Oh, you mean like all the personal information I had to submit to the Defense Investigative Service when they did my background check for a security clearance?

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".

>> 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.

My wife got the same letter from her time working at the VA. Fingerprints, social security number and all the other personal details that they required.

Didn't the Chinese government more or less admit it was behind the OPM hack?

That doesn't prove the data was well secured or that the attack was especially sophisticated, but surely China is a capable adversary.

I don't wonder. It'll get hacked and stolen, repeatedly. Government isn't technically competent by itself, and doesn't know how to select those who are.

> Government isn't technically competent by itself, and doesn't know how to select those who are.

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.

As someone who's done DoD contracting for many years working for different agencies... I have to agree with parent. The amount of competent people I ran into, on the government and contractor side, could be counted on a single hand. I've reported and seen so many security holes that were never fixed it's ridiculous. I'd like to imagine the work done by our group was top notch but even if it objectively is it's rare to work on any DoD project without 10+ contractors all with varying levels of competence.

Very true. I did DoD/IC contracting for 16 years before finally getting fed up and going into the "real" world last year. There are some very talented and intelligent people working as govies and as contractors, but for every very good person there are at least 4 turds.

The OPM breach exposing personal data of all cleared individuals (and their friends & families) for the past ~25 years points to management as being grossly incompetent.

>The government pays tech very well and hires intelligent people.

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.

So other governments are having this much of a problem and this frequently?

Other governments are less appealing and visible targets.

Why? What's the metric? All governments have the same kinds of data and potential for embarrassment. And in terms of GDP, the U.S., E.U. and China are in the same ballpark.

That's one reason why such data should only be captured for specific targets, not en masse...

It'll get captured from time to time. Its precisely why mass surveillance is a terrible fucking idea.

They'll never admit it gets stolen either.