Bulk collection is all fun and games until the OPM gets hacked

June 6, 2015 1:19 PM

When hackers take millions of records from the Office of Personnel Management, clearly the solution to the problem is more online surveillance. (Reuters)
posted by Lycaste (15 comments total)

Hammer something something looks like a nail...
posted by dry white toast at 1:47 PM on June 6, 2015 [3 favorites]

The answer to any question is always more surveillance.

Lunch missing out of the fridge at work?

Someone call you something nasty on XBox Live?

Digital scalpers charging too much for that concert ticket you want?
posted by Samizdata at 1:48 PM on June 6, 2015

Seeing them try to ram through this shit on a fairly low profile story like the OPM hack makes me contemplate what it must have been like inside the Beltway just after 9/11. I bet in more than once place, spying industry lobbyists running up and down the halls squealing with glee.
posted by indubitable at 2:03 PM on June 6, 2015 [1 favorite]

Found out you'd been hacked an indeterminate amount of time after the intruders got in? Nice work, Einstein.
posted by zippy at 2:08 PM on June 6, 2015

But cybersecurity experts and technologists questioned the wisdom of turning over vast new amounts of private data to the government after another massive exposure of federal government data insecurity.

...pretty much says it all.
posted by indubitable at 2:10 PM on June 6, 2015 [8 favorites]

By its nature, Einstein does not identify previously unknown “zero day” threat patterns, which is key to the contention – by the architects of the legislation themselves – that the government needs additional threat data from private firms that detect new threats.

Or it could be that signature-based intrusion detection software is not enough to protect you anymore. And it could also be that the NSA (et al) wants a constant flow of free 0-days to continue to do the exact same kinds of hacks to other countries.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:59 PM on June 6, 2015

(And I might also say something about how leaking some snarky emails from Sony execs made headlines for weeks and resulted in sanctions for North Korea, while the probable leak of every single security clearance since 1985 has been pushed out of the headlines by Chris Taylor, the British royal family, and the Pope, but I might instead just crack open a beer)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 3:10 PM on June 6, 2015 [5 favorites]

has been pushed out of the headlines by Chris Taylor, the British royal family, and the Pope

You have to admit, it was an epic party.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:18 PM on June 6, 2015 [5 favorites]

Chris Taylor, the British royal family, and the Pope

Sounds like the beginning of a joke: Chris Taylor, the British royal family, and the Pope walk into a bar...
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:45 PM on June 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

...and the bartender says "Sorry, folks, all I have on tap is the personal information for 2.1 million federal workers."
posted by Etrigan at 5:25 PM on June 6, 2015 [5 favorites]

Timing...
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:26 PM on June 6, 2015 [2 favorites]

My reaction to this is what it always is (as a government worker): sad resignation to the certainty of more online cyber-security training.
posted by acrasis at 12:35 PM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Chris Taylor, the British royal family, and the Pope

Fuck, kill, marry.
posted by mister pointy at 2:00 PM on June 7, 2015

Oh my.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hackers stole personnel data and Social Security numbers for every federal employee, a government worker union said Thursday, charging that the cyberattack on U.S. employee data is far worse than the Obama administration has acknowledged.
posted by Cash4Lead at 1:23 PM on June 11, 2015

This is why I don't trust the government to collect my data.

They can't even protect themselves, so why should I trust them to store my cyber-data, so the Chinese or North Koreans can harvest it? The problem with the "logic" people who support surveillance, use, is: the government knows best. It obviously does not. Does anyone really want their banking information in these nations? That's where ours is headed. Surveillance doesn't protect - it puts us in harm's way.
posted by Grease at 1:44 PM on June 14, 2015