Why, it's funny you should ask! I just got a letter from the Office or Personnel Management about three months ago, proudly informing me that all that data is now in the hands of some foreign intelligence service.
Of course, they claimed it was the result of a "sophisticated" attack, which is government fail-speak for "We left your data on a bus, and a hobo took it".
No it isn't. The hack of OPM was very well publicized. It was a long time project of the Chinese government to break into OPM's computers. I don't believe everything I read, but in this case I know is exactly what happened.
That doesn't prove the data was well secured or that the attack was especially sophisticated, but surely China is a capable adversary.
This is just dead wrong. I think you're conflating "Government" and "Politicians". The government pays tech very well and hires intelligent people. I once did a consulting gig and went in with your exact mindset. It was the only time I've ever been fully confident that I was the dumbest person in the room.
The reason they'll always lose is the sheer quantity of attacks. Every day we have front page posts critical of the US government. That sentiment (clearly) extends far beyond the front page of hacker news. I'd wager you wouldn't have to put much effort into finding anti-governmental rhetoric in the comments section of a cooking website.
Beyond that, the weak link is rarely the technical side, e.g. Snowden. I think we all can be confident they will lose the information, but I really don't believe it's because they are technically incompetent.
No they don't. Or at least, not the parts I worked in. Maybe the really secure stuff gets paid well, but from what I've seen government jobs are one of the worst paying jobs for an IT individual.
They'll never admit it gets stolen either.
[citation needed]Edit: I just remembered, there is (of course) a relevant xkcd for this: https://xkcd.com/932/
Trust me, you could hack any recruiting company and they'd be sitting on much more data than this.
Due to the amount of turnover and lack of upper management effort you can "hack" almost any recruiting company. Most new recruiters have access to all internal records and are using a basic password (12345678 or password123)
It's not uncommon for recruiters to access other companies database to find numbers and email addresses.
Honestly if you have ever sent your resume to a recruiting agency your information is fairly accessible to anyone who cares to look for it. I can find cell phone numbers of most managers in the city because they applied for some recruiting agencies entry level positions 10+ years ago.
[1] Which I'm sure intelligence agencies are thankful for, because all the tin-foil hatters are misplacing their resources in designing conspiracy theories about an incompetent "private intelligence organization" which amounts to a bunch of people who could easily be outsmarted by a 4chan-er with good Google-fu. You know all those stories you heard about the KGB being incompetent, or now hear about how the Party is in modern China w/r/t information control? Yeah.. the FIVEEYES are about on par when it comes to incompetence.
Is this for real?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8xlUNK4JHQ
(I would like to see corresponding movies warning students coming to study in the U.S. about U.S. government attempts to recruit them.)
"The very first thing University of Washington Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity (accredited by U.S. Department of Homeland Security, whatever that means) teaches you about becoming a CIO is precisely delegating responsibility :)"
So, you'll excuse my potty mouth, but I have to repeat myself - EVERYONE engaged on either side of this practice is a certifiable idiot.
Please don't give us the "we weren't hacked. It was a company we used that was!" Nonsense. I'm tired of hearing this. It's the same thing blue shield said when its/my/your data was pilfered. YOU are responsible for it! If you pass it off to some incompetent third party, then that reflects even more poorly on you!