4 ms·

'Keys to kingdom' leaked by Sweden exposing military secrets, EU secure intranet

35 points by freeflight 9y ago

banashark 9y ago
the article on privateinternetaccess adds some nice details: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2017/07/swedish-transport-agency-worst-known-governmental-leak-ever-is-slowly-coming-to-light/ https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2017/07/swedish-t...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- mercer 9y ago
  You forgot something there... EDIT: uBlock did this, my apologies.
leke 9y ago
Should these kind of things be on computers?
dijit 9y ago
I'm surprised this hasn't come up on HN earlier as it's been in the news in Sweden for a couple of days already. Lots of mud being thrown around especially towards Russia (Swedes are scared of Russia because they did not join NATO in an effort to remain neutral) But from my perspective it's a weird cognitive dissonance involved in this story. The real issue is not that this content (which is sensitive) was outsourced, it was that it was outsourced to "people who may be pro-russia". No matter that they're outsourcing this information to a US company. That is not the scandal. I know the USA is supposedly an ally but, with their history of spying on foreign (EU) ministers and political leaders it's unnerving that nobody challenges the notion of giving US companies (and by proxy; the US government) even more access to data.
- gozur88 9y ago
  The USG probably already has it, particularly if security is as important to these people as it seems to be. If Sweden isn't part of NATO, would it be correct to call Sweden and the US allies? I don't see it.
  - towb 9y ago
    > If Sweden isn't part of NATO, would it be correct to call Sweden and the US allies? I don't see it. Sweden and Finland signed a "Host Nation Support Agreement"[1] with NATO a few years ago. And there's also been previous joint military exercises with the US/NATO in Sweden, and the upcoming exercise "Aurora 17"[2]. [1]http://shape.nato.int/finland-and-sweden-signing-a-memorandum-of-understanding-with-nato-for-operational-and-logistic-support http://shape.nato.int/finland-and-sweden-signing-a-memorandu... [2]http://www.forsvarsmakten.se/en/activities/exercises/aurora-17/ http://www.forsvarsmakten.se/en/activities/exercises/aurora-...
- qb45 9y ago
  So what exactly has happened there? They say that some "transport agency" has uploaded their database to a 3rd party and this somehow implies compromise of military databases too? How is "EU secure intranet" relevant?
  - dijit 9y ago
    EU secure intranet has no business being there. I've never heard of it and it's "not a thing" in regards to this. Even if it is a thing in real life. What happened was; the Swedish equivalent of the DMV was outsourcing everything to IBM, IBM were using their sites in the post-soviet bloc to handle this. Part of the outsourcing were people playing a bit fast and loose with data security standards. Their primary database was unencrypted and they would routinely pass around excel spreadsheets with confidential information in them via email (even to external folks) Then the Swedish government gave the "DMV" a list of people under witness protection. That list was sent (with a bunch of others) for "removal" from the system, IBM in the post-soviet country could not understand the difference between military personnel who had to be delisted for being undercover and witness protection people who would be given new identities. So they sent a list with the new and old identities in an unencrypted excel spreadsheet. Those two sheets are what leaked. The rest of the information was uncovered while they were looking at the source of the sheets.
dang 9y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14825766 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14825766
- freeflight 9y ago
  I feel like something in my brain broke and I'm suddenly way stupider than usual, I can't access any article there, it's only a link to the domain, am I doing something wrong?
  - dang 9y ago
    It's a link to the previous HN discussion of the same story. We often post these to explain to readers why a later submission has been tagged [dupe] above. If that still doesn't make sense, feel free to email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll explain further.
    - freeflight 9y ago
      Figured it out, my ad blocker removed the URL from the discussion you linked to, so it ended up looking really odd on my end.
  - Arkanosis 9y ago
    Check your ad blocker. Mine (uBlock Origin) did remove the main link.
    - freeflight 9y ago
      You are right, that's been the issue. And I thought I stumbled upon some mystery part of HN that I've never seen before lol

35 points by freeflight 9y ago

the article on privateinternetaccess adds some nice details: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2017/07/swedish-transport-agency-worst-known-governmental-leak-ever-is-slowly-coming-to-light/ https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2017/07/swedish-t...

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
mercer 9y ago
You forgot something there... EDIT: uBlock did this, my apologies.

leke 9y ago

Should these kind of things be on computers?

dijit 9y ago

I'm surprised this hasn't come up on HN earlier as it's been in the news in Sweden for a couple of days already. Lots of mud being thrown around especially towards Russia (Swedes are scared of Russia because they did not join NATO in an effort to remain neutral) But from my perspective it's a weird cognitive dissonance involved in this story. The real issue is not that this content (which is sensitive) was outsourced, it was that it was outsourced to "people who may be pro-russia". No matter that they're outsourcing this information to a US company. That is not the scandal. I know the USA is supposedly an ally but, with their history of spying on foreign (EU) ministers and political leaders it's unnerving that nobody challenges the notion of giving US companies (and by proxy; the US government) even more access to data.

gozur88 9y ago
The USG probably already has it, particularly if security is as important to these people as it seems to be. If Sweden isn't part of NATO, would it be correct to call Sweden and the US allies? I don't see it.
- towb 9y ago
  > If Sweden isn't part of NATO, would it be correct to call Sweden and the US allies? I don't see it. Sweden and Finland signed a "Host Nation Support Agreement"[1] with NATO a few years ago. And there's also been previous joint military exercises with the US/NATO in Sweden, and the upcoming exercise "Aurora 17"[2]. [1]http://shape.nato.int/finland-and-sweden-signing-a-memorandum-of-understanding-with-nato-for-operational-and-logistic-support http://shape.nato.int/finland-and-sweden-signing-a-memorandu... [2]http://www.forsvarsmakten.se/en/activities/exercises/aurora-17/ http://www.forsvarsmakten.se/en/activities/exercises/aurora-...
qb45 9y ago
So what exactly has happened there? They say that some "transport agency" has uploaded their database to a 3rd party and this somehow implies compromise of military databases too? How is "EU secure intranet" relevant?
- dijit 9y ago
  EU secure intranet has no business being there. I've never heard of it and it's "not a thing" in regards to this. Even if it is a thing in real life. What happened was; the Swedish equivalent of the DMV was outsourcing everything to IBM, IBM were using their sites in the post-soviet bloc to handle this. Part of the outsourcing were people playing a bit fast and loose with data security standards. Their primary database was unencrypted and they would routinely pass around excel spreadsheets with confidential information in them via email (even to external folks) Then the Swedish government gave the "DMV" a list of people under witness protection. That list was sent (with a bunch of others) for "removal" from the system, IBM in the post-soviet country could not understand the difference between military personnel who had to be delisted for being undercover and witness protection people who would be given new identities. So they sent a list with the new and old identities in an unencrypted excel spreadsheet. Those two sheets are what leaked. The rest of the information was uncovered while they were looking at the source of the sheets.

dang 9y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14825766 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14825766

freeflight 9y ago
I feel like something in my brain broke and I'm suddenly way stupider than usual, I can't access any article there, it's only a link to the domain, am I doing something wrong?
- dang 9y ago
  It's a link to the previous HN discussion of the same story. We often post these to explain to readers why a later submission has been tagged [dupe] above. If that still doesn't make sense, feel free to email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll explain further.
  - freeflight 9y ago
    Figured it out, my ad blocker removed the URL from the discussion you linked to, so it ended up looking really odd on my end.
- Arkanosis 9y ago
  Check your ad blocker. Mine (uBlock Origin) did remove the main link.
  - freeflight 9y ago
    You are right, that's been the issue. And I thought I stumbled upon some mystery part of HN that I've never seen before lol