why would government agencies use large portable hard drives to store databases?
Quote: Around 1,800 of the portable Maxtor hard discs, produced in Thailand, carried two Trojan horse viruses: autorun.inf and ghost.pif, the bureau under the Ministry of Justice said.
The bureau said that hard discs with such a large capacity are usually used by government agencies to store databases and other information.
On Nov 14, 2007 7:19 AM, Oren Beck orenbeck@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2007/11/11/2003387202
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Because they are trying to get as much as they can for the least amount of money. It happens all the time. You can buy a 1TB external disk for about $500 but a quality SCSI array would be much more expensive. However, if your 1TB disk fails you lose everything. If you lose a disk in a SCSI array you don't. More and more people are trying to do things with as little money as possible and are sacrificing the security that comes along with the higher price of quality hardware.
Also, because they might be just plain stupid. :)
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From: kclug-bounces@kclug.org [mailto:kclug-bounces@kclug.org] On Behalf Of Philip Dorr Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2007 9:03 AM To: Oren Beck Cc: Kclug@kclug.org Subject: Re: Would Lin?ux have been affected by such virus preloads why would government agencies use large portable hard drives to store databases? Quote: Around 1,800 of the portable Maxtor hard discs, produced in Thailand, carried two Trojan horse viruses: autorun.inf and ghost.pif, the bureau under the Ministry of Justice said. The bureau said that hard discs with such a large capacity are usually used by government agencies to store databases and other information. On Nov 14, 2007 7:19 AM, Oren Beck orenbeck@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2007/11/11/2003387202 _______________________________________________ Kclug mailing list Kclug@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug
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On Wednesday 14 November 2007, Phil Thayer wrote:
Because they are trying to get as much as they can for the least amount of money. It happens all the time. You can buy a 1TB external disk for about $500 but a quality SCSI array would be much more expensive. However, if your 1TB disk fails you lose everything. If you lose a disk in a SCSI array you don't. More and more people are trying to do things with as little money as possible and are sacrificing the security that comes along with the higher price of quality hardware.
Also, because they might be just plain stupid. :)
I think you mean RAID, not SCSI.
why would government agencies use large portable hard drives to store databases?
Because they are easier to steal, of course!
At least in the case of the U.S., and to some extent the U.K., government officials understand that they work for a government which (a) tries to put lots of government-accessible back doors into every communication and networking system in existence, which (b) are then available for other non-governmental entities to exploit. Using a "sneakernet" of heavily-encrypted 500GB portable hard drives isn't such a bad idea in this era of "big brother" governments poking holes in their own protective walls.
As for the "plain stupid" idea, government agencies who allow just anyone, including the hard drive, to contact rogue websites in China probably aren't using a "sneakernet" of the type I described.
--- Phil Thayer phil.thayer@vitalsite.com wrote:
Because they are trying to get as much as they can for the least amount of money. It happens all the time. You can buy a 1TB external disk for about $500 but a quality SCSI array would be much more expensive. However, if your 1TB disk fails you lose everything. If you lose a disk in a SCSI array you don't. More and more people are trying to do things with as little money as possible and are sacrificing the security that comes along with the higher price of quality hardware.
Also, because they might be just plain stupid. :)
On Nov 14, 2007 7:19 AM, Oren Beck orenbeck@gmail.com wrote:
why would government agencies use large portable hard drives to store databases?
Quote: Around 1,800 of the portable Maxtor hard discs, produced in Thailand, carried two Trojan horse viruses: autorun.inf and ghost.pif, the bureau under the Ministry of Justice said.
The bureau said that hard discs with such a large capacity are usually used by government agencies to store databases and other information.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2007/11/11/2003387202
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It also occurs to me that, a few years ago, the Apple IPod was selling for $250, while 6GB Compact Flash (CF) cards were selling for $400. Since the IPod at the time contained a 6GB CF card, many people who desired 6GB CF cards bought an IPod merely to rip out the CF card, saving themselves $150.
Since some manufacturers and distributors offer discounts when ordering in bulk, a government agency which needed (basic example) 1000 regular hard drives and 1000 portable hard drives might have been ordering 2000 portable hard drives for the discount, then ripping 1000 of them out of their cases and installing them in computers.
--- Phil Thayer phil.thayer@vitalsite.com wrote:
Because they are trying to get as much as they can for the least amount of money. It happens all the time.
-- Oren Beck orenbeck@gmail.com wrote:
why would government agencies use large portable hard drives to store databases?
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They use a 'distributed' filesystem.
On Nov 14, 2007 9:03 AM, Philip Dorr tagno25@gmail.com wrote:
why would government agencies use large portable hard drives to store databases?
distributed via "sneakernet" -- RAED over Sneakernet.
On Nov 14, 2007 10:35 AM, Billy Crook billycrook@gmail.com wrote:
They use a 'distributed' filesystem.
On Nov 14, 2007 9:03 AM, Philip Dorr tagno25@gmail.com wrote:
why would government agencies use large portable hard drives to store databases?
Since Linux doesn't know what to do with autorun.inf, the easy answer is "no". However, if you then use Samba to export it over the network, Windows machines that access it might get bit.
On Nov 14, 2007 7:19 AM, Oren Beck orenbeck@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2007/11/11/2003387202
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