Pentagon's failed flash drive ban policy: A lesson for every CIO
The Pentagon has granted many exceptions, possibly numbering in the thousands, to allow staff members who administer secure computer networks to use flash drives and other portable storage devices, department spokesmen say. [...] But officials say waivers go to people who update software and run helpdesk services for the Pentagon's vast computer network and are needed to run the system efficiently.
Yeah, that's a thing, apparently.
Despite a number of leaks already flowing out of the U.S. government — notably the National Security Agency and PRISM leaks, and so on and so forth — the U.S. Department of Defense is allowing possibly "thousands" of staff to ignore the rules of portable storage devices on secure government machines for the sake of efficiency.
Which is fine. You know, it's not as though the U.S. is pumping pretty much every resource into tracking down a former U.S. intelligence agency contractor, who leaked documents that may have jeopardized national security by revealing a mass dragnet surveillance program, whose location at the time of writing remains unknown. Exactly how Edward Snowden leaked the documents to U.K. and U.S. newspapers remains unclear. The chances are that it was by plugging in a USB stick and downloading sensitive and classified materials for his later perusal.
