3 ms·

"But the rest of the agency had become too reliant on the system, which was originally intended to only be a temporary communications channel, and had left the

"But the rest of the agency had become too reliant on the system, which was originally intended to only be a temporary communications channel, and had left the relatively insecure site up far longer than intended and used it to send information that should have been reserved for more secure channels." Sounds familiar...

onetimemanytime 8y ago
Amazing...and they have essentially unlimited budgets. Protecting their spies is #1 in any agencies' book, otherwise who would tell you secrets? The saddest part: The "decider" probably got promoted as usual.
- meowface 8y ago
  It seems like these issues are rarely solely due to unilateral technical incompetence; there's often at least one person who sees the true risk, tries to communicate the risk, and gets completely ignored. The Challenger disaster had several Thiokol engineers express major concerns in vain; this disaster had John Reidy (supposedly): >A defense contractor for the CIA named John Reidy claims he warned the agency that it was using insecure communications systems in 2008, and again in 2010 when he started to suspect the channels had been cracked. A year later he was fired by the agency, a move he claims was retaliation for not shutting up. >“It was a recipe for disaster,” Reidy said. “We had a catastrophic failure on our hands that would ensnare a great many of our sources.” The person who could actually save the day and prevent the catastrophe gets ignored, marginalized, and/or fired. The people who were involved in the original disastrous decision keep moving up in the organization and usually keep their jobs after the catastrophe. So it's not like these organizations are lacking smart people: their institutional and bureaucratic incompetence just prevents those people from doing their job properly.

3 ms·

"But the rest of the agency had become too reliant on the system, which was originally intended to only be a temporary communications channel, and had left the

by Illniyar 8y ago

onetimemanytime 8y ago
Amazing...and they have essentially unlimited budgets. Protecting their spies is #1 in any agencies' book, otherwise who would tell you secrets? The saddest part: The "decider" probably got promoted as usual.
- meowface 8y ago
  It seems like these issues are rarely solely due to unilateral technical incompetence; there's often at least one person who sees the true risk, tries to communicate the risk, and gets completely ignored. The Challenger disaster had several Thiokol engineers express major concerns in vain; this disaster had John Reidy (supposedly): >A defense contractor for the CIA named John Reidy claims he warned the agency that it was using insecure communications systems in 2008, and again in 2010 when he started to suspect the channels had been cracked. A year later he was fired by the agency, a move he claims was retaliation for not shutting up. >“It was a recipe for disaster,” Reidy said. “We had a catastrophic failure on our hands that would ensnare a great many of our sources.” The person who could actually save the day and prevent the catastrophe gets ignored, marginalized, and/or fired. The people who were involved in the original disastrous decision keep moving up in the organization and usually keep their jobs after the catastrophe. So it's not like these organizations are lacking smart people: their institutional and bureaucratic incompetence just prevents those people from doing their job properly.