard drive that has the top secret nuclear weapon information on it...

    all persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental. - Kurt Vonnegut
  • Personally I believe some Canadian wet beavers did it. By the end of the week they will be crossing the border. Eat less turkey so they could be deployed as border patrol. Electric fences, CCTV and laser guns are outdated.

    Another prob: for who are those disks? The Chinese? No, they got already all the info from Clinton and since Bush is going to win the elections they do not have to do an effort anymore. He will give them everything for free, on a serving plate.

    Last question: what is the top secret on these hard disks? They contain 25 years of Tetris high scores. This is outrageous. The greatest loss in time. Let's immediately declare a world war!

    Pirate parrot

  • Check this year-old article [bullatomsci.org]. They've even got submarine-launched nuclear-capable missiles, which are quite useful for blackmail or a first strike.
  • "[C]omputers and hard disks with nuclear weapons data that are missing from the lab vaults."

    Are you sure they didn't just burn down?

  • These are DOE personnel we're talking about, not NSA. Considering that our government has such a remarkable amount of clue that it took them a while to realize that software running in embassies worldwide (State Dept., 'tho, not DOE of course) was written by Russians, and that Los Alamos has historically been penetrated through-and-through (by the very scientists who work there)...
  • I found this [pbs.org] "top secret" web page at pbs. Cheesus, here's [nada.kth.se] the nuclear HOWTO (plutonium not included). Ok, here's [zvis.com] the picture gallery - you guys pick one, someone's knocking at the door.
  • According to repeated reports on "All Things Considered" on NPR somebody mislaid the hard drives with the HOWTO's for disarming nukes, foreign and domestic. No word on backups.
  • .....is this the same people who are gonna take care of nuclear waste for the next 100,000+ years? And all of that leftover plutonium from our disarmorment. We are doomed.
  • Our government never ceases to amaze me...

    I'll bet their database of pr0n websites is more secure...

    Good grief!

  • This Washi ngton Post article [washingtonpost.com] reports that Los Alamos employees are concerned about their image, because most everybody thinks they're running a really sloppy ship. I think they should be less concerned with their image and more concerned with the massively confidential and top-secret U.S. and Russian nuclear data they're missing.

  • Hmm, your sig makes me think... perhaps robert redford... nah.
  • Seriously? I can go on the 'Net and find instructions on how to build a high-yield thermonuclear device. The news reports every day about stockpiles of weapons-grade material. Most nuclear countries have their missiles targeted on our silos already. It's not as if nuclear weapons are this big secret that can't be let out of the bag. The real barrier to nuclear weaponry is getting the material. I'd feel more threatened if nuclear material was actually stolen, but it's information.

    What's that I hear on Slashdot? Information wants to be free? I'd be willing to bet that someone's head is going to roll because information escaped that's already out there anyway.
  • Maybe we should set up an official nuclear secrets hot line, which would probably do a better job of telling us who's been given what.
  • I wouldn't be so quick to make that assumption. I work for a government contractor (one that actually deals specifically with nuclear weapons). Someone above mentioned that we contractors tend to be more meticulous than the government. True, but that doesn't mean everything is encrypted. Half the time, stuff is just locked away somewhere safe so nobody ever gets to it. Unfortunately, the classified data world is not the world of Mission Impossible (too bad, it might be more fun that way).

  • We'll just add a few extra HD's that don't exist onto the inventory list and see what happens.

  • The hard part about building a bomb isn't figuring out how to build a bomb, the hard part is getting enough high-quality fissionable material together to actually pull it off.

    Of course, just scraping a bunch of watches and spraying the glowy bits around with normal explosive is technically a "nuclear bomb", but I digress.

    You can go down to your local library and pick up a text on how an A-bomb is assembled. Does that enable you to build one? I thought not.

  • Re:the irony... (Score:3)

    by Stonehand ( 71085 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2000 @06:57AM (#1006854) Homepage
    But nuclear weapons don't protect you from nuclear weapons; they can only assure MAD, and that only if you know your attacker. And knowing how to build, deliver and maintain nuclear weapons tells you practically nothing about stopping, say, an SLBM aside from what will or won't hurt a missile.

    In the case, say, of an SLBM launch that may not be readily feasible in the time before impact.

    In the case of accidental launch (possible, given that systems have been breaking down to the point where incoming ICBMs have been reported (falsely) by alarm systems), you generally don't WANT to retalliate, as if it's a single launch it's a bit petulant to destroy all life on Earth.

    And so forth. MAD works only versus known enemies, like nations, that don't launch anonymously.
  • Actually, the workers at Los Alamos are contractors - not government
    employees. They work for UC Berkeley, as do Lawrence Livermore
    employees.

  • I work for a large aerospace company as a Systems Administrator on a U.S. Military Base. The physical security of the systems as well as the data they contain is of utmost importance to the Military. This is evidenced by the regular, mandatory security training sessions we receive from the boys-in-blue.
    Even with all the training (read trying-to-pound-in-common-sense) we receive, the number one security problem is contractors. The very same people who zealously guard "their" company's secrets are the one's who think nothing of sending classified information out via unclassified e-mail systems. They think nothing of violating rules that forbid anyone (except the sysadmin) from writing data to a floppy that they take home with them. Those of us who are responsible for systems security have also watched in horror as the management of these contracting companies have covered up security violations.
    I have seen many of the things that officials from Los Alamos are claiming as possibilities for why the data is missing. During the shutdown of another facility, some of the tapes and records on their books were found to be missing. After much searching, it was found that the librarian had failed to file the appropriate paperwork for the destruction of those records and they were never removed from the inventory. There have been occasions where people have checked out material and then failed to have it signed back in when they returned it. Once, we were declassifying old hard drives only to find out, when we were finished, that we'd been given the wrong drives to declassify! Fortunately, we have never had anything stolen.
    Make no mistake, the government and the military take the security of their data quite seriously. It's the unattentive, careless, and clueless contractors and other workers who don't take the security of the U.S.'s information SERIOUSLY that pose the greatest risk. The rules and regulations that we are required to follow in the handling of sensitive material are just the kind of rules many corporations use:
    * If someone doesn't need to know, don't tell them
    * Don't leave sensitive information laying around unattended
    * Follow the proper procedure for checking out/checking in documents/tapes/disks
    * Don't use internet e-mail to send sensitive information
  • Am I the only one who is reminded of "Calvin & Hobbes" on this?
    Seems to me that the Gov is like Calvin, dropping a "secret" message near little Suzie Derkins while LOUDLY proclaiming "BOY, it sure would MESS UP ALL OUR SECRET PLANS if someone were to READ THIS LETTER".

    If you know you have misplaced sensitive data, would you then go about telling everyone?

    This doesn't pass the smell test and the BS detector is pegged.

    MAB
  • Sure, you could find instructions for building a nuclear device on the Net. Then again, do you think you can find technical schematics for all kinds of US, Russian, and other misc. countries' nuclear weapons? Bear in mind that the two hard drives that are gone are designed to be plugged into a laptop in the field for use by our rapid response team in the event of a nuclear emergency. This is the precise engineering details of several different types of weapons, enough for arming, disarming, and probably even some duplication.

  • the irony... (Score:4)

    by semis ( 14252 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2000 @01:39AM (#1006859) Homepage
    well, the irony of this is the comments people are making here.

    most of the comments go along the lines of "stealing OUR information". Hrm. So like, it's evil for a company to not disclose source code of its competitive assets (ie: MS's kernel), but it is ok for America to keep its competitive assets (ie: nuclear tech) secret?

    Isn't there something wrong here? Everyone on /. keeps talking about "free speech" and "free beer", but most of the US based readers fail to recognise Open Source on a larger scale.

    And don't tell me its because atom bombs are far more destructive than the source code to a kernel. Go look at how Open Source tackles security - ie: Bugtraq, vunl-dev. That's all "open" - and everyone benefits because we can protect ourselves from attackers much better if we know their tools. So, likewise this should be the case on a larger scale - if we knew what weapons existed, we could better prepare ourselves against them.

    See my point?

  • >BTW this is the Internet: why should I care
    >especially about American deaths?

    Canadian? There's this little thing called fallout.

    English? We don't know WHO got those hard drives. What if it was the Irish and not the chineese?

    Israeli? You're SURROUNDED by nice guys whose biggist wish is the chance to finish what the nazis started.

    Get my point? Rogue nations with nukes is a BAD THING(tm).

    Not to mention that if anyone starts throwing nukes at the US, or any of the other legitimate nuclear powers, such as the UK, France, or Russia, they're gonna get a handful right back in their faces... MORE fallout, MORE environmental damage.

    And that's not EVEN considering economic consequences. Imagine the effects of a 25 Megaton airburst over, say, Sunnyvale.

    (Or better yet, go see for yourself: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/sfeature/mapabla st.html)

    Looks to me like you'd better START careing.

    john

    Resistance is NOT futile!!!

    Haiku:
    I am not a drone.
    Remove the collective if

  • First off, why the hell do we still keep nuclear info secret. The only institutions with enough money to build them can just buy former Soviet scientists to give them a hand. The fact that Americans think we are sooooo far ahead technologically is absurd. Yes, much innovation does take place here, but innovation takes place in other countries as well. Secondly, any terrorists interested in terrorizing the us would not use nuclear devices. They cost far more than just as harmful biological weapons, some of which you can order from US biological supply stores (Bubonic plague in NY water supply would have HUGE terror effects) The posts about Clinton being the incarnation of evil are just stupid and dont even deserve a response. There are a couple posts about crypto weakness up above, please read some fucking math books before you comment on crypto. Everyone seems real worried about terrorists getting our secrets and killing us. Maybe if we, as a Nation, addressed the reasons of why other nations hate us we wouldnt have such problems. Very few people hate America for no reason. We are pretty much HUGE assholes on the world political scene. Its a wonder we are still alive and havent been killed yet. All out wars between developed nations do not seem likely anymore either. In the past a nation could expand its economy (and the leaders personal wealth) very cost effectively by taking over land. It seems now that our modern economy makes it far more effective to engage in free-market business practices than to wage a war to make money. Recent exception: oil in the mid-east. Not to many nations with developed economies though will wage an all out war at this point though. Suggestion: the US stop being international dicks and maybe help other countries fairly and openly (no more of this israel unquestionably good, arab unquestionably bad shit). Rant over, flame away.
  • The whole idea of secret information is to restrict access to it, and that nobody owns it, other than the government. If you were to put PGP or any other encryption layer into the works... where would the key have to be kept? No single person owns it, so the key would have to be taped to the computer it was associated with, or something equivalent to that.

    Given the nature of the neat hacks that picked apart seemingly unbreakable encryption schemes in the past (Enigma, etc.), I wouldn't trust PGP with nuclear secrets (though it might be good for hiding things from the causal observer).

    Bottom line... if you own a database, you'll protect it, if nobody owns it, nobody can protect it. The system is set up not to trust any person with the whole picture (apparently), so no person is going to be able to do a really good job of security. The best you get is a well documented set of prayers. (Just like untested backup procedures... but that's another story)

    --Mike--

  • You tell me a good defense against a thermonuclear detonation, and then I'll have no problem with having "open source" nukes.

    'til then all that can be done is security through obscurity. Something most of know doesn't work for very long.

    Vaporized if you do, Vaporized if you don't.
    Oy Vey.
  • Why was my very first thought that aliens had stolen the files? They simply opened up a doorway in time-space to access the vault. There was an army camera guy who reported a UFO had flown next to one of our missles, opened it up, took out the warhead and destroyed it in mid-flight!
  • Having worked as an analyst for both the USAF and USN on classified development, I can only say that this is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. We had to sign out everything from a vault and show photo ids labeled with clearance level to do so. The vaults were manned by multiple librarians at least one of whom was always on duty 24/7. How can someone just walk off with something ten times as sensitive as anything I ever worked on without there being any paper trail, video tape, or obvious suspect. Impossible, unless it was allowed to happen. Whoever is in charge of security in that place needs to be arrested and charged with treason for allowing such unbelievable lapses to even occur.

    First they need to apply some voltage to him judiciously though, so they can find out where the stuff went. :-)

  • The only arguement you brought up was the typical modern, "hey they do it too!" defense. Is that worth my time? heh...

    You may have noticed that I said nothing about Republicans or Democrats. That was your idea.
  • Why don't the feds do this with their "secret nuclear data":

    1) Crypt it with a nice proven encryption algorithm
    2) Split it onto 3 drives, two containing data and then the third containing an xor.
    3) Store all three drives in separate "secure" locations
    4) Use video cameras with offsite video archiving to tape vault entries.
    5) Store encryption keys in the 4th and 5th extremely 'secure' locations with multiple security teams and monitoring at each

    This way, 2 drives must be stolen for data to be valid and decodable. 1 drive may be lost (We know the feds do that a lot). Encryption keys can become lost (at one location).

    Data is safe from nuclear attack (unless 3 nukes are targetted at all three locations of data store or both locations of key storage).

    Is this excessive or am I just paranoid? I know there are many more ideas to do in order to secure data, lets hear comments from the rest of /. !

    (I know this will get moderated as a "Good Thing" (tm))

    Free Porn! [ispep.cx] or Laugh [ispep.cx]
  • You forgot Canada's most repulsive, dangerous and downright hideous threat to the United States... CELINE DIONE!!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!!! SAVE ME!!!!
  • We have higher yield/more precise yield devices than the bad guys. So we can blow up their country a lot more and a lot more efficiently than they can blow up our country.

    I say we spin the chamber, put the gun to our heads and pull the trigger already. Put it all on the internet for everyone to see. Lets see what happens.

  • I mean, why is my own PC more secure than those on which the Government keeps classified information? Not that anyone would want to steal my HD and its 15 Gigs of porn or anything, but the point is if anyone stole my computer all they'd get is a standard Windows installation and a couple of encrypted drives. But from the way the reports have been depicting it, the classified data on these stolen computers wasn't encrypted.

    Why oh why is my fetish for doggie porn and Britney Spears fakes more well-guarded than classified data? If I can get into the habit of entering a passphrase to access my data drives, why can't the DoD, State Department, et al. make disk encryption an across-the-board standard for all employees dealing with sensitive data? We can be sure that this isn't the case, because otherwise the government would be downplaying its irresponsibility by mentioning that the stolen data encrypted and secure. So the question becomes, why isn't this policy, and when will they wake up and make it policy?

    [For the curious, I use a free Windows program called Scramdisk which can make encrytpted "virtual drives" or encrypt whole partitions. Its source code is freely available, but is not GPL. It's very secure with a choice of 256-bit Twofish or eight other ciphers. It ensures that family and friends will not uncover my secret she-male fixation. Oops, did I type that out loud?]

  • Biological weapons are much easier to produce.

    I have experienced several restaraunts and fast food chains that are quite adept at developing them.


  • Sorry, but this is perfectly potty. Have you ever heard the saying, "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail?"

    Put down your hammer. Open source is not the solution to everything.

    Weapons plans are not "competitive assets" in the same sense as the secret Windows APIs are.

    Microsoft's abuses get us overpriced, crappy software that's forced on us.

    Abusing US nuke technology results in more nukes being made and aimed at us. I hate MS as much as the next guy, but please don't tell me the two are comparable.

    If someone steals our plans for suitcase nukes or whatever, it will affect the balance of power in the world. I would rather have the US be at the top than China, Russia, etc. Wouldn't you? We aren't perfect but we have a better track record in a lot of important ways.

    I'm going to say a couple things now that will be extremely unpopular with some folks here.

    1. It's OK for governments to keep secrets, even secrets about exotic weapons.

    2. It's OK to charge people for software.

    Like it or not, we'll be living with both of these for the forseeable future. Deal with it.

  • That's what I don't get. I mean, I'm not the government (heck I ain't even an American) but why would they publicise it instead of hushing it up?

    Misinformation campaign? Letter on the tabletop? Leaks? Incompetence? Morality? (the public should know, Mr. President ;)

    Puzzling...
  • Not really: building nukes is not really that hard. It was done with 1940's technology by some very smart guys. Obtaining the materials, and doing so covertly is hard. The Genie is well and truly out of the bottle though, and the only real solution is everyone submitting to Iraq style weapons inspections.

    BTW this is the Internet: why should I care especially about American deaths? I find your "it's dangerous for anyone else to have the bomb" attitude about as worrying as the original news.

    I know some guys in Los Alamos whose homes have been reduced to scrap metal and ashes. Give them a break if they mislaid a few bits of kit in the process.

  • They are in China, safe and sound. They got them in a package deal with Most Favored Nation Status and the right to beat their citizens into submission.
  • My wife opined that immigrants working with classified material are probably, on average, more conscientious about security than the native-born Amurricans -- because the immigrants know they're under suspicion. The person responsible for this theft is probably a nice red-blooded American boy who did the job in exchange for nice green-inked American dollars.
    --

  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Small Country Edition

    Includes
    United States NEST Intergratioin
    Nuclear Launch Plugin for Internet Explorer 5.7
    Internated with the Kernel, Launch Pad 2.0
    Real Time Denation 3.0
    Real time Denation Montior 2.0
    Supports up to 2000 differant types of Nuclear Weapons
    Devices Drivers for NaPalm Techonlgy Included
    500 Pre-programmed Country GPS locations
    OutLook Express 6.0 with Advanced Scripting and Automatic Attachment opening

  • Actually, I'm probably voting for Jello Biafra.

    --
  • These guys say they need to be able to secretly scan OUR hard drives to check for contraband data when they can't even keep track of their own? Yeah, I feel very confident they'll do a good job with this power. That's the Clinton legacy, I guess: the Administration that can't control its hard drives.
  • Geez, can you say scapegoat? And how the hell can we take the moral high-ground on espionage, when our own FBI threatens people with the electric chair? If that's the way we do things, then who cares who has the secrets, because it's tyranny on either side.

    It's funny, our government wants to bend over for the PRC because there's money to be made in trade and nobody seems to give a damn, but it needs to crucify it's citizens when embarrassing security lapses are exposed.

    The ironic part is that this man probably hates the PRC more than any US politician, being of Taiwanese birth and (I assume) ethnically Chinese. But of the course the dumb yokels in Washington and the media aren't going to explain that, it being so convient to have a Chinese man to take the fall.
  • Anybody remember the big fuss over the guy that downloaded LANL's legacy codes onto his laptop and took them home? You'd think they'd have learned from that .. but apparently not .. maybe next time someone will download classified code onto a laptop and go home and plug it into their DSL on a static IP. Y'think?

    geez, I know it makes it harder to do the research if somebody's always bugging you to fill out forms when you check things out, and we'd all like to work at home, wouldn't we? ;-) but considering the consequences, it would be nice to see LANL get a *little* more serious about security, at least for the important stuff. Come on, folks, your taxes pay for this ..
  • Hey!

    Somewhere I read that somplace was so paranoid about info leaks that hard disks were actually dissolved in acid. I think it was the old removable disk paks.

    It's common practice to erase floppy disks with powerful wall-mounted magnets before incinerating them in many embassies. But then, it's also common practice to confetti-shread documents, incinerate them, then mix them with water to make sure people can't read said documents from the trash.

    It's so much easier to bribe somebody in said embassy...

    Michael Tandy



  • We've got a Broken Arrow (Score:3)

    by Accipiter ( 8228 ) on Tuesday June 13, 2000 @03:00AM (#1006883)
    "I don't know what's scarier - Losing Nuclear Weapons, or that it happens so often there's actually a term for it." - Giles Prentice

    Oops!

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?


  • But you have to agree on some level, encrypting all the data on a hard disk could provide "extra" security in case the drive came up missing. Sure there is only a 1 in 1000^80000 chance that someone is going to be able to breach security and take the drive, but couldn't the encryption on this drives used as a "safety neat" or "back up plan"??

    One thing I was always told by the Senior admin here (or was here, he left about a year ago) was that when dealing with security, there should be more than one thing to "stop" someone looking to breach your security.

    For example, we setup a firewall that block 2 computers from the Internet, then put tcpwrappers on both computers. I asked, "what is the point of tcpwrappers, everything will be stopped by the firewall", he told me to just install them and make sure they where secure.

    One day when we had a hard drive crash on the firewall, we quickly rebuild the machine (our backups wheren't up to date (this was a mistake on our part)), and in our inpatiences it got seriously misconfigured. (this was also our screwup)

    That night, we had a ton of log files from tcpwrappers from one IP that was trying to telnet, ftp and everything else into those 2 computers, guess what, the tcpwrappers stop them from even getting a log in prompt (even if they did get a login prompt, %90 of the accounts had /bin/false as a shell...)

    Setting up a second (or even an eigth) security measure can be a pain, but once in a while it can really save your ass in a bad sisuation.
  • I find it mildly interesting that when things like open source and software piracy get discussed, there is a large group of people that come out syaing things like, "information should be free" et al, but when something like this happens, no one is cheering. Encryption technology is an interesting example; a lot of people were happy to see that get let out, even if that technology could be used against us (people who had it) in a war situation. What makes these nuclear secrets any different? What makes them possible to control whereas other information is characterized by a need to spread to anyone who has the desire to find it?

    Perhaps this is the wrong forum to bring this up, but is the world ready for information to be free, and if not, where do we draw the line?

    _winter_fantom_

  • We meet up with our heroine, Catrin Van der Waals, at the local caffeine kiosk, Javaland. Catrin: (to self) I thought they were going to read Beowulf tonight. Catrin wanders to counter to buy yet another triple espresso. A man pushes back from his chair and bumps Catrin, spilling the hot coffee. Catrin: Great. Like I didn't have enough coffee stains already. (The man turns around to assist Catrin. She doesn't realize it at first, but the man is Lars Ulrich.) Lars: I'm sorry... I'm, uh... just not myself today. (It's obvious that Lars has been crying.) Catrin: Don't worry about it. You look like you have enough problems already. Lars: It's just awful. My wife walked out on me last week, and she said horrible things about me... (Catrin tries to disengage herself from Lars, but he hangs on to her sleeve.) And worst of all, this whole thing with Napster and Gnutella is just totally getting me down. Can I have a hug? (Lars looks so pitiful that Catrin is moved to sympathy, despite the three Metallica mp3s on her computer.) Catrin: Umm, okay. (Lars hugs her.) You can let go now. Lars: Sorry. Catrin: So, what's the big problem with Napster? Lars: They're stealing our revenue. People won't buy our music if they can download it for free. Catrin: I don't know of that's exactly true... Lars: I don't want to talk about it. Catrin: I would think that the programs help you by widening your fan base. Lars: (starts crying again) I said I don't want to argue. Catrin: It's been my experience that your regular fans download the songs and buy the cds. Lars: Stop it! Your logic is depressing me. (Lars waves his arms emphatically, knocking Catrin's glasses off.) Wow... you have such gorgeous brown eyes. How could I not have seen them? Catrin: (sarcastically) It's amazing how much perfectly transparent glass will obscure. Lars: No really, I'm a musician, and that makes me artistic. I can see beauty better than the average man. Do you want to come back to my hotel room? Catrin: I don't think so. Just because I'm a nerd doesn't mean I'm desperate enough to sleep with a whiner like you. Lars: (tries to pull Catrin towards his stool at the counter) Are you sure? (leers at Catrin). Catrin: Definitely. (pours the remainder of her espresso on to Lars' lap) Lars: (whimpering) Hey... no fair... Catrin storms out of Javaland back to her apartment. She sits down at her computer and points her browser at TheXFiles.com. Catrin: Oh David. Why can't other men be like you?

    --
  • Chalk up one more success for Ethan Hunt.

  • Re:What nuclear secrets do we have? (Score:3)

    by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Monday June 12, 2000 @07:47PM (#1006892) Homepage
    There is a huge difference between understanding the concepts and having the hard numbers, engineering and fabrication skills needed to construct a weapon. The concepts tell you that it is possible, actually designing and building a weapon is the hard part. The first thermonuclear device (Mike) weighed 164,000 pounds and had a cryogenic system to keep the deuterium in a liquid state. The W-47 warhead for the Polaris missile weighed about 600 pounds. It took a lot of money and talent to get from proof-of-concept to a light weight thermonuclear weapon suitable for use on a missile.
  • Maybe this works for Ziare and such but not highly secure US installiations. What do you think the first thing that happened when the fire started? Well I do. The people who ran Eschelon and the like pointed their best satellites at that location and made sure that each person who was comming or goign was strictly monitored. Also with the town vacated like that a person who just had a little "hunting accident" would not be deemed suspicious. Not everyone is a fool. Also all you have to do is bolt down the area and lock everything good and tight. Also realize that not everyone from the facility was removed. I suspect that a highly dedicated group of people were keeping watch of the vaults. Also consider that the reccords are most likely kept in a secure bunker which would have multiple redundancy like that which is required in many facilities. There is a good chance that there are also "dummy vaults" that contain false data in case of the worst anyway.
  • This incident notwithstanding, security is pretty damn tight at LANL (I worked there briefly). This vault is "behind the fence," and in a particularly secure area; among other things, you have to go through a gate which uses your handprint as an authentication scheme. You have to have a "Q" clearance (the DOE equivalent of Top Secret/SCI) to get anywhere near this place.

    Point is, it would be very, very difficult for someone who was not supposed to have access to get it -- but you can never totally protect against either insider espionage jobs or people being stupid. Los Alamos is particularly prone to both of these problems because a) it does work that a lot of people care quite a bit about, and b) it's friggin' huge.

  • When I was in graduate school I had a friend who came to the US from India on a student visa. He is working on his Ph.D. and is doing most of the work at Los Alamos. If our nuclear secrets are so important, why is the US government letting foreign nationals into our research lab. If you let citizens from developing nuclear nations (i.e. China, India) into these labs you had better expect to have theft and espionage.

    Which brings me to my next rant. If you need people to do this research, find American Ph.D. students. Encourage them to finish their degrees. I left my Ph.D. program because most of the breaks were given to the foreign students. Why should I stick around a degree program when non-US students are given more funding? Why should I stick around when I can take a job somewhere else improve my lifestyle?

  • Re:Accountability (Score:3)

    by StenD ( 34260 ) on Monday June 12, 2000 @07:35PM (#1006915)
    I don't understand how anyone can be so sloppy with classified information, not to mention nuclear weapons information. When I was a peon in the military, we were always told of the exciting career opportunities in Alaska that awaited anyone who was negligent in handling classified information.

    Or the opportunities in materials processing in Kansas? I expressed the same confusion to a co-worker because of a similar background, and he pointed out that those opportunities are part of the reason for the differences.

    In the military, you are dealing with an enlisted workforce that can't leave (except for a window of opportunity every 3-6 years). The military has broad flexibility in the variety and degree of punishment, ranging from scut details to Leavenworth, and there is little difficulty in assigning that punishment, expecially at the lower end of the range.

    On the other hand, government labs have to attract and retain researchers who are willing to work for lower salaries than their commercial counterparts. These researchers are more likely to look into work rules beforehand, can leave at any time, are subject to a limited range of punishments ranging from unemployment to prison, and have a high barrier toward applying these punishments. In such an environment, it is probably impossible to establish or to enforce security policies to military levels (which are not themselves perfect).
  • Well, a report from MSNBC suggest the missing data is more likely related to the wildfire that took place recently than espionage. Perhaps some high level official evacuated the data to prevent it from potentially being consumed by the fire. Here's the report on MSNBC: Report [msnbc.com]

    ---------------
  • Here [cnn.com] is the proper CNN link.

    --
    "Give him head?" ... "Be a beacon?"

    "One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft Ad

  • los alamos eh... (Score:4)

    by fluxrad ( 125130 ) on Monday June 12, 2000 @06:38PM (#1006929)
    it was probably some really old russian spy who's been hiding out since '44 in the los alamos area...so top secret he was instructed not to contact Mother Russia untill he had extremely valuable information. Below is an encrypted message from "Vladimir" (as he is known) to KGB Headquarters, dated 6/13/00

    "DEAR GOD!! THE AMERICANS HAVE THE BOMB!!!!"


    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
  • ...from those questionable Chinese sources seems to be paying off for them. Not to mention whoever else we happen to not have caught with their hands in Clinton's policy by virtue of them contributing to his media blitz that helped to entrance and ensnare the votes of the gullible American populace. Everyone knows, and yet noone wants to burn the traitor for his treason. He can lie, he can blackmail and push people to suicide (where's that link with the list of people connected to the Clintons that have met questionable, untimely deaths?)... and noone cares. Where will we draw the line? Is it America not giving a damn? Or is America being deluded and sidetracked by a media that dislodges any real, honest prying eyes into this scheister's life.

  • Yep. What are the chances of a forest fire taking out Los Alamos and Peking?


    ---

  • Re:los alamos eh... (Score:3)

    by technos ( 73414 ) on Monday June 12, 2000 @08:26PM (#1006955) Homepage Journal
    We deem far too much classified. As of a couple of years ago, Project Urchin was still classified. Urchin was the baseball sized metallic neutron initiator used in the Hiroshima bomb. Normally, I'd applaud them for keeping nuclear secrets classified. Only prob here is that the Soviets widely published OUR diagrams (courtesy of the Rosenbergs, no doubt) in the early sixties!! Worse yet, any physics grad could spec out a superior replacement!!

    The information is public knowledge, and yet still classified.

    Makes me wonder just how paranoid they are when they say 'classified'. For all I know, they've deemed the Los Alamos cafeteria schedule classified because it might be used to help poison some foolhardy scientist in ten years. Or perhaps they've classified their work schedule, because they don't want the GAO to know they work twenty hour weeks and bill for forty..

  • Re:los alamos eh... (Score:3)

    by cperciva ( 102828 ) on Monday June 12, 2000 @08:47PM (#1006958) Homepage
    For all I know, they've deemed the Los Alamos cafeteria schedule classified because it might be used to help poison some foolhardy scientist in ten years.

    Nope. The Los Alamos cafeteria schedule is in fact available on the web for the entire world to see at [lanl.gov]
    http://www.lanl.gov/labview/services/CafeteriaMe nu/menu.htm.
  • acording to nbc nightly news, it has been missing for over TWO months now. Or, over a month before the fires. Also, the hard disks and other things had been stored in a vault.
    If it wasnt foul play, then it has to be chalked up to some really stupid play.

  • Here are some other CNN stories I found interesting relating to the security issues at Los Alamos:

    Conflicting opinions on Los Alamos fire heard on Capitol Hill [cnn.com]

    FBI told Taiwan-born physicist he failed polygraph exam that he passed [cnn.com]

    Nuclear physicist Wen Ho Lee charged with 59 counts in Los Alamos case [cnn.com]

    China spy suspect fired by Energy Department [cnn.com]

    --
    "Give him head?" ... "Be a beacon?"

    "One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft Ad

  • Difference in security. (Score:4)

    by tie_guy_matt ( 176397 ) on Monday June 12, 2000 @06:45PM (#1006965)
    I hear the security is much tighter at government contracters than it is in the government itself. I work for a lab that does a lot fo governemt work. Sometimes I feel like I can't fart without getting some type of clearence. You want to take home that old 486 to make it part of your beawulf cluster? I don't think so! Governemt contracters are serious about security because they can loose their securty clearence. You can't fire a group that is part fo the governmemt as well.
  • This is beginning to get a bit frightening. The question is..have all these computers that have come up "missing" gone the way of the thousands of single socks and just been misplaced hopefully, or are these things walking out with someone and ending up in the wrong hands? This incident in particular worries me the most if that is the case.


    The other question is why are we not hearing about someone being punished for the serious lack of control of these classified materials?

  • Re:los alamos eh... (Score:3)

    by tie_guy_matt ( 176397 ) on Monday June 12, 2000 @06:51PM (#1006979)
    I don't have a security clearence, but I work for a lab that does a lot of governemt work. A few doors down there is a classified room that had been locked for so long that the lock was rusting. I always wonered what was in it (old alien autopsy footage?) One day they had the room open to inventory the lab's property or something. I sneaked my head in and found racks and racks of old reel to reel 8-track computer tapes. The funny thing is that the lab no longer has any equipment to read those tapes. It seems once something is classified it has to be held even if the information is useless. They could have the tapes destroyed but my guess is that this would involve a lot of red tape and it might be easier just to store the things. It really reminded me of the ending scene to Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arch! I am sure the US has room like the one in the movie. Maybe we do already have the arch.

  • Accountability (Score:3)

    by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Monday June 12, 2000 @06:53PM (#1006981) Homepage
    I don't understand how anyone can be so sloppy with classified information, not to mention nuclear weapons information. When I was a peon in the military, we were always told of the exciting career opportunities in Alaska that awaited anyone who was negligent in handling classified information.

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