Is it sad that because I have worked on government systems in the past that this does not surprise me at all?<p>It makes me mad, but it is not at all surprising. The negligence on government software is crazy. That is on top of the regulations that basically don't allow developers to use new/open source technology.<p>While new technologies wouldn't have prevented this by themselves, they might have made it easier to encrypt data so the devs would have said, "oh yeah we can do that". Or they might have had defaults that prevent simple things like cross site scripting.
This might well be the dumbest thing i've ever said on the internet, but extrapolating from "data on 7% of americans just got hacked" to the premise nothing is actually secure<p>a) What would happen if we embraced this and just made all information freely available?<p>b) Is one of the likely/possible end or transitional states of the human race, all information being freely available and presumably along with it, a more enlightened approach to dealing with it?<p>c) Are there any good sci-fi books where this is explored?
> Worse… access to ALL of this information was given to certain foreign contractors, some of whom were in China.<p>Pretty sure this is unproven and, regardless, had nothing to do with the hack.
I am not sure what is actually the worst thing we learned here, that this many people were hacked or this percentage is/was employed by the US government
7% of American't were not "just hacked"[1]. Perhaps the HN title should be changed to avoid misleading users herein.<p>The title is very much click bait.<p>1. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_%28computer_security%29" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_%28computer_security%29</a>
Why is everyone so shocked? Has anyone ever talked to a friend that works for the Federal govt.? They are well known to be completely incompetent when it comes to technology. Even the DoD, which gets billions of dollars for cyber defense, often doesn't do things right.<p>How can you expect the Fed. Govt. to handle things competently when some of the best paid private contractors F' things up too. Security is hard.<p>What IS a bit surprising is not the fact that they were hacked, but that they actually found out they were hacked. From what I understand, the Fed. Govt. has lost even more important data (like designs for weapon systems), and not even realized it till like years later when the technology shows up in foreign weapons.
The article's title was just edited[1] to read, "Data on 7% of Americans Was Just Hacked, Now What?".<p>This is apparently a living document.<p>1. <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:WKgL8jW-Zb0J:blog.onename.com/americans-hacked-opm/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" rel="nofollow">http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:WKgL8jW...</a>
So wait a minute. Why couldn't this have been the NSA? I'm sure the NSA has no automatic right to at least some of that data. And if they're investigating someone (or everyone), breaking in would be their style, right?<p>Wouldn't it be really valuable to them to zip together what they already have, and what's in the OPM data, to create more links and associations?
I am so happy this is happening !<p>I always felt cryptography was treated as a back room kind of operations. We are all so busy making iOS apps. The real computer science has always taken a back seat.<p>Hopefully MORE such breeches occurs and investment in security recieves the kind of investment and respect it deserves.<p>We are all so focused on this MBA growth bullshit. Time to do some real computer science !
If it's such a big deal to loose / get the data stolen. Should you have been storing it in the first place ?
And if you do really need it, like fingerprints, start by using a hash. The other data you wish to keep are current data (not history): ssn, address, family(maybe you should be able to opt out of that, but risk them no getting contacted in certain situations) Medical records? Have a standard form that list anything important: allergies, blood-type.
Well that's my (maybe naive) view on it.
I'm always amused by these "here's how to protect data better" articles, because today's security is tomorrow's joke, and that's how we got here with the OPM hack.<p>The only way to get ahead of it is to make it so that all private data is public and thus devalued. Privacy creates liability. Visibility creates value.<p>The problem we have right now is the idea that one entity should have domain over any information. That's what we need to get over. It should be shared- <i>all</i> of it, from bank security cameras down to what you're doing in the shower. When all surveillance is shared, you find that people suddenly get a lot more tolerant, because throwing stones in glass houses isn't helpful.<p>The Earth is a closed system. We have finite, shared resources. Privacy creates the fiction that it's not a closed system. You think that's how the space station works? Is that how you want it to work? No, you want cameras on <i>everything</i>, because if someone decides to experiment with the CO2 scrubbers, it affects everyone.<p>The same is true here on Earth. We're now in an age where one person or company or government can single-handedly change the habitability of the entire planet, such as Exxon did in the 80s. That's dangerous.<p>And meanwhile, there's incredibly valuable, life-saving services and conveniences we can all enjoy if we are open with all our surveillance data. How many lives could be saved or improved if we all had a smartwatch measuring our vitals and our food intake and toilet waste were monitored? That one change could single-handedly resolve most of our healthcare issues in the US.<p>What we really need instead of privacy is complete visibility coupled with a code of conduct that emulates the benefits we expect from privacy. Just because we <i>can</i> see everything doesn't mean we have a right to bother people with what we know. That's the issue we need to address. By all means, check out whomever in the shower, but that doesn't give you a right to interfere with that person's life by commenting on their genitalia. That's the key ingredient we're missing from the privacy conversation. We like privacy because we equate it with civility and thus freedom.<p>If someone doesn't know something, then they can't make you miserable with it. But that doesn't really work anymore. Even if someone doesn't know something, big data techniques can interpolate what it is they're not supposed to know. What you're really signing up for with "privacy" is granting visibility to only a privileged few- the spy agencies, the multinational companies, the hackers, and anyone willing to pay for the information.
99% were hacked the last decade, along with most of the rest of the world, by an US government agency. If people didn't care about that, why you expect sympathy for this one?
Exactly why is $AUTHOR so sure it was a foreign power that hacked OPM? Which proof can $AUTHOR provide besides unfounded rumours? It's just too simple.
I don't see that as a problem. At all. The US government (NSA, CIA, etc) has files on most of the people on the planet (including close spying of most governments, politicians and important corporations worldwide). I don't see how somebody else having 20 million records on US people would change anything.<p>On the other hand, if personal and important information about the activities (behind the curtain) of all those politicians, banksters and big corporations, american or not, was accessible to the public, perhaps things would change.