When you buy used stuff like computers, ipods etc, you can sometimes find surprises inside. Cool games, songs you like, porn… Chris Ogle bought an MP3 player for $14.50 at an Oklahoma second-hand store that had a much bigger surprise inside. 60 files that contained classified info like Iraq and Afghanistan deployed soldiers’ personal info, mission briefing and even a base equipment manifest.
Chris says the MP3 player never worked properly, so when he plugged it in to see why, he found the files. What he got was huge lists of soldier’s SSNs, cellphone numbers and health info. Chris is reportedly returning it to the DOD upon request. Hell, we all lose our flash drives from time to time.
I find it interesting that he said the device never worked as an MP3 player. The type wasn’t specified. Makes me wonder if they are using fake mp3 players to hold that kind of sensitive info.
[Gizmodo]
TAGS:
classified, information, MP3, player, US Army, used
i can promise you it DID work, but not very well. the songs would cut out half way through. it had to be shut down and restarted each time, it became not worth using
it was/is not fake, just cheap
was just looking for some more info on the very very vague story i heard on the radio…listening to it i couldn’t even tell if the ipod was new or used….makes more sense now.
actually, with an ipod you can totally delete the files that it comes with and use it as a portable drive, so it wouldent have been a fake ipod.
I use an old iPod as a thumb drive all the time. You can just drag and drop files to it as if it were a mass storage device (which it is). It’s actually a fairly ingenious way to get information into countries that wouldn’t want you to get in with it. There are even ways you can hide the files on it so that even if they plug it into a computer they wouldn’t be able to find it!
You can hide files on any computer quite easily. The simplest way is one of the many programs for PC and Mac that hide the Folder. Unless you know to start up the program (which also can be hidden) and the password, the hidden folder(s) will not appear.
If someone does an intensive search they could probably determine that there is more drive space used than visible items would need, then deduce there are hidden files (other than system files) somewhere. A cursory search where only visible files are examined would never reveal that. You do want to hide the concealing software by at least changing its name.