then the Department of Agriculture and Now it's some hacker who ripped off 26,000 names. What the hell is going on here? The records of our military personnel and other data are turning up compromised in unheard of numbers and yet, no one has a ficken clue as to why or what?
The Navy has begun a criminal investigation after Social Security numbers and other personal data for 28,000 sailors and family members were found on a civilian Web site. The Navy said Friday the information was in five documents and included people's names, birth dates and Social Security numbers. Navy spokesman Lt. Justin Cole would not identify the Web site or its owner, but said the information had been removed. He would not provide any details about how the information ended up on the site.
The breach regarding the Navy comes amid a rash of government computer data thefts, including one at the Agriculture Department earlier this week in which a hacker may have obtained names, Social Security numbers and photos of 26,000 Washington-area employees and contractors.
As many as 26.5 million veterans and current military troops may have been affected by the theft of a laptop computer containing their Social Security numbers and birth dates. The computer was taken from the home of a Veterans Affairs Department employee in early May, and officials waited nearly three weeks before notifying veterans on May 22 of the theft.
As many as a half dozen federal agencies have been affected by computer data losses in recent months.
Does anyone else get the feeling that something is very wrong with this picture? This information is not easy to come by and hacking into the government's computer systems is not really as easy as the movies make it out to be. Yes, it can be done but why on earth would they bother stealing this information? Taking the data for identity theft is a possibility; but once the data's been stolen, banks and other financial institutions have programs to safeguard customers. They could inoculate these people against identity theft quite easily and who ever has enough brains to steal that data definitely knows that he or she can't really use it for anything. So what gives?
What possible use could this data serve?....
Unless of course it's not the data that the thieves were after. Maybe it's the response to the theft that they're after. Several possibilities along that train of thought are:
1) A Company that sells a service to protect people's data is trying to increase it's customer base.
2) Osama Bin Laden is collecting data on the location of retired military personnel.
3) This could be another Rovian trick to challenge voters. The GOP could conceivably challenge voter registrations based on receipt of the letters from the government informing the people that their data's been compromised.
4) A new law could be offered forcing a national ID card or possibly even those crazy-assed bio-chips I've heard about.
Hell, I don't know but this seems very odd. In the first theft, the 26 million veterans files, "They" said it was possibly just a break-in and the thieves probably didn't know what they got. Now with all these other thefts and "accidental fuck-up's", that hardly seems likely. Someone out there is actively pursuing this information and they definitely want to use it somehow but I just can't figure out how. What do you do with all this information? What effects does exposing this data create? What is going to be the reaction by those whose info was stolen? There is no way this could all be just a coincidence so what gives? Any thoughts?
Here's a link to an article talking about the thefts.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060624/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/navy_data;_ylt=AjI5_DVr6lEYuD7oaci6rJUjtBAF;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--Read a little about this and study on it for a while and see what you can come up with. Post what ever idea comes into your mind and I'm gonna ask that instead of ridiculing someone's thoughts, just don't respond to them if you think they're stupid or trollish. I have absolutely no idea what is going on and this post is all pure conjecture so please feel free to explore the possibilities.
If you would, just think about these questions: What would you do with this data? How would you use it's theft to manipulate the general public or a select group of people? What is the likelihood that these thefts and blunders are mere coincidence? If not coincidence, who has the power to engineer the theft of this information?
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