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 TripityDooDaDay
 
Registered: 04/20/08
Posts: 7,600
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 Colorado Database Leak Puts Informants In Jeopardy 
#504537 - 12/10/10 03:22 PM (14 years, 23 days ago) |
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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131970302
A Colorado sheriff's online database mistakenly revealed the identities of confidential drug informants and listed phone numbers, addresses and Social Security numbers of suspects, victims and others interviewed during criminal investigations, authorities said.
The breach potentially affects some 200,000 people, and Mesa County sheriff's deputies have been sifting through the database to determine who, if anyone, is in jeopardy.
"That in itself is probably the biggest concern we have, because we're talking about people's personal safety," Sheriff Stan Hilkey said.
The FBI and Google Inc. are trying to determine who accessed the database, the sheriff said. Their concern: That someone may have copied it and could post it, WikiLeaks-style, on the Internet.
"The truth is, once it's been out there and on the Internet and copied, you're never going to regain total control," Hilkey said.
Thousands of pages of confidential information were vulnerable from April until Nov. 24, when someone notified authorities after finding their name on the Internet. Officials said the database was accessed from within the United States, as well as outside the country, before it was removed from the server.
The information was so stunning that Jay Seaton, publisher of the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, thought it was obtained illegally.
A source provided the western Colorado newspaper with a computer disk shortly after Thanksgiving. The paper first published details of the leak — but not its contents.
"We got that disk returned to the proper authorities," he said. "As a general rule, I don't mind taking some risks. But in something like this, where you can actually get people killed, I'm out."
The disk's contents were legally gleaned from a sheriff's department database. In April, a Mesa County information technology employee moved the database into what the employee believed was a secure server, county spokeswoman Jessica Peterson said.
The information sat there as a large text file. It was first accessed by an outside computer on Oct. 30. Other computers accessed the information over the next 25 days.
Hilkey declined to provide other details. But he surmised that a Google Web crawler that can be programed to troll the Internet for specific sets of information, such as nine-digit numbers that can be Social Security numbers, found the server.
"Somebody who sets up that kind of Web crawler to search for that kind of information probably doesn't have good intentions," the sheriff said.
The employee who transferred the files no longer works for the county. Peterson declined to say whether the file transfer led to the employee's departure. A Google spokesperson didn't immediately return calls for comment.
Deputies have used the database since 1989 to collect and share intelligence gathered during the course of police work. It contains 200,000 names — Mesa County's population is about 150,000 — and includes investigative files from a local drug task force.
The information included data about Mesa County employees, information from the nearby Fruita and Palisade police departments — and possibly information from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Grand Junction police.
DEA spokesman Mike Turner and Grand Junction police spokeswoman Kate Porras insisted their agencies' information wasn't compromised because they use their own computer systems. But both agencies work with the Mesa County sheriff's drug task force, whose files were in the database.
FBI spokesman Dave Joly confirmed agents in Denver were assisting in the investigation. He declined to elaborate.
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FarBeyondDriven
Truthfully, I'm a bullshitter
Registered: 04/22/08
Posts: 13,834
Loc: Greenbow, Alabama
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Re: Colorado Database Leak Puts Informants In Jeopardy [Re: TripityDooDaDay]
#504617 - 12/10/10 09:50 PM (14 years, 23 days ago) |
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Be interested to see how much the murder rate goes up in Mesa County over the next year or so.
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psyberpunk
Lunatic
Registered: 11/02/10
Posts: 533
Loc: Behind a Pipe
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Re: Colorado Database Leak Puts Informants In Jeopardy [Re: FarBeyondDriven]
#504670 - 12/11/10 07:17 AM (14 years, 23 days ago) |
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People in Colorado are too stoned to murder anyone.
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 auronlives69
Stranger
Registered: 11/22/10
Posts: 192
Last seen: 12 years, 3 months
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Re: Colorado Database Leak Puts Informants In Jeopardy [Re: psyberpunk]
#504746 - 12/11/10 11:44 AM (14 years, 22 days ago) |
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Quote:
once it's been out there and on the Internet and copied, you're never going to regain "total control"
thats exactly why internet censorship is a very real possibility, fucking control freaks
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mhbound
Ballin out at all cost
Registered: 09/22/08
Posts: 8,144
Loc: High 
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Re: Colorado Database Leak Puts Informants In Jeopardy [Re: auronlives69]
#505933 - 12/16/10 08:59 AM (14 years, 18 days ago) |
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they will NEVER EVER EVER EVER control the internet. there are too many people who wont stand for it. people wont go confront the law because they will get cuffed on the spot, but unfortunately for the fuzz its a little more complicated on the internet and they cant just start cuffing people...
the United States took action against the Pirate Bay(just a small torrent site, wouldnt think much of it), they used distributed denial of service attacks(DDoS) to make the site not usable. what did internet activist do? did the same back to them AND on top of it took down several dozen other sites for somewhere around 1000 hours of downtime total...Stole Sarah Palins credit information etc., and all of this has been done in the span of a few months and with very few resources to the activist.
my point is, is that if the government keeps it up more and more people will do it..myself included. i have no problem joining in if they try to regulate the internet more than they already do...that keeps them from trying to do more than they are doing i believe. because they know everyone is at risk no matter who you are when you log on to the internet..i mean nobody and NOTHING is safe to someone seasoned at these tasks; and the last thing they need is some group of hackers getting hold of ANYYYYY government document, and the only way to keep that from happening is to not piss these hackers off. because i truly feel like there are some people out there smart enough to do exactly what i said above and never get caught.
thats the last thing they need, an anonymous guy with an anonymous number of documents threatening to release them if they don't back off................wait, exactly what the wiki leaks guy is doing, but something tells me that guy is full of shit; regardless if that guy has them or not other people will do the same and may have already done the same and are just waiting for the time to release it to the public.
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Suck my balls America
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David Makalaster
Your 10 o' clock Newscaster
Registered: 01/01/10
Posts: 9
Last seen: 13 years, 6 months
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Re: Colorado Database Leak Puts Informants In Jeopardy [Re: TripityDooDaDay]
#509771 - 12/29/10 06:42 PM (14 years, 4 days ago) |
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HAHAHAHAHAAHHAAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!!
SNITCHES GET STITCHES!!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!
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Pig: Son, you got any marijuana on you?
Me: No sir, I am deathly afraid of needles.
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eazy_jesus
Stranger
Registered: 01/02/11
Posts: 21
Loc: GA
Last seen: 13 years, 11 months
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Re: Colorado Database Leak Puts Informants In Jeopardy [Re: David Makalaster]
#511138 - 01/05/11 03:24 PM (13 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
David Makalaster said:
HAHAHAHAHAAHHAAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!!
SNITCHES GET STITCHES!!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!
THIS
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