Reposted from our newsgroup- Securecomp
Seems like even NSA can’t figure out what Snowden had access to and what
he took.
How did he get all that super duper secret data?
From a thin client into NSA’s / US intelligence Cloud network. He
didn’t have to sneak into Ft. Meade, or Utah. Nope, he sat in Hawaii
and ate pineapples as he downloaded tons of stuff, right off the ether.
To amplify this a little.
After 9/11, there were criticisms that the intelligence community was
not interconnected enough to leverage their data. FBI may have one
name, CIA, another, etc… .
Should be more sharing.
There are “secret” Internets connecting DoD, and other TLAs. One
version is SIPRNet. Others exist. Once you have the proper credentials
to log on. (Like the PPOE servers used by your ISP, though I hope much
more stringent), then a lot of it is open and subject to Google like
searches.
While a “system admin” (what ever that means) for Booz Allen Hamilton,
Snowden obviously had the right credentials at the proper thin client
terminal to “google” away and download to his heart’s content. Just as
there is minimal accountability on the public Internet for the info you
seek and download, there appears to be little on the secret Internet.
After all, you have the clearance, right? So you are doing your job of
connecting disparate dots and fingering the bad guys without burdensome
rules, restrictions and bureaucracy getting in the way.
Cloud computing indeed.
R
–excerpt———–
“More than two months after documents leaked by former contractor Edward
Snowden first began appearing in the news media, the National Security
Agency still doesn’t know the full extent of what he took, according to
intelligence community sources, and is “overwhelmed” trying to assess
the damage…..
Sources said authorities believe the trove of unreleased materials
includes details of data collection by U.S. allies, including the U.K.,
Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These English-speaking allies, known
along with the U.S. as the “Five Eyes,” are critical to U.S.
intelligence efforts.
Snowden was working for Booz Allen Hamilton in Hawaii as a contractor
for the NSA before he flew to Hong Kong in May 2013. Documents that he
had leaked then became the basis of a series of articles by Guardian
journalist Glenn Greenwald and Barton Gellman of the Washington Post
about the extent of the NSA’s monitoring of electronic communications.
Greenwald has told reporters that Snowden has leaked him and Laura
Poitras, a documentary filmmaker, thousands of documents — all of which
have since been encrypted — and that the encoded files have been shared
with others
NSA had poor data compartmentalization, said the sources, allowing
Snowden, who was a system administrator, to roam freely across wide
areas. By using a “thin client” computer he remotely accessed the NSA
data from his base in Hawaii…..
One U.S. intelligence official said government officials “are
overwhelmed” trying to account for what Snowden took. Another said that
the NSA has a poor audit capability, which is frustrating efforts to
complete a damage assessment…..”
http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/20/20108770-us-doesnt-know-what-snowden-took-sources
-say?lite