OPM Data Breach - Whitehouse Petition - Help Wanted

Ronald F. Guilmette rfg at tristatelogic.com
Thu Jun 18 00:54:30 UTC 2015


My apologies in advance to any here who might feel that this is off
topic... I don't personally believe that it is.  Frankly, I don't
know of that many mailing lists where the subscribers are likely to
care as much about network security (and/or the lack thereof) as the
membership of this list does.

By now, most of you will have read about the massive federal data breach
at the U.S. Government's Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and also
the fact that (by OPM's own preliminary estimates) this massive data breach
affects at least four million federal government employees... but perhaps
as many as 14 million current and former employees.  However as this
story is still evolving, even as we speak, you may perhaps not be familiar
with the following additional important facts that have just come out:

    *)  In addition to ordinary government personel records, including
	the usual kinds of frequently-hacked personal information (e.g.
	social security numbers), an as-yet undetermined number of highly
	detailed 127-page government security clearance forms (SF86)
	containing vast and intimate details of virtually every aspect
	of the lives of essentially EVERYONE who has applied for or been
	granted a government security clearance at any time within THE
	PAST 30 YEARS have also been hacked/leaked.

	(Experts seem to agree that this security clearance data constitutes
	and absolute gold mine and treasure trove of information for foreign
	intelligence services, opening up vast possibilities for phishing,
	blackmail, and on and on.)

    *)	The Director of the Office of Personnel Management, Ms. Katherine
	Archueta was warned, repeatedly, and over several years, by her
	own department's Inspector General (IG) that many of OPM's systems
	were insecure and should be taken out of service.  Nontheless, as
	reveled during congressional testimony yesterday, she overruled
	and ignored this advice and kept the systems online.

Given the above facts, I've just started a new Whitehouse Petition, asking
that the director of OPM, Ms. Archueta, be fired for gross incompetence.
I _do_ understand that the likelihood of anyone ever getting fired for
incompetence anywhere within the Washington D.C. Beltway is very much of
a long shot, based on history, but I nontheless feel that as a U.S.
citizen and taxpayer, I at least want to make my opinion of this matter
known to The Powers That Be.

I *really* would like some help from members of this list on this endeavor.
In particular, if you agree, I'd appreciate it if you would sign my petition,
and, whether you agree or not, I sure would appreciate it if you would all
share the following URL widely:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/immediately-fire-office-personnel-managements-director-katherine-archueta-gross-incompetence

Note that Whitehouse petitions do not even get properly or completely
published on the Whitehouse web site until such time as they receive at
least 150 signatures.  I am hoping that members of this (NANOG) mailing
list will help me to get past that threshold.

Thanks for your attention.


Regards,
rfg



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