Military moves to rock chisels and sandstone tablets in order to stop new leaks

[TalkingDog]

typical military thinking... don't think of ways to fix the problem, just bludgeon it into submission

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/12/military-bans-disks-threatens-courts-martials-to-stop-new-leaks/

To stop that from happening again, an August internal review suggested that the Pentagon disable all classified computers’ ability to write to removable media. About 60 percent of military machines are now connected to a Host Based Security System, which looks for anomalous behavior. And now there’s this disk-banning order.

One military source who works on these networks says it will make the job harder; classified computers are often disconnected from the network, or are in low-bandwidth areas. A DVD or a thumb drive is often the easiest way to get information from one machine to the next. “They were asking us to build homes before,” the source says. “Now they’re taking away our hammers.”

The order acknowledges that the ban will make life trickier for some troops.

“Users will experience difficulty with transferring data for operational needs which could impede timeliness on mission execution,” the document admits. But “military personnel who do not comply … may be punished under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.” Article 92 is the armed forces’ regulation covering failure to obey orders and dereliction of duty, and it stipulates that violators “shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

[Lindsay]

1. Brilliant headline.

Life continues to get stoopider in the good old US of A.

[ljm2002]

2. Information security can never be 100%...

...I don't care what systems you put in place or what level of technology is applied.

Why? Because information is only information when it is shared. If you have "information" that you never share with another soul, then it is 100% secure but who cares? It could never be used by anyone else so it is irrelevant.

Once you share it, you enter into the area of Trust. That is a crucial element in information security, and it is always where the most serious breaches occur. People will betray trust for a variety of reasons, some good, some bad: - they may get paid to release the information - they may want to get even for some real or imagined slight to themselves - they may have pangs of conscience that make them release the information - etc.

Of course technology can make it harder to release information. But as we have seen, technology is also a double edged sword: it also provides the means to release more information and faster.

This Wikileaks thing continues to be "very interesting" indeed.

[Historic NY]

3. Eliminate the ability to connect to or post to outside social media sites too.

[madrchsod]

4. well it`s my....

to you for

the best DU subject line in along time!

[TalkingDog]

5. merci

[razorman]

6. And the new head of Homeland Security, Fred Flintstone, said, ....

[Javaman]

7. Clay tablets would be much more effecient.

just requires baking.

[TalkingDog]

9. ohhh... I don't know.

That might require the information to pass through too many hands.

If you dig your own sandstone and use a piece of granite it's just you.

But to make clay tablets you have to dig the clay, process the clay, mold the clay, find a proper stylus or stick. Then you have to dig a fire pit and gather fuel while the tablet becomes dry enough to fire without exploding.

The firing can take several hours or even days depending on how hot it needs to be.

I'll have to develop a committee to mull over the ramifications of this new fangled clay tablet technology.

[TalkingDog]

10. Stupid Dupes

[Javaman]

8. Clay tablets would be much more efficient.

just requires baking.