Alexis Turner

Still stupid

(government, national security, sweet jesus — )

4 Oct. 2007

I got a little flak from the AoIR listserv members (well, okay, just 1 or 2 of them) who didn't think my concern over the US Intelligence community's social networking practices was warranted. But I have to say, oddly enough this article on the SANS website today detailing how 1) the Homeland Security notification mailing list is not locked and is thus open to a pseudo-DDOS or malicious code or phishing and, more to the point, 2) that its subscribers are responding with identifiable personal and employment information to a black box list of anonymous recipients whom they do not know doesn't really seem to lessen my concerns. Neither does the fact that they can't accurately follow instructions on how to unsubscribe to a mailing list, but that is more of a secondary concern....I think.....Okay, not really - that part scares me, too.