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from the secrets-in-a-[deck-of]-flash-[cards] dept.
US Soldiers Accidentally Reveal Nuclear Weapon Secrets:
For years, US soldiers stationed at military bases in Europe armed with nuclear weapons were unknowingly sharing secret protocols and details on the bases themselves online.
It turns out that the military personnel were relying on flashcard apps to study and memorize the details of the nuclear weapon systems without realizing that the flashcards of highly confidential information would be available online for anyone to look up, according to a Bellingcat investigation. And the flashcards were shockingly detailed, even going as far as helping soldiers remember which specific vaults within a base contained nuclear weapons and which ones were empty — a shocking oversight for information that’s otherwise kept under lock and key.
“This is yet one more warning that these weapons are not secure,” Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told Bellingcat.
[...] These flashcard apps appear to reveal a great deal of information. By simply looking up the names of specific bases thought to contain nukes, Bellingcat was able to find details not available elsewhere, including about passwords, security procedures, and even the locations of security cameras and information on the duress signals that soldiers are supposed to say when compromised.
[...] Some of the flashcards dated back to 2013 and as recently as April 2021.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @12:37PM (7 children)
Correct Horse Battery Staple
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @03:36PM
Nope. You mean: Big Bruiser Bulldyke Blow Out Ass
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @05:01PM
Maybe it was actually a lunch code?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday May 30 2021, @07:53PM (3 children)
Or it was an actual nuclear launch code:
00000000
Well, would you have guessed it?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by datapharmer on Sunday May 30 2021, @10:42PM (2 children)
That's the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 31 2021, @02:15PM
Hey! That's the combination to my luggage!
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday June 01 2021, @04:11PM
Yet, for 20 years, it was the code to launch the nukes. You know, just in case.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/launch-code-for-us-nukes-was-00000000-for-20-years/ [arstechnica.com]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Monday May 31 2021, @04:41AM
For those who haven't already memorised this pass phrase, here is the obligatory xkcd origin [xkcd.com].
(Score: 5, Insightful) by canopic jug on Sunday May 30 2021, @01:00PM (15 children)
They fundamentally misunderstand how mobile phone "apps" work. It wasn't an accident, they intentionally entered the secret information into the company's database via the "app" on their phone. The "app" is only a front-end or UI to an online service. Usually the terms of service include clauses about gaining ownership over whatever is uploaded via the "app".
Digital natives my ass. In absolute numbers, it appears to me that each year there are fewer and fewer people who understand what is going on with products posing as technology. I often run into people who swear that they are not going to "upload" any photos to the net and that they will "only keep the photos on their phone". Yet when the details of those plans come forth, it turns out that they are uploading the photos into Instagram/Whatsapp/Facebook/etc. Then when confronted with the terms of service for said "apps", they deny what is written in black and white right there in front of them in the terms of service in regards to what happens to the photos (and the copyright for those photos) which were uploaded into the online service.
Yes, I find it frustrating. And it is dangerous because more and more of society is driven by networked computers and so few know anything about them and that small number is decreasing over time.
However, back to the seurity breach described in the articles(s). No mention about how many clearances were cancelled. There has been a lot of coverage of the incident but not much about the disciplinary action which will be taken against the personnel nor about raising the general level of awareness that those "apps" only have their UI on the phone not the data (photos, flashcards. etc) and that ownership of the data is usually turned over to the company which has provided the "app".
.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: -1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @02:03PM (14 children)
Ever since Hillary stole all those sensitive emails and was let off without even a slap on the wrist, are they even punishing people for mishandling classified information? Our is this another case where nobody in charge will be punished for not properly training them or figuring out tray the data was being leaked.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday May 30 2021, @04:29PM (9 children)
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @06:40PM (7 children)
It was a major, purposeful security violation, but because she was Queen Hillary of the Democratic Party, there were zero consequences for her. Lawless.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by drussell on Sunday May 30 2021, @06:53PM (5 children)
King Trump did a whole lot worse.
We'll see if that is enough to actually have some repercussions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @09:06PM (4 children)
Name the violations. Put up or shut up.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @09:49PM (2 children)
You mean like how the administration in general, cabinet members and Jared and what-her-name using PRIVATE EMAIL SERVERS to conduct business on ???? Doing the EXACT SAME THING???
Staying just in computer server space, how about all of the interactions between Trump and Ukraine being copied to an offline classified server for "security reasons", which is why they couldn't produce that unclassified information when subpoenaed for it? Which, oh yeah, brings us to ignoring lawful subpoenas. Just that Ukraine investigation turned up more violations of the law than 200 hours of Benghazi hearings have with Hillary. And that whole email stuff with Hillary was not deemed illegal, as was the Trump stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 31 2021, @12:07AM
The Witch Hunt exception allows the President to ignore demands from Congress.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 31 2021, @03:30AM
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @09:56PM
Jesus Christ you trumpy qultists are fucking morons. Pay zero attention, believe what the lying Fox News cunts tell you, then get all outraged about being an idiot.
You're a fucking idiot.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Tork on Sunday May 30 2021, @11:43PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @09:20PM
Huh. I didn't know there were people so stupid that they TLDR on two sentences. Well, it fits with the posting history.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @05:17PM (3 children)
And what she did in Benghazi was... shocking. Did we ever investigate that? It's about time somebody did.
(Score: 5, Touché) by drussell on Sunday May 30 2021, @06:57PM (2 children)
Yeah, the hypocrisy of continually re-investigating the Benghazi incident, yet trying to block anyone from ever even thinking about investigating anything that went on surrounding Jan 6th by Republicans is strong. Bigly. From the standpoint of investigations.
(Score: -1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 31 2021, @03:33AM (1 child)
What's to investigate on Jan 6th? It's all on video. Thousands - tens of thousands actually - of protesters made their voices heard. Capitol security opened the doors for them. Out of all those people, maybe a hundred got out of line? 150? Hell, I'll give you 200.
We've invited you to punish those who actually committed crimes. But no, you feel the need to establish insurrection, treason, mutiny, and assorted other phantasmagorical nonsense.
Fuck off.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Monday May 31 2021, @02:38PM
Over 450 people have already been identified and charged in connection with Jan 6.
There is an interesting list with photos and some specifics on many of them here:
https://www.usatoday.com/storytelling/capitol-riot-mob-arrests/ [usatoday.com]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @01:02PM (1 child)
Important information should be stored on Post-It notes... for added security, stick them underneath your keyboard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 31 2021, @07:43PM
3x5 Index cards also make for great information storage AND they can be used as flashcards!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MIRV888 on Sunday May 30 2021, @01:31PM (12 children)
We are so f*cked.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @02:04PM (6 children)
In reality, they can make mistakes like this all day long and nothing happens.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @02:07PM (5 children)
Nothing has happened /YET/. It doesn't matter if we're lucky a thousand, ten thousand, or a million times, if getting it wrong once could push humanity back into the dark ages or extinction.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @03:21PM (4 children)
I remember the dark ages. The sun came up every morning, just like it does today.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @03:53PM
Who knew that Mel Brooks 2000 year old man was an AC?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @03:56PM (2 children)
except the new dayk ages will have failing power stations and metal, plastic trash everywhere. at least there will be no more flash card apps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @11:02PM (1 child)
This time around we might actually be able to fuck the planet to the point where nothing survives.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday June 01 2021, @03:32PM
Oh, a few things will always manage to survive. They'll just generally wish they hadn't.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @02:06PM (2 children)
And yet, we glorify these sorts of people, even though they're greatest threat to national security. Being in the military means that you can't contribute anything of value to the country at this point.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @04:18PM
That's not true. There are still millions of Muslims left.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @05:21PM
SIR, YES SIR.
That's the kind of guy I want doing the nation's work.
(Score: 1) by Cyrix6x86 on Sunday May 30 2021, @02:11PM
They weren't hired for being smart.
They were hired for being boring enough to pass the background check.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 31 2021, @09:20AM
Are you sure they're still in charge of those nukes?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Sunday May 30 2021, @02:20PM (11 children)
I suspect this can be traced back to a casual contempt, within the military, for liberals and science. Think that anyone who not only doesn't know how to use a gun (as if that's hard or something), but doesn't care to, is a disgusting wimpy peacenik who can't and won't help defend his country, and who will be nothing but a burden should a war break out. More and more of them missed the memo that "hooah!" is posturing, not meant too seriously. To be sure, many of the smarter ones do figure it out on their own, helped greatly by personal experiences with the gung-ho hypocrites within the ranks. The overall culture though, is of belief in that tough guy mentality, and those who have seen through the bull have to be careful and not let that out of the closet to the wrong people.
Sure, the fanatics within the military respect and fear weapons science. They know how powerful that is. But they fundamentally don't get science. They really don't get how egalitarian science is. If they did, they would never have tried those idiotic export restrictions on technology, to try to force the use of too short, weak key lengths on the rest of the world. As if in the whole rest of the world, there wasn't anyone who could do crypto, or even just hack the code and bump the key length back up.
With good leadership, they can be set straight on that stuff. But when the supreme leaders are lying, delusional political hacks, who install the same into the top ranks of the military, their professionalism and intelligence is going to take a hit. GI Joe says "knowing is half the battle", and now, they don't know. The military prepares endlessly to fight the wrong kind of war. They're still thinking that they'll have to rush back into Afghanistan, or Somalia, or somewhere else in the Islamic world, and shoot a bunch of terrorists. Or maybe the enemy will be China, or Russia, in Cold War 2.0, who knows? And maybe they will be called upon to do just that. Very reactionary thinking. Sadly, it really is beyond their scope to head off these potential wars before they happen. That's on the top leadership of the nation, all civilians, and they've not been doing a good job. One of the biggest threats is Global Warming, and what needs to be done is, since the military really isn't capable of handling that one, a massive drawdown and transfer of resources away from the military and towards programs to address that problem. If it goes on, and ice sheets melt and coasts all around the world get flooded, that will almost certainly provoke war. Another big threat is all the lying that goes on in the news. One would hope that the military understands that they were savagely used in 2003 in Iraq, sent in to pre-empt any chance of the use of Weapons of Mass Destruction that turned out to be phantoms, the illusory creations of warmongers drumming up the excuse to invade. The invasion was also supposedly because of connections to 9/11, which was another lie.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @03:03PM (1 child)
Clearly you missed the whole point of the Iraq war. Cheap Gasoline! We wanted their oil. Oh, and we couldn't have them changing the monetary base of their oil from the dollar to the euro. That might have been bad for the US economy. At least that was how it was explained to me by a few soldiers who were sent over there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @09:53PM
Regular soldiers get the meaning of what they do from the same places you do, predominantly rumors and to a lesser extent the news. A sad large number of them get it from Fox News.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @03:22PM (6 children)
*yawn*
Another peacenik expresses his contempt for warriors.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @04:07PM (2 children)
Another pathetic bootlicker expresses his desire, fueled by big authoritarian steeltoe-to-the throat government, to get down on his knees and service all the "warriors."
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @04:20PM (1 child)
Wimp.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @05:22PM
Wow.
That's the first time I've heard anyone being called a "wimp" for not wanting to bow down and perform fellatio on a bunch of soldiers.
But I guess fascists/authoritarians have their own way of getting off.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday May 30 2021, @05:36PM (2 children)
And you're no warrior either, Mr. Colorblind Supply Puke.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 31 2021, @03:36AM (1 child)
You wouldn't know a warrior if she bit you in the ass, Miss Sailor Moon wannabe.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday May 31 2021, @05:14PM
You don't need to be a Michelin chef to know when someone's cooking is crap, snowflake :) And why are you stalking me all over SN anyway? Have I upset you that much?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 30 2021, @05:23PM (1 child)
> casual contempt, within the military, for liberals and science
Really? Not pointless busy-work and forced drudgery "to learn 'em a lesson"?
(Score: 2) by MIRV888 on Monday May 31 2021, @01:34AM
Why not both?
(Score: 2) by srobert on Sunday May 30 2021, @03:44PM
Trust your future to the Cloud.