Presidential Safe House Information Found On P2P Sites

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What can you find on LimeWire? How about music, movies and motorcade routes used by the president and the First Family’s safe house location. Yikes. Now we know why the government wants to ban P2P software on all government computers. :eek:

Details about a U.S. Secret Service safe house for the First Family -- to be used in a national emergency -- were found to have leaked out on a LimeWire file-sharing network recently, members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee were told this morning. Also unearthed on LimeWire networks in recent days were presidential motorcade routes and a sensitive but unclassified document listing details on every nuclear facility in the country.
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The only thing the government seems to understand is how to keep paper files confidential.
In the electronic realm they seem to struggle.
 
So is this going to cost the US taxpayers millions of dollars while they find a new safe house?

Seriously though? Safehouse? How about the fact you're surrounded by armed guards willing to die to save you life, or the fact you can fly around in a mobile command center for a near limitless time, sounds pretty damn safe to me.
 
Maybe its fake and the real one is safe now that all the focus is on the "leaked" one.
 
I wonder if there is a way to trace those files back to the bonehead that shared his entire C drive at work.
 
It also seems to me like a simple outbound firewall would've prevented this. In a highly classified operation like that, why don't you have one?
 
Could have been on a laptop that possibly connected to WiFi away from the office.
 
The disclosures prompted the chairman of the committee, Rep. Edolphus Towns, (D-N.Y.), to call for a ban on the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) software on all government and contractor computers and networks. "For our sensitive government information, the risk is simply too great to ignore," said Towns who plans to introduce a bill to enforce just such a P2P ban.
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How about firing all the current employees and contractors and hire ones smart enough NOT TO INSTALL/USE these programs on their work systems. Serioiusly It's good to be all technologically hip and stuff but with idiots with no common sense, no matter who/what they are, make it so that we just can't have nice things.
 
Keiichi said:
How about firing all the current employees and contractors and hire ones smart enough NOT TO INSTALL/USE these programs on their work systems. Serioiusly It's good to be all technologically hip and stuff but with idiots with no common sense, no matter who/what they are, make it so that we just can't have nice things.
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Most people just see Limewire as Free Music. That's why firing every last one of them won't really work, unless they've been explicitly told not to do so.
 
TechieSooner said:
It also seems to me like a simple outbound firewall would've prevented this. In a highly classified operation like that, why don't you have one?
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Classified information is already on separate intranets. Either the data was taken off of a classified network via unauthorized data transport methods, or someone plugged in a computer to a network with public access that shouldn't have been. It's just odd that you'd have people using P2P apps with public access and classified data. But then again, this could just be another exercise with media propaganda surrounding it. They do things like that all the time to trigger events they want to happen.
 
Why do the users have the rights necessary to install the software in the first place? (assuming the user, not a relenting admin, installed it)
 
Wouldn't it be hilarious if the RIAA went after the government for just having P2P software installed? Talk about colossal backfire.

Congressman: didn't we support you guys in your attempt to sue the world for music piracy?
RIAA Lobbyist: yeah well uhh.. we gave you money..
Congressman: yes, thanks for that, but still you can kiss that support goodbye.
 
Azhar said:
Wouldn't it be hilarious if the RIAA went after the government for just having P2P software installed? Talk about colossal backfire.

Congressman: didn't we support you guys in your attempt to sue the world for music piracy?
RIAA Lobbyist: yeah well uhh.. we gave you money..
Congressman: yes, thanks for that, but still you can kiss that support goodbye.
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Oh I wish that would happen just so the riaa comes toppling down.
 
It wouldn't surprise me if the *AAs were involved in this somehow. They'd love it if P2P was illegal.
 
Jutsu said:
It is probably the government doing a lil misinformation.
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I personally think this will be a stepping stone to illegalize p2p and torrent sites in America. Every article about the President and National Security goes straight to front page of the newspapers and TV stations. "A TERRORIST LEAKED PRES SECRETS" I doubt they ever find the person that did this. So instead they will make the "tools" used illegal.
Just my short thoughts
 
They make all our laws and yet they are the most retarded when it comes to computers and technology in general
 
Kelby said:
I personally think this will be a stepping stone to illegalize p2p and torrent sites in America. Every article about the President and National Security goes straight to front page of the newspapers and TV stations. "A TERRORIST LEAKED PRES SECRETS" I doubt they ever find the person that did this. So instead they will make the "tools" used illegal.
Just my short thoughts
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On the heels of the North Korea "hacking" story, previous p2p sensitive information leaks, and increased cyber security calls... yeah, I'd say they're heading that direction. We'll see more and more of these stories over the upcoming months.. then all of a sudden a bill will come up for vote in the House & Senate. They do it to strike fear into the public's mind so they can get things sailed through quick and easy. The thing is, the public is catching on and we're seeing the games they're playing.
 
Jesus Christ...

I work at a bank and the OTS (government) is currently doing an audit on our bank. If they checked out the firewall (which they do as part of the IT audit) and found that we had those ports open on our firewall or found p2p software on some workstations, we'd be in a lil trouble. Let alone giving users local admin rights, allowing them to install software themselves..

Isn't there a committee that's supposed to audit Federal agencies?
 
oscrogo said:
Isn't there a committee that's supposed to audit Federal agencies?
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Even doing an internal audit would've been fine... A checklist of items to verify (Firewall enabled? Yes/No)... Obviously there is none.

Apparently there's no "standard" operating procedure for IS in the government. Each department/branch/location does things however they want.
 
TechieSooner said:
It also seems to me like a simple outbound firewall would've prevented this. In a highly classified operation like that, why don't you have one?
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Because is a highly classified operation and "someone already secured the information". If it is classified, who has to worry about security?
 
What I want to know is:

  • Why was the user able to go to LimeWire.com and download the program? This means there's no website filtering at sensitive government locations.
  • Why was LimeWire able to function? This means there is no packet inspection in routers at sensitive government locations.
  • Why was the user able to install LimeWire? This means that peons have admin rights on computers at sensitive government locations.

All in all, it's a shame that someone leaked this, but it takes a boneheaded admin to enable a boneheaded user. And in this case, it sounds like they had a really really bad admin.
 
oscrogo said:
Jesus Christ...

I work at a bank and the OTS (government) is currently doing an audit on our bank. If they checked out the firewall (which they do as part of the IT audit) and found that we had those ports open on our firewall or found p2p software on some workstations, we'd be in a lil trouble. Let alone giving users local admin rights, allowing them to install software themselves..

Isn't there a committee that's supposed to audit Federal agencies?
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How do you know someone didn't take home their work? ;)
 
Met-AL said:
Could have been on a laptop that possibly connected to WiFi away from the office.
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This. People are unbelievable careless with laptops and security in general. That said, how in the world is that kind of information available on the WAN in the first place. Stuff like that never should be accessible except my hard line.

And agree, admin has massive egg on his face here regarding user policy.
 
LimeWire? I'll admit, I've never used it, though I did use gnutella many years ago. Why would one use it vs Bit Torrent? For that matter, WTH are they using these programs at work or on company Laptops?

I deem these people epically stupid, not because they uploaded these items, but because they installed this crap on a work machine. :eek::eek:
 
Mav451 said:
This. People are unbelievable careless with laptops and security in general. That said, how in the world is that kind of information available on the WAN in the first place. Stuff like that never should be accessible except my hard line.

And agree, admin has massive egg on his face here regarding user policy.
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Do we know that P2P wasn't used during the last 8 years? Either way, the users should never have installed this crud on work machines.
 
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