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Veterans' Identity Data Stolen

By TChris, Section Crime in the News
Posted on Tue May 23, 2006 at 05:57:36 AM EST
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by TChris

Electronic information identifying every veteran discharged since 1975 has been stolen. If you're in that group, you should be aware of what was taken.

The data included names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth for the military veterans and some spouses, the department said, although there had as yet been no indication it had been used for identity theft.

The data was stolen from the residence of a Department of Veterans Affairs employee who violated a Department policy by bringing the information home.

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    • Veterans' Identity Data Stolen | 17 comments (17 topical)
    Re: Veterans' Identity Data Stolen (none / 0) (#1)
    by Sailor on Tue May 23, 2006 at 06:33:41 AM EST
    I'm continually amazed that these idiots don't take the slightest security precautions. My laptops have encryption built in, most do, if the records are outside a secure facility just enable encryption! And why didn't they report this sooner when people would have had a better chance of protecting themsevles from ID theft?

    Re: Veterans' Identity Data Stolen (none / 0) (#2)
    by Punchy on Tue May 23, 2006 at 06:43:05 AM EST
    And why didn't they report this sooner when people would have had a better chance of protecting themsevles from ID theft? This is the point that needs to be repeated, over and over and over. This theft happened awhile ago, and yet it only surfaces yesterday. All that time given to the thieves to work those SS#s into some new scheme. Our Admin, too afraid to admit anything, let this linger for days/weeks. Republicans....supporting and protecting the troops. Yep.

    Re: Veterans' Identity Data Stolen (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue May 23, 2006 at 07:11:53 AM EST
    And why didn't they report this sooner when people would have had a better chance of protecting themsevles from ID theft?
    There's actually a very good strategic explanation for this. The nature of the theft - a common break-and-enter burglary - suggested to investigators that the thieves were probably unaware of what they now had in their possession. By not immediately announcing the breach, they lessened the likelihood that the data could be brokered around and actually put into use by more advanced criminals. I think the delay in reporting the privacy breech had to do with a specific law-enforcement strategy rather than some attempt at a cover-up. That said, the employee responsible for this should probably lose his job. It's unfortunate as I don't think there was any malicious intent here, just inconsiderate negligence that was made real by a "what if?" circumstance.

    Re: Veterans' Identity Data Stolen (none / 0) (#4)
    by aw on Tue May 23, 2006 at 07:23:43 AM EST
    I don't get it. Data on up to 26 million vets is a lot of data to carry around on a laptop. What would you do with it? Maybe I'm not up on this stuff, but can you process that much data on a laptop?

    Re: Veterans' Identity Data Stolen (none / 0) (#5)
    by Che's Lounge on Tue May 23, 2006 at 07:57:21 AM EST
    That should boost recruitment.

    Re: Veterans' Identity Data Stolen (none / 0) (#6)
    by Sailor on Tue May 23, 2006 at 07:59:31 AM EST
    a list of names and ss numbers and the theives don't know what they have!? bull$hit! you can process anything on a laptop these days that you can on a desktop.

    Re: Veterans' Identity Data Stolen (none / 0) (#7)
    by squeaky on Tue May 23, 2006 at 08:46:11 AM EST
    aw-
    lot of data to carry around on a laptop.
    Text does not take up so much space. Laptops have 80+ gigabytes on their hard drives these days. From PC mag "the text of the book War of the Worlds may be 350KB, a photograph of Tom Cruise may be 3MB, and a DVD of Tom Cruise in War of the Worlds may be 5GB." link The average length of a novel is around 120,000 words. So 26,000,000 soldiers file (SS# plus more info) may be 100 words for each soldier. That would be 2.6 billion words or let's say 2000 novels. That would only take up 7 gigabytes. My math skills are not the greatest but I think this calculation is in the ball park.

    Re: Veterans' Identity Data Stolen (none / 0) (#8)
    by Steven Sanderson on Tue May 23, 2006 at 09:50:40 AM EST
    The financial service giants had previously rigged the system so that it's near impossible for an identity theft victim to escape the financial burden they've had thrust upon them through no fault of their own. Now, courtesy of the VA, the financial service companies will have up to 26.5 million "new" accounts to collect from for a long, long time. New massive profits without lifting a finger. It's enough to make you wonder if this is more than a simple burglary, eh?

    Re: Veterans' Identity Data Stolen (none / 0) (#9)
    by Patrick on Tue May 23, 2006 at 10:02:51 AM EST
    Steve, My experience is somewhat different. ID theft being what it is, financial institutions are much more willing than in the past to write off the loss based on the simple act of reporting it, without benefit of an investigation. This fact is not lost on the unscrupulous, who are now reporting ID theft as a debt reduction plan.

    Re: Veterans' Identity Data Stolen (none / 0) (#10)
    by Dadler on Tue May 23, 2006 at 10:23:51 AM EST
    My wife is VP of Info Systems for a bank. Trust me, more theft of info and money goes on than anyone knows about. The financial institutions largely don't report it, because they don't want it known how INsecure the data and funds really are. My wife has been disgusted in the past, and is now thankfully working for a bank that seems to have some real scruples in this area.

    Re: Veterans' Identity Data Stolen (none / 0) (#11)
    by Patrick on Tue May 23, 2006 at 10:39:41 AM EST
    Dadler, That seems to dovetail nicely into my point. Except for the reasons. I had never thought that banks would want to cover it up. Data is available from almost every source, not just banks, and from what I've seen they are making money by adding services to "protect" their customers from suffering a loss due to ID theft. Of course the service costs $$$.

    Re: Veterans' Identity Data Stolen (none / 0) (#12)
    by Dadler on Tue May 23, 2006 at 10:51:02 AM EST
    Patrick, Sure, but they still have TONS of losses from theft and fraud -- from within the company and without -- to deal with. And mostly they deal with it by keeping it on the lowdown, so as not to "harm" their business. I remember one employee of a bank she used to work for, who made up dozens of fake accounts and dummy ATM cards, then kited checks in and out of those accounts, and used the ATM cards to then make $200 dollar withdrawls all around town, to the tune of probably a hundred grand when he was caught. However, after being caught, he only needed to return the money (which he still had, oddly enough), and that was it. No reporting, no prosecution, just a sigh of relief that word didn't get out about it. And, of course, any saavy person at home can do the same thing if they really want to, you don't HAVE to work for the bank. That said, the issue is really, to me, that technology and modern security is still foreign to CEO's and the like, who really make the final security decisions, and too many make them from a position of ignorance. Can tell you how many times my wife wanted to make something better, only to be told no, we don't need it by a superior with NO IDEA what they were talking about.

    Re: Veterans' Identity Data Stolen (none / 0) (#13)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue May 23, 2006 at 10:56:15 AM EST
    How come no one has realized that this event is one of the reasons that the federal government should not be snooping around in the private lives or semi-private lives of citizens without warrants? Suppose there are disks with recorded conversations floating around (supposedly only ones between US persons and foreigners) and those get stolen and put into criminal hands? Suppose that those disks include information about business practices and plans, or about some navy officer's affair with Miss Nao? For that matter, suppose they include sexy conversations between civilians in the US government (Senators, reps or members of the misadministration) and their mistresses while such are on vacation in England or France? How would some criminals put that to use?

    Re: Veterans' Identity Data Stolen (none / 0) (#14)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue May 23, 2006 at 02:02:00 PM EST
    Just wanted to float a random thought. First thing that poped into my paranoid little head upon reading this story; If you were going to stage a coup wouldn't you want to know all that you could about retierd/ex military pesonel?

    Re: Veterans' Identity Data Stolen (none / 0) (#15)
    by aw on Tue May 23, 2006 at 02:33:25 PM EST
    BooBear: That is an interesting thought. Life/health insurers might also like to have a database like this. Anybody else have any random thoughts about who would like to have this info?

    Re: Veterans' Identity Data Stolen (none / 0) (#16)
    by Sailor on Tue May 23, 2006 at 02:51:33 PM EST
    zaitzeff, excellent point. All in all, it does seem odd that he took all those numbers out of the building and then a 'random' burglary gained access to them.

    Re: Veterans' Identity Data Stolen (none / 0) (#17)
    by squeaky on Tue May 23, 2006 at 03:13:13 PM EST
    BooBear-Wow a Coup D'etat sounds interesting. Hope it is Arundhati Roy who is planning to oust the Bush regime.

    Veterans' Identity Data Stolen | 17 comments (17 topical)