Military Intelligence

Driving home tonight, listening to an all news station, WINS NY 1010AM, to list the source of my information, they talked of 2 stolen laptops, not too unusual. But these 2 were stolen from a military installation. Not just any military installation, but from a high security room that serves as a command center for the “war on terrorism”.

An officer spoke to the press, I would have felt better if he hadn’t, and stated that the laptops contained sensitive information about the security of that center, but, (catch this) their really not sure if they’ve been stolen or just misplaced. “misplaced!!!” WTF! I think I’d feel better thinking some highly trained team, operating with the precision of Hollywood jewel thieves, planned for months to pull this off, but now all I see is some bozo saying “duh, now where did I put those laptops, ahh don’t tell me I’ll get it”

These are the people that want to set a “standard for security”. not on my network!

Well from my own reading it appears that airport security has been the reason for many goverment lap tops being lost. The take it out of the case turn it on put it through the x-ray seperate from the case and a departing flight. I also am concerned that such things are placed in the media. So what now do we need to also make sure goverment workers gather all their stuff, and what sort of security needs to be mobile as soon as it was on the lap top it was not secure cause Net Admin has no control over what the lap top user will do with the computer. Most are high power types and many of them because of their position think they are always right and in many cases are the most lame computer users their are, and hey IS just did as they were told. Think you can tell a General anything LOL? Oh think this is unsual read here http://news.com.com/2100-1001-948595.html

Doesn't the term "military intelligence" classify as an oxymoron :)

ox·y·mo·ron Pronunciation Key (ks-môrn, -mr-)
n. pl. ox·y·mo·ra (-môr, -mr) or ox·y·mo·rons

A rhetorical figure in which incongruous or contradictory terms are combined, as in a deafening silence and Military Intelligence.

When you talk bad about the military, I tend to take it personally. I served 7 years in the U.S. Army and never once lost any piece of equipment. Now, yes its possible that a laptop can come up missing out of the war room. I have seen it happen many of times thru out my term, does it mean that terrorist have them? No, you see, in the military we tend to take people of all sorts in and some are dishonest. So when you put these people on staff duty (a 24 hour shift pulling guard in brigade or battalion) things tend to come up missing. Now, I will throw fault at the person or persons responsible for securing such a sensitive item as such, but I would like to tell you all that Military Intelligence, (MI) is far from being, what some would like to call them, Morons. Also FYI I was Infantry and I to am far from the word moron. So in closing, I just wanted to let all you readers out there know, don’t believe everything you hear.

To Null,

I dont think anyone here was trying to ridicule the topnotch dedicated men and women of the military.Perhaps like yourself. But listen to this(from the article Palemoon posted,

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FBI guidelines require that employees report lost property, but they don't say when the report must be filed. Some loss reports took 23 years to be filed, and the average time for a loss to be reported to the FBI was over four years.

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Average time is 4 years?!?!?!That's my money they're flushing down the drain!And yours too!

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...but I would like to tell you all that Military Intelligence, (MI) is far from being, what some would like to call them, Morons. Also FYI I was Infantry and I to am far from the word moron. So in closing, I just wanted to let all you readers out there know, don’t believe everything you hear.

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Now you're taking allen's post too literally. And about that last part, do you follow your own advice?

Just to give a practical example of this sort of thing.
In the build up to the Falklands war (20 years ago), a high ranking military official left a portable containing full details of the UKs war plans in a taxi in London. This PC was subsequently stolen. A somewhat vague announcement was made to the media requesting that the thief return the PC to a police station as it held information 'vital to national security'.
Much to the surprise of the MoD, the PC was handed in at a police station, and from what happened aftewards it was obvious that the data on the PC had not been passed on to Argentina.
I suppose the moral you can draw from this story is that either the thief believed in his country or he thought that the PC was so red hot that he'd never get away with selling it ...

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I would like to tell you all that Military Intelligence, (MI) is far from being, what some would like to call them, Morons. Also FYI I was Infantry and I to am far from the word moron. So in closing, I just wanted to let all you readers out there know, don’t believe everything you hear.

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I am currently serving on active duty in the U.S. Army. We are deployed in Afghanistan. I am a batallion ISMO (Internet & Security Management Officer) and I must say accountability is a big thing here and that type of behavior is unaccecptable. Yet it happens more often than one would like to think. I must also add that it is hard to tell higher ranking people what is good for them and the systems security. I still get computers where users don't run the patch I make available to them and then they come ask me why they have to lose some of their data and they cant "imagine" how they got that virus. I will say that 4 years average for a report to be filed is obsurd. Are they just too busy? I think not. There is something going on there. And I am sure they hate for it to go public like it is. It is an upsetting fact, that is our tax money they cannot account for.

gadfly

Personally I would bet that whoever was charged with the security of said laptops is SOL.
I am currently deployed to Kuwait a few miles shy a Iraq. It's sad the amount of equipment the airports misplaced in getting us here. Almost no one made it here with all their luggage, much of it mobility bags. So its not hard to beleive that eqiument could be misplaced but such sensitive computers, HELL NO. That **** should have been secured and locked in a safe or behind cypher of some kind. Just my thoughts though, coming from someone who deals with such equipment daily.

Just my .02 cents.
Having served in the military I can honestly say that Military Intel is not as good as we would like it to be a lot of times. Im not going to say that it is ALWAYS good or ALWAYS bad, as in anything else, we have some REALLY good officers in, and some officers that have a ego so large or some that have their head so far up their backside its hopeless to expect anything good from them. But in my military experience the officers above me were more mediocure (sp?) then good or bad. they had their faults and good points, after all they are human, and even well trained humans make mistakes, and lose things, etc. A lot of the things we had to do, although dumb, did make sense, did save lives. Someone lost a firing pin from a m-16 once, we were locked down for 2 days (restricted to barracks) until it was found in the woodline. Another time we were locked down for a week for someone stole 2 pair of military night vision goggles, and shipped them home. Until recovered and in our locked armor room, we were locked down. shitty, but I know why. sounds dumb, but thats the generall perception.
Bottom line is, its what you make of it. the civillian public has and will always have a distorted view of the military due to hollywood, and other sources. until they pick up a weapon and stand a post, they wont actually understand.