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The whole article is weird for barely mentioning compartmentalization as a standard intelligence approach (they mention as a few things but as innovations). And
by joe_the_user 7y ago
The whole article is weird for barely mentioning compartmentalization as a standard intelligence approach (they mention as a few things but as innovations). And for speaking as if the programs that they knew about were all that was happening.
That said, the compromised database was from a civilian, non-intelligence agency. Of course, logically, CIA agents shouldn't have been in that database but it seems they were.
And the other thing is that you have CIA, NSA etc working hard to spy on everyone but none of them were willing and able to keep the larger Federal Government from having terrible security practices. Which comes from the intelligence agencies being more about catching people and learning secrets than about protecting the US as such.
- WalterBright 7y ago> That said, the compromised database was from a civilian, non-intelligence agency. Yet they had fingerprints, meaning they must have gotten the data from the government. But it does lead to a larger question. Articles by cybersecurity people always seem to focus on preventing unauthorized access. I've never read one that talked about given the inevitability of unauthorized access, how to avoid losing everything? After all, we have ships with watertight compartments. Even spy networks are organized into "cells" to limit the damage from compromised agents. Why is security not talking about compartmentalization?
- sneak 7y agoI am fairly certain that is why things like Cloudflare’s Red October exist.
- joe_the_user 7y agoWhy is security not talking about compartmentalization? Well, this is one article and it's always possible this is one of those "write down official X's talking points" articles, and official X doesn't talk about compartmentalization because the impression they are aiming for is "look us, we're helpless, helpless against these threats, please give us unlimited money and power and might be able to fix things, if we're lucky."
- wbl 7y agoThey weren't. That's the problem, because the actual diplomats were.