Um, whoops. This should start another round of folks freaking out and jamming epoxy into USB ports. Mr Silly, look what you have wrought.
Sigh.
From CNN:
Chris Ogle of New Zealand was in Oklahoma about a year ago when he bought a used MP3 player from a thrift store for $9. A few weeks ago, he plugged it into his computer to download a song, and he instead discovered confidential U.S. military files.
“The more I look at it, the more I see, and the less I think I should be,” Ogle said with a nervous laugh in an interview with TVNZ.
The files included the home addresses, Social Security numbers and cell phone numbers of U.S. soldiers. The player also included what appeared to be mission briefings and lists of equipment deployed to hot spots in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most of the information appears to date to 2005.
Well, that certainly made me giggle this morning.
Until I thought about the “what ifs”? Did the information on the MP3 player originate from Altus Tinker or Vance Air Force bases? Or did it come from Fort Sill? Based on a cursory glance through Google based on the story, it would appear that Sill was the point of origin. But, that assumption is by no means a definitive.
The US military needs to find some way to get a better handle on their data management. We have seen stories like this time and again. This story could have ended differently.
For the full article read on.