LOL: Officials Say U.S. May Never Know Extent of Snowden’s Leaks

[kpete]

Officials Say U.S. May Never Know Extent of Snowden’s Leaks
By MARK MAZZETTI and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
Published: December 14, 2013


WASHINGTON — American intelligence and law enforcement investigators have concluded that they may never know the entirety of what the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden extracted from classified government computers before leaving the United States, according to senior government officials.

Investigators remain in the dark about the extent of the data breach partly because the N.S.A. facility in Hawaii where Mr. Snowden worked — unlike other N.S.A. facilities — was not equipped with up-to-date software that allows the spy agency to monitor which corners of its vast computer landscape its employees are navigating at any given time.

Six months since the investigation began, officials said Mr. Snowden had further covered his tracks by logging into classified systems using the passwords of other security agency employees, as well as by hacking firewalls installed to limit access to certain parts of the system.

“They’ve spent hundreds and hundreds of man-hours trying to reconstruct everything he has gotten, and they still don’t know all of what he took,” a senior administration official said. “I know that seems crazy, but everything with this is crazy.”



MORE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/us/officials-say-us-may-never-know-extent-of-snowdens-leaks.html

[Autumn]

1. Too funny.

Recommended.

[BlueStreak]

2. Which is to say that nobody knows the extent of the security state

[7wo7rees]

7. +1

[Downwinder]

3. Have to take the S for security out of NSA.

And they are advising others on security?

This another example of newspeak?

[johnnyreb]

4. Reinstate Barney Fife!

Cheaper, better, more respected counter-terror.

[ljm2002]

5. More from the article...

...it's really amazing:

Lonny Anderson, the N.S.A.’s chief technology officer, said in a recent interview that much of what Mr. Snowden took came from parts of the computer system open to anyone with a high-level clearance. And part of his job was to move large amounts of data between different parts of the system.

But, Mr. Anderson said, Mr. Snowden’s activities were not closely monitored and did not set off warning signals.

“So the lesson learned for us is that you’ve got to remove anonymity” for those with access to classified systems, Mr. Anderson said during the interview with the Lawfare blog, part of a podcast series the website plans to run this week.

Officials said Mr. Snowden, who had an intimate understanding of the N.S.A.’s computer architecture, would have known that the Hawaii facility was behind other agency outposts in installing monitoring software.

(emphasis mine)

So the NSA just now figured out they should not allow anonymous, wholesale access to large chunks of classified data by their IT staff? Really, NSA? "DOH"

[Danascot]

6. Lonny Anderson?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. But...but..didn't folks here say that he hasn't released anything we don't already know?

So, maybe those folks could help the NSA find out what's missing.