Comments on: Top Secret Brit Laptop Stolen

By: Marty Short

Marty Short — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:16:17 +0000

It’s all mental masturbation guys. The lap tops contain dis-information. That’s standard ops and you all know that. Actually a waste of funds these days.

By: wayne

wayne — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 01:46:07 +0000

The communications can be encrypted at the highest levels and still be available almost real-time or even from a PDA Smartphone. Gee wiz people this is not a novel concept in security and has been around for about 10+ year now. If a person is placed into a situation where they are required to have classified data on their computer then is should damn well be encrypted and only contain specifically what is needed and not contain, say a list of MI5 operative working in Afghanistan or Iran.

By: wayne

wayne — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 01:46:02 +0000

OK boys and girls. Here we go. I have been in the Intel and Cyber world for over 30 years. The first question I have is WHY there is ANY information on the Laptop what so ever. One can use an 8 Gig Solid State drive which only contains the OS (Operating Systems for you lay persons) and can be rebuilt every time it is rebooted thus removing any data which may have been placed on the hard drive. For those of you who are thinking way to hard at this point, the usable area of the hard drive can be formatted to a non-recoverable state within a short period of time once the computer is shutdown using a simple script and a program added to the boot sector of the drive. As most of you are very aware, there is a virtual world for computing using VMware or Citrix servers which virtualizes all the data and applications in a central location and does not require the data to be resident on the Laptop which should be setup as a DUMB terminal ONLY.

By: Bill - FBM '68-'00

Bill - FBM '68-'00 — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 22:08:18 +0000

What’s really sad is that whoever stole the laptop probably had no clue of the sensitivity of the information it contained — now they do!

By: William C.

William C. — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 00:52:45 +0000

I have plenty of respect for our British comrades in uniform fighting alongside our troops. However it seems as if the MoD hasn’t been properly funded since 1945. Just look at the Royal Navy since then.

By: RSF

RSF — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 16:47:10 +0000

What’s sad is that there is FREE encryption software available that once installed would render stolen lap tops essentially junk without the owners password. It boggles that mind that this level of stupidity continues in regard to mobile devices loaded with critical national security information.

http://www.truecrypt.org/

By: BuddhalovesPaine

BuddhalovesPaine — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 23:50:43 +0000

WTF

By: CharlesHouston

CharlesHouston — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 02:23:23 +0000

I thought that a basic ability to write coherent English was required to be an agent for MI5. Something tells me that Jack is a high school kid in France.

By: Warner

Warner — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 23:44:56 +0000

66 stolen Laptops !!! In the years 2009...I just wonder what else who have been ''taken away'' without the public known. Whitehall is like a open Pub, full of important people and agents who spend more time in the Pub's and tell how important they are. A lot of MP have ''con'' the system and the same happened all over the place, Whitehall is no different.

By: Jack

Jack — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 23:19:06 +0000

Dear Sirs.
Like a former agent in NCIS (MI5) 8 years in central Europe I know exact what’s going on, and I’m not
surprise it all. British manner is best in a Pub and the English Gentlemen have a great connection
to James Bond 007. It’s nothing behind anything, only a lot talking and nothing more.
Effective in intelligence-organization is just the like Mr. Bond 007. A dream who never come true.…

By: John

John — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:47:27 +0000

Pride, Loyalty, allegiance. This is what being British is !!! Err, sorry used to be !
If computers are going missing at a rate of over one per week, we the British obviously have some thieving MOD staff. Unfortunately it shows what British civil servants do in their spare time (sell stolen PC’s, OH, and our TOP SECRET information) Virtually every public organisation in the UK has lost information. I don’t know if the US government is as incompetent as the UK government, but this is our security they are supposed to be looking after. Independent (and I mean totally independent) bodies should be set up to hold politicians answerable to their decisions, even when they have left politics.
.

By: British and Sad

British and Sad — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:16:39 +0000

Fact: The MoD is a job creation and sustainment organisation not an organisation for Defence of the Realm.
Fact: The current Government is dangerously incompetent.
Fact: The current Government is Labour so concerns itself only with Socialist projects.
Fact: The MoD management is incompetent.
Fact: The UK public are more concerned with other things e.g. Social Protection and the NHS.
Fact: The UK public see military spending as wasteful and unneeded.
Fact: The UK is bankrupt.
Fact: The operations in Afghanistan are not properly resourced.
Fact: The current ‘War’ in Afghanistan is unwinnable.

By: FSB

FSB — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:16:10 +0000

@ Daniel Russ: I dare not imagine how many lives may have been lost because of lax cyber security within the U.K. national security establishment. A laptop is more than a keyboard and screen, it is a portable filing cabinet. Secure MoD laptops can hold countless classified documents of varying importance, and yet are being left in trains, taxis, pubs, and Lord knows elsewhere — and now are being stolen from under the MoD’s very nose. We would never let anyone, no matter how senior, keep filing cabinets stuffed with classified material in their own homes, but in this cyber-drenched age we let people wonder around anywhere with the 21st Century equivalent of the filing cabinet — the laptop. There is something fundamentally wrong with that.

By: Daniel Russ

Daniel Russ — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 20:31:20 +0000

Good point FSB. Also, how many lives might be lost because of it?

Daniel Russ
Civilianmilitaryintelligence group

By: FSB

FSB — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:17:05 +0000

U.K. OPSEC when it comes to cyber is, frankly, piss-poor and a shameful embarrassment. How many more laptops need to be stolen, and sensitive information compromised, before MoD does something about this?