Former Army Intelligence Analyst: “Army security is like a Band-Aid on a sunken chest wound”By: emptywheel
April 15, 2011 6:38 am
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Evan Knappenberger, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War who served in roughly the same position Bradley Manning did (but several years earlier), was interviewed by his college newspaper about my latest obsession, DOD’s network security. (h/t Asher_Wolf)
What kind of access did you have here and in Iraq?
Army security is like a Band-Aid on a sunken chest wound. I remember when I was training, before I had my clearance even, they were talking about diplomatic cables. It was a big scandal at Fort Huachuca (Arizona), with all these kids from analyst school. Somebody said (in the cables) Sadaam wanted to negotiate and was willing to agree to peace terms before we invaded, and Bush said no. And this wasn’t very widely known. Somehow it came across on a cable at Fort Huachuca, and everybody at the fort knew about it.
It’s interesting the access we had. I did the briefing for a two-star general every morning for a year. So I had secret and top-secret information readily available. The funny thing is, Western’s password system they have here on all these computers is better security than the Army had on their secret computers.
There are 2 million people, many of them not U.S. citizens, with access to SIPRNet (Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, the Department of Defense’s largest network for the exchange of classified information and messages). There are 1,400 government agencies with SIPR websites. It’s not that secret.
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We basically gave (the Iraqi army) SIPRNet. It’s not official, but if you’ve got a secret Internet computer sitting there with a wire running across from the American side of the base, with no guard, you’re basically giving them access.
Then in every Iraqi division command post, you have a SIPRNet computer, with all the stuff Bradley Manning leaked and massive amounts more.
I could look up FBI files on the SIPRNet. In fact, I was reading Hunter Thompson’s “Hell’s Angels” book, and I was like “this sounds cool,” and I looked up all the Hell’s Angels.
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More:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2011/04/15/former-army-intelligence-analyst-army-security-is-like-a-band-aid-on-a-sunken-chest-wound/:kick: