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posted by takyon on Friday July 10 2015, @09:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the china-liberated-data dept.

According to The Washington Post:

The massive hack last year of the Office of Personnel Management's system containing security clearance information affected 21.5 million people, including current and former employees, contractors and their families and friends, officials said Thursday.

That is in addition to a separate hack – also last year — of OPM's personnel database that affected 4.2 million people. That number was previously announced.

Together, the breaches arguably comprise the most consequential cyber intrusion in U.S. government history. Administration officials have privately said they were traced to the Chinese government and appear to be for purposes of traditional espionage.

Update: Office of Personnel Management Director Katherine Archuleta finally resigned mid-Friday.


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Spook brat on Friday July 10 2015, @09:57PM

    by Spook brat (775) on Friday July 10 2015, @09:57PM (#207662) Journal

    This could be worse. If the responsible party is a Government Agency, and the intended use of the information is traditional espionage, then it's less likely that the personal finances of the affected individuals will be ruined.

    If it were a civilian hacker group doing it, the motive would probably have been identity theft. Seriously, the info requested in SF 86 is basically an identity theft kit; see for yourself [opm.gov] (PDF warning). Worse than a passport application.

    So, yeah, I'm mad about this hack; on the other hand, this particular article is kinda like good news. It's like a silver lining on a very dark cloud...

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 10 2015, @10:02PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 10 2015, @10:02PM (#207664)

    >>it's less likely that the personal finances of the affected individuals will be ruined.

    OTOH, it could be that 21.5 million Chinese government workers now have a second income.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday July 10 2015, @10:49PM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday July 10 2015, @10:49PM (#207680) Homepage

    I remember filling that thing out well -- that was back when anybody and their dog could get a SECRET instantly as long as they were only suspected of that out-of-state small-town murder and weren't (yet) on the FBI most wanted list. Being gay was also an instant-disqualifier back then, and according to the substance abuse section of the SF86 I "had never" used illegal drugs in my entire life, even though only weeks before I was arrested for possession of a pipe with marihuana resin in it and had the case thrown out.

    I recall drinking a clean-test kit in the bathroom of the bus on the way to MEPS before I flew to BMT, which was probably unnecessary. The night before you all leave they hole you up in a hotel and the stupider ones party and smoke weed. You get breathalyzed immediately the next morning, and piss-tested approximately 3 days after arriving at BMT. Motherfuckers seriously thought they could smoke weed in the hotels and flush their systems with niacin before the flight. Dumb shits.

    A couple years later I had one of the most formative experiences of my life, the one that really got me big into civil liberties and the evils of the police state -- one morning I was dragged out of bed still in my chonies by the First Sergeant. He treated my like a shitbird, that I was somehow guilty of something, and drove me over to the base OSI detachment. It was just like the movies, two-way mirror, Mutt-and-Jeff interrogation team. What the hell was that all about? They asked me questions about drug use in the dorms, and they said that I knew something about people who were smoking weed. Of course I did, because they were already busted and being kept around awaiting separation or to inform on others. They said that I knew something else, something about "smelling something," and I had no idea what the fuck they were talking about. They went in and out of the room three times before letting me go and warning me that they knew I was lying to them. On the ride back to the dorms the First Sergeant accused me of being a liar.

    It finally dawned on me, one night while walking around the dorms an Airman was smoking a legal herbal cigarette(Djarum) that smelled somewhat like marijuana, and around a known informer, I had said that night, "Damn, it smells like weed over there."

    And that is why I am very strongly against police-state bullshit. Thanks for listening to my ramble.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by el_oscuro on Friday July 10 2015, @11:42PM

      by el_oscuro (1711) on Friday July 10 2015, @11:42PM (#207696)

      While in the Army, I was admitted to Walter Reed and they gave me an eye test that required my pupils to be dilated. They put some shit in my eyes which basically blinded me for several hours. The next day I was talking to my room mate and he said. "You know they put pharmaceutical cocaine in your eyes, right?" I was like, what the fuck?

      Of course the day after my discharge, the Army scheduled me for a drug test. Of course. Thinking I am going to get kicked out for drugs I didn't even use, I called the doctor and asked what he put in my eyes. He hemmed and hawed and said to put his phone number on the drug test form. Anyway, they didn't kick me out so I guess it worked.

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    • (Score: 3, Informative) by JeanCroix on Saturday July 11 2015, @12:19AM

      by JeanCroix (573) on Saturday July 11 2015, @12:19AM (#207711)
      Holy shit, man. It's Friday night and I'm drunk. I'll read through this wall-o-text tomorrow, and reply if appropriate. As long as the Chinese haven't compromised me by then...
  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 10 2015, @11:25PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 10 2015, @11:25PM (#207691)

    > If the responsible party is a Government Agency, and the intended use of the information is traditional espionage,

    1. It seems unlikely that the government that took it will protect it better than the government that lost it
    2. It is entirely plausible that this was not the only penetration of the OPM, its just the one they are telling us about
    3. This sort of hack was inevitable -- if it is connected to the internet it is vulnerable, good security practices can only make it more expensive, but never impossible, to hack