This is the government... you have to put on your bizarro-economics and bizarro-ethics glasses for the State to make sense. It does not operate like a market. Failure results in people being shuffled around, and larger budgets. Failure justifies more control and power. People get taken down for political reasons, not based on a lack of ability or lack of virtue. I would hope this measure succeeds and to see something meaningful come out of it, I just don't see it happening. On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 8:56 PM Ronald F. Guilmette <rfg@tristatelogic.com> wrote:
My apologies in advance to any here who might feel that this is off topic... I don't personally believe that it is. Frankly, I don't know of that many mailing lists where the subscribers are likely to care as much about network security (and/or the lack thereof) as the membership of this list does.
By now, most of you will have read about the massive federal data breach at the U.S. Government's Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and also the fact that (by OPM's own preliminary estimates) this massive data breach affects at least four million federal government employees... but perhaps as many as 14 million current and former employees. However as this story is still evolving, even as we speak, you may perhaps not be familiar with the following additional important facts that have just come out:
*) In addition to ordinary government personel records, including the usual kinds of frequently-hacked personal information (e.g. social security numbers), an as-yet undetermined number of highly detailed 127-page government security clearance forms (SF86) containing vast and intimate details of virtually every aspect of the lives of essentially EVERYONE who has applied for or been granted a government security clearance at any time within THE PAST 30 YEARS have also been hacked/leaked.
(Experts seem to agree that this security clearance data constitutes and absolute gold mine and treasure trove of information for foreign intelligence services, opening up vast possibilities for phishing, blackmail, and on and on.)
*) The Director of the Office of Personnel Management, Ms. Katherine Archueta was warned, repeatedly, and over several years, by her own department's Inspector General (IG) that many of OPM's systems were insecure and should be taken out of service. Nontheless, as reveled during congressional testimony yesterday, she overruled and ignored this advice and kept the systems online.
Given the above facts, I've just started a new Whitehouse Petition, asking that the director of OPM, Ms. Archueta, be fired for gross incompetence. I _do_ understand that the likelihood of anyone ever getting fired for incompetence anywhere within the Washington D.C. Beltway is very much of a long shot, based on history, but I nontheless feel that as a U.S. citizen and taxpayer, I at least want to make my opinion of this matter known to The Powers That Be.
I *really* would like some help from members of this list on this endeavor. In particular, if you agree, I'd appreciate it if you would sign my petition, and, whether you agree or not, I sure would appreciate it if you would all share the following URL widely:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/immediately-fire-office-personnel...
Note that Whitehouse petitions do not even get properly or completely published on the Whitehouse web site until such time as they receive at least 150 signatures. I am hoping that members of this (NANOG) mailing list will help me to get past that threshold.
Thanks for your attention.
Regards, rfg
-- Tyler W. Mills Infrastructure and Network Engineer Atlanta, GA.