Personal Data of 26.5M Veterans Stolen

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

WASHINGTON May 22, 2006 (AP)— Personal data, including Social Security numbers of 26.5 million U.S. veterans, was stolen from a Veterans Affairs employee this month after he took the information home without authorization, the department said Monday.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1990849

That stinks!

[Major Robert Dump]

Citizen databases are perfectly safe and no one ever misuses the information, I give you a very sincere politicians promise that this is true.

[spmetla]

Pisses me off. Just got my letter from the VA yesterday that they accepted me into the VA program and gave me my classification.

Guy better not have had my info

[Husar]

The US and their veterans...

[KukriKhan]

article: "...The material represents personal data of all living veterans who served and have been discharged since 1976...

Eek! Telecommuters and bureaucrats. One hopes the disk was at least encrypted, and the burgler is now using it as a beercan coaster.

[Lemur]

The story is getting worse. Turns out the theft was kept under wraps for 19 days. Plenty of time for thieves to get to work. Article.

Authorities waited almost three weeks to alert the public that personal data on more than 26 million U.S. veterans had fallen into the hands of thieves, a government source said Tuesday.

[Blodrast]

Citizen databases are perfectly safe and no one ever misuses the information, I give you a very sincere politicians promise that this is true.

Took the words right out of my mouth, MRD.
This should give the proponents of introducing even more cataloguing and privacy-reduction measures something to think about - even if for a little while...
But no, of course, important data will always be secure, and taken care of, and mistakes and abuses cannot possibly happen if you take enough precautions...

Since we're at it, you might be interested in the following article, too:
http://slyck.com/news.php?story=1169
It details a few occurrences of sensitive civil and military information being leaked and available on p2p networks in Japan in the last few months.

[AntiochusIII]

May be it's high time to give infomercial an entirely new meaning...

Sad and stupid. Damn governments! Still, this is much, much less damaging, and a much less aggressive betrayal on the veterans of the USA than the shooting at a particular march in Washington during the early Great Depression...

Come to think of it.

[Major Robert Dump]

I don't see it as a betrayal really, just as incompetence on multiple levels. An employee who lived in a neighborhood plagued by burglaries took the laptop home and it got "stolen." Who knows what happened, if its gone its gone.

Whats hilarious is one of the VA investigators telling the press that the thief who stole it may not even know what he/she has, and that quote being used in bold sidebars.

[Husar]

Whats hilarious is one of the VA investigators telling the press that the thief who stole it may not even know what he/she has, and that quote being used in bold sidebars.

It´s especially hilarious if the thief reads it.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

It´s especially hilarious if the thief reads it.

That would suck...

[BHCWarman88]

It´s especially hilarious if the thief reads it.

not Really,it would Suck,don't fun it funny.....

[mercian billman]

This is probably the only time I'll ever say it, but I'm glad that I don't recieve my discharge until 2010 Approximately 1400 days left

Anyways it would be kind of funny if he didn't know he had until Authorities released the loss of the disk

Seriously though this is an example of gross incompetence, not to mention the idiot who brought that disk to his house was breaking the law in the process of doing so.

[Major Robert Dump]

Maybe he was an immigrant doing a job Americans don't want, and he didn't know the rules.

[drone]

Looks like they got the criminal masterminds, I mean teenagers...
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/08/05/lap....ap/index.html

The VA announced last month that the FBI has determined with a high degree of confidence that the files were not compromised.

"While this arrest is good news, we were lucky that the data belonging to veterans was not accessed and misused," Steve Buyer, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said in a statement.

[Blodrast]

I guess that's good, although you'll allow me to be the skeptical grumpy bastard I usually am, and doubt this:

the FBI has determined with a high degree of confidence that the files were not compromised.

Did they establish that by interrogating the teenagers ? Did they establish that through technical tests ? What kind of tests ? What does "a high degree of confidence" mean exactly, it's vague as hell !
Would anyone actually expect them to say "Yeah, the data has been spread all over the internet, it sucks" ?

[Papewaio]

If it was spread over the internet someone would have googled it by now.

If it is being held by someone then they won't get much value from it unless they sell it.

If they do then it will come under receiving stolen goods I suppose... and since it would have to cross state lines and use federal infrastructure methinks it would get some sort of wire fraud... I assume a federal offense to traffic in the information.

So it would have to go to a single company that can use the information in such a manner that it cannot be proved... such that it would be used as a verifying tool... which they have cheaper and more reliable methods of doing such.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Wow, I don't frequent these forums as much as I used to and I come back this week to find my very old thread revived with some great info.

Thanks drone.

[Blodrast]

Pape, I didn't literally mean "spread over the internet". I meant copied, backed up, sold to someone/more someones, etc. Any of these.
I know that if I'd got that, I'd _definitely_ keep a few copies.

And as for the data not being used "because it would be detected" or some such, puh-leaze... Are you trying to say that identity thefts are inexistant because they are "detectable" or traceable ?

Who knows if it's been used or not ? Did they run a check to make sure that absolutely none of the 26.5M old folks had their identity stolen since the data was compromised ? I don't think so - if for no other reason that the FBI would have bragged about it if they'd done it.

[drone]

Wow, I don't frequent these forums as much as I used to and I come back this week to find my very old thread revived with some great info.

Thanks drone.

No problem, it's quite obvious that I have nothing better to do with my time than find and update old threads. It's a form of closure.

[Blodrast]

Another PC With Veterans' Data Goes Missing
http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/2006...pcworld/126673

[Ronin]

the plan progresses nicely!




MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

[Blodrast]

@Ronin: rofl... "Well done, Number 2"

[Papewaio]

Pape, I didn't literally mean "spread over the internet". I meant copied, backed up, sold to someone/more someones, etc. Any of these.
I know that if I'd got that, I'd _definitely_ keep a few copies.

And as for the data not being used "because it would be detected" or some such, puh-leaze... Are you trying to say that identity thefts are inexistant because they are "detectable" or traceable ?

No, what I said is that the commericial value of all 26.5 million identities is limited. If it was a case of identity theft then only a tiny portion could be used otherwise the pattern would be discernable, too many used and it would raise the alarm. So the direct commericial value is not that much, particularly when large corporations can gain equal to or more information by their data sharing.

So while it might have some value to crims, they too have ways of getting just as good information that isn't currently in the spotlight.