Information stolen

[judasmachine]

My g/f used to be in the Navy, and her name was on that computer that was stolen. We're a little nervous, and confused as what to do. I haven't read the letter in detail yet, and appears to just be a warning that her name was on there. Anyone here have any experiance with ID theft, or should we be that worried about it?

 

[Taggart]

You'll want to keep an eye on her credit report.

Go here if you think someone is using her info.

 

[judasmachine]

Thank you.

Yeah we just got the letter today, so we haven't done anything, but I'll show her the page, and we'll try and get ourselves protected.

 

[QED]

There was a news report here in Cleveland about a miltary vet whose pension check was stolen shortly after the laptop went missing.

They have an unlisted phone number and address, but whoever had access to that laptop would have all of that information making stealing pension checks easy pickings.

 

[Armitage]

Yep, I got that letter yesterday also.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has recently learned that an employee took home electronic data from the VA, which he was not authorized to do and was in violation of established policies. The employees home was burglarized and this data was stolen. The data contained identifying information including names, social security numbers, and dates of birth for up to 26.5 million veterans and some spouses, as well as some disability ratings. As a result of this incident, information identifiable with you was potentially exposed to others.

I'm assuming that means my name was on the laptop also.

Dumb asses :|

My guess is that it was probably just a common burglary, and the thief has no idea what to do with the data. But we'll see.

 

[Linflas]

Originally posted by: Armitage
Yep, I got that letter yesterday also.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has recently learned that an employee took home electronic data from the VA, which he was not authorized to do and was in violation of established policies. The employees home was burglarized and this data was stolen. The data contained identifying information including names, social security numbers, and dates of birth for up to 26.5 million veterans and some spouses, as well as some disability ratings. As a result of this incident, information identifiable with you was potentially exposed to others.

I'm assuming that means my name was on the laptop also.

Dumb asses :|

My guess is that it was probably just a common burglary, and the thief has no idea what to do with the data. But we'll see.

If the they didn't they sure must know now. The only hope is they either tossed the disk or erased it before the story broke.

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: Linflas

Originally posted by: Armitage
Yep, I got that letter yesterday also.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has recently learned that an employee took home electronic data from the VA, which he was not authorized to do and was in violation of established policies. The employees home was burglarized and this data was stolen. The data contained identifying information including names, social security numbers, and dates of birth for up to 26.5 million veterans and some spouses, as well as some disability ratings. As a result of this incident, information identifiable with you was potentially exposed to others.

I'm assuming that means my name was on the laptop also.

Dumb asses :|

My guess is that it was probably just a common burglary, and the thief has no idea what to do with the data. But we'll see.

If the they didn't they sure must know now. The only hope is they either tossed the disk or erased it before the story broke.

Yea, that thought has crossed my mind - they may have been better off keeping quiet about it for awhile until they actually knew there was a problem - tough choice.

 

[pontifex]

ok, this is a military laptop. why the hell isn't it super secure with tons of encryption and strong passwords?

 

[Bootprint]

Originally posted by: pontifex
ok, this is a military laptop. why the hell isn't it super secure with tons of encryption and strong passwords?

Lowest bidder

Probably had MS BOB 2000 on it.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: pontifex
ok, this is a military laptop. why the hell isn't it super secure with tons of encryption and strong passwords?

Because it was under civilian political control

 

[pontifex]

but still, with all that important info, why aren't there any security measures to protect it?

 

[Linflas]

Originally posted by: pontifex
ok, this is a military laptop. why the hell isn't it super secure with tons of encryption and strong passwords?

Department of Veteran Affairs is not DoD so it was in no way a military laptop,

 

[GeneValgene]

Originally posted by: Taggart
You'll want to keep an eye on her credit report.

Go here if you think someone is using her info.

yep...just put an alert at one of the major credit reporting agencies

 

[Linflas]

Originally posted by: pontifex
but still, with all that important info, why aren't there any security measures to protect it?

You really don't know your Federal government do you? Most of the real tech stuff is done by contractors and those contractors bend pretty easily to pressure from the actual civil service employees that have the power to make on site contractors daily lives a miserable hell if they don't go along.

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: Linflas

Originally posted by: pontifex
ok, this is a military laptop. why the hell isn't it super secure with tons of encryption and strong passwords?

Department of Veteran Affairs is not DoD so it was in no way a military laptop,

Exactly - civilian laptop. Not that military ones are any more secure - aside from the classified ones that have to be locked up all the time - or couriered if they're let out at all. And that's just physical security. I've never seen encrypted filesystems on any computers I've dealt with while in the military, or now as a contractor.

Security measures - like encrypted filesystems - can help. But it's the idiot behind the keyboard that's going to screw it up most of the time.

 

[TheTony]

Originally posted by: Armitage
Yep, I got that letter yesterday also.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has recently learned that an employee took home electronic data from the VA, which he was not authorized to do and was in violation of established policies. The employees home was burglarized and this data was stolen. The data contained identifying information including names, social security numbers, and dates of birth for up to 26.5 million veterans and some spouses, as well as some disability ratings. As a result of this incident, information identifiable with you was potentially exposed to others.

The data also potentially includes upwards of 1.1 million active duty.

 

[nakedfrog]

I wonder just how many people they sent that letter to? I wasn't sure if it was limited to just people who were in the data or not. I got one yesterday.

 

[olds]

I haven't received a letter yet. Has anyone put a fraud alert on their credit report?

 

[biggestmuff]

Originally posted by: pontifex
ok, this is a military laptop. why the hell isn't it super secure with tons of encryption and strong passwords?

YEAH! Just like in the movie, right?!

Beep, beep, boop! Whir!

"System is now secure with Top Secret Double Magma Encryption"


"System secure, sir!"


Keep dreamin'

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: biggestmuff

Originally posted by: pontifex
ok, this is a military laptop. why the hell isn't it super secure with tons of encryption and strong passwords?

YEAH! Just like in the movie, right?!

Beep, beep, boop! Whir!

"System is now secure with Top Secret Double Magma Encryption"


"System secure, sir!"


Keep dreamin'

what crawled up your ass and died?
no where in my posts did i say anything like that...

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: nakedfrog
I wonder just how many people they sent that letter to? I wasn't sure if it was limited to just people who were in the data or not. I got one yesterday.

I'm not exactly sure either - the wording leaves some wiggle room:

As a result of this incident, information identifiable with you was potentially exposed to others.

Does this mean that my data was on it, and the "potentially" is just because they don't know if the thief did anything with the data. Or my data was possibly on the drive - they're just not sure. Leave it to the government to obfuscate a basic question :roll:

 

[biggestmuff]

Originally posted by: pontifex

Originally posted by: biggestmuff

Originally posted by: pontifex
ok, this is a military laptop. why the hell isn't it super secure with tons of encryption and strong passwords?

YEAH! Just like in the movie, right?!

Beep, beep, boop! Whir!

"System is now secure with Top Secret Double Magma Encryption"


"System secure, sir!"


Keep dreamin'

what crawled up your ass and died?
no where in my posts did i say anything like that...

Your post exhibited blinding ignorance. I attempted to point this out, using over-the-top humor, in a manner that you could understand. This did not work.

 

[daveymark]

Originally posted by: biggestmuff

Originally posted by: pontifex

Originally posted by: biggestmuff

Originally posted by: pontifex
ok, this is a military laptop. why the hell isn't it super secure with tons of encryption and strong passwords?

YEAH! Just like in the movie, right?!

Beep, beep, boop! Whir!

"System is now secure with Top Secret Double Magma Encryption"


"System secure, sir!"


Keep dreamin'

what crawled up your ass and died?
no where in my posts did i say anything like that...

Your post exhibited blinding ignorance. I attempted to point this out, using over-the-top humor, in a manner that you could understand. This did not work.

if you can dumb it down for the rest of us, that would be great.

If you can, keep the words "beep, boop, whir!" in the dumbed down translation, as those were the only words I was able to somewhat grasp.

 

[allisolm]

Originally posted by: Armitage

Does this mean that my data was on it, and the "potentially" is just because they don't know if the thief did anything with the data. Or my data was possibly on the drive - they're just not sure. Leave it to the government to obfuscate a basic question :roll:

According to the information site for this here "VA is sending individual notification letters to veterans, servicemembers, and reservists whose personal information was included on the stolen computer equipment."

My husband got the letter.
I wonder what it would do to the credit reporting system if all of the 26.5 million put fraud alerts on their accounts. I haven't done anything that I don't ordinarily do, check credit card and bank statements carefully, don't respond to phishing attempts, etc. Hopefully it was stolen by teens who wiped the drives and then sold the laptop/external drive before they knew what was on them.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Originally posted by: allisolm

According to the information site for this here "VA is sending individual notification letters to veterans, servicemembers, and reservists whose personal information was included on the stolen computer equipment."

My husband got the letter.
I wonder what it would do to the credit reporting system if all of the 26.5 million put fraud alerts on their accounts. I haven't done anything that I don't ordinarily do, check credit card and bank statements carefully, don't respond to phishing attempts, etc. Hopefully it was stolen by teens who wiped the drives and then sold the laptop/external drive before they knew what was on them.

I just got the letter yesterday. Morons. I imagine this will have no effect on the overwhelming majority of veterans, and given the scope of the problem I imagine if there IS widespread identity theft, Congress will have to act to protect us. We shall see . . .