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FBI Adds Iomega Hard Drive To Most Wanted List: Plus There's A Reward

engadget.com — Have you seen this drive? The FBI -- you know, the people in charge of your "permanent record" -- is offering up to $25,000 for information leading to the return of a missing "Iomega hard drive." Apparently, the drive contains personal information on "at least a half-million people." It was reported missing from the Birmingham, Alabama Veterans Adm

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  • TimmyGUNZ, on 10/12/2007, -18/+48What the ***** is wrong with these fools?!

    Has it really come to the point where it's easier to steal from the FBI than Wal*Mart?
    • VANOS, on 10/12/2007, -10/+37Yeah and I'm pretty sure the FBI doesn't have friendly greeters when you walk in, either.
    • Krymore, on 10/12/2007, -17/+2I'm pretty sure the FBI doesn't give you little smiley face stickers either.
    • Pepper, on 10/12/2007, -15/+3Haven't the FBI heard of TrueCrypt?
    • Badblood, on 10/12/2007, -2/+66Wow! You guys are idiots. The Birmingham, Alabama Veterans Administration Medical Center is not the FBI. The FBI is attempting to find out what another agency lost. I repeat for those of you on the short bus... the FBI didn't lose the drive.

      Reading for comprehension. New concept.
    • Wilf55, on 10/12/2007, -18/+2Here's a concept for you... don't be such a dick
    • acebrickman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17badblood FTW
      +1

      RTFA kids
  • cquinnd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14To be fair, we don't know how many laptops Wal*Mart may have lost.
    • roomforpanic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11After walking around in Wal-Mart for a couple of hours, I'm not so sure they're not the ones doing medical research.
  • jivatmanx, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2And here, they want to implement the real ID act, so that there's one central database of everyones information... that would need to be acessable for all the uses a standard ID would come too.
    • sdsurf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@jivatmanx:

      "And here, they want to implement the real ID act, so that there's one central database of everyones information... " - perhaps you've heard of the Social Security Administration? If you think that the gov't doesn't currently know EVERYTHING about you, you're kidding yourself.
  • sfacets, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20I found it! It's been emptied though.
  • drjekelmrhyde, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15Did they lose their 5 1/4 floppies also
  • jb978, on 10/12/2007, -1/+425k?
  • merien, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Why offer $25.000 for a hard disk with encrypted data?
    • AntBing, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10I don't know, but I'd rather have the $25,000.00 over the $25.000 any day.
    • gharding, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Yeah, because encryption is 100% foolproof, right?
    • ventaur, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5antbing doesn't quite understand the concept that other countries use different thousands separation characters for numerical display. I know, I know; it's shocking when you first learn that a period may actually be used in the UK the same way we use a comma in the US. Next, you're going to criticize them for using a comma to separate the dollars from the cents. Damn them and their backwards ways!
  • jlebrech, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Too late, I just sold it for $500,000 to North Korea. Suckaz
    • salinemist, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3North Korea just traded it for 20lbs of dog meat.
  • e6d5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Press release from the FBI: http://birmingham.fbi.gov/pressrel/2007/bh022107.htm
  • RADED, on 10/12/2007, -13/+1Smooth FBI.The FBI cant be trusted with any thing.
    • wvdavis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10RTFA!
      "Apparently, the drive contains personal information on "at least a half-million people." It was reported missing from the Birmingham, Alabama Veterans Administration Medical Center where it was used by an employee in medical research to backup data."
  • xgunterx, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0I guess everyone would like to spend at least a $100 to find out what info the FBI has on them.

    So 500 000 x $100 ....

    I give $50 000!
  • gemadouble, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1This is my chance to be rich.
  • Rammsteined, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6So, you return the device or give them information about where it might be located? How long, exactly, will it take before they throw your arse into a cell?

    The only group you could sell it to without getting arrested would be a foreign agency.
  • Lumiras, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2Hey, I have a great idea: Maybe the FBI shouldn't be storing important confidential information on portable, external hard drives that are completely unencrypted.
  • sergeantmudd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2At least they're coming out and admitting it was lost. Stuff gets lost, even from government agencies. I'd rather they be upfront about it than trying to hide the facts from us
  • rancidpony, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Where did it go?
    * Broken & thrown in the trash, someone doesn't want to own up to it since it is now a major investigation.
    * Cleaning crew has sticky fingers (illegal immigrants tend not to do this since they appreciate their jobs)
    * Visitor with sticky fingers (sucks)
    * A ***** paid employee with sticky fingers (think close to minimum wage)
    * Check e-bay or the local pawn shops in the area or surrounding towns
    • ohearn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2* Broken & thrown in the trash: unlikely
      * Cleaning crew has sticky fingers: possible but the government pays well for low level positions compared to anyone else. The bottom of the GS(General Schedule)-1 pay range is $16,600 to start. Even most janitors are GS-2 or GS-3 which means they are making 18K-20K plus whatever the % is at that location for locality pay. The cleaning crews are not worked as hard as a lot of janitors in industry are and the government pays a more than competitive pay for what the position is. Starting pay for a GS-3 here in Huntsville (only 2 hours north of the VA location in question here) is 22K+ to start. I doubt a janitor is going to make that anywhere else.

      * Visitor with sticky fingers: you're right that does suck if that is the case
      * A ***** paid employee with sticky fingers (think close to minimum wage): again see my point about GA pay ranges. Secretaries, clerks, other entry level semi-professional positions are GS-5 to GS-7 so after locality pay you are talking 30K-50K based on position and seniority (50K is a GS-7 step 10 which requires about 20 years in that position to get, so extremely rare, but feasible)

      * Check e-bay or the local pawn shops in the area or surrounding towns: Yeah always check these things; maybe you will get lucky.

      More than likely an employee too it home. I know several people who work for the VA (although none of them are at that location). A lot of the VA people are overworked by the amount of claims that come through. Even though it is against regulations to do so, a lot of them have supervisors breathing down their back to get things down by deadlines, so they take the information home to get more work done. This has been the biggest cause I know of for any of the data losses by the VA in the last couple years.
  • sstidman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1How about they try looking here:

    http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?cgiurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcgi.ebay.com%2Fws%2F&fkr=1&from=R8&satitle=iomega&category0=&submitSearch=Search


    That's where everybody else finds their stolen stuff.
    • otaku244, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That would be awesome if someone advertised that it could hold
      1,000,000 mp3
      4,000,000 photos
      500,000 medical records

      If anything... I'd think that'd be a dead giveaway.
  • rsek, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0now serious, who would give that back for only $25,000 :p
  • echo2501, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Too late. It was found on a sidewalk and a bomb squad was called in to blow it up.

    In related news...
    http://digg.com/offbeat_news/Bomb_Squad_Sent_in_to_Blow_up_THREE_CD_PLAYERS
  • chadley384, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If only they had used an Iomega Zip drive... this never would have happened. The chances of one of those Zip 100 drives working for more than a few days are relatively slim. Also I could imagine the thief looking at the parallel port connector, then thinking to him/herself "f*ck this!" and tossing it.

    Data theft deterrence through over sized floppy disks.. Look for it in the next Homeland Security budget!
  • Oeryk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The drive was most likely not stolen for it's information. It did NOT have any of the FBI's records on it. What it DID have was medical research information and other personal information on roughly .5 million veterans and citizens.

    The $25K is meant to be an incentive to get the original drive back because there is an outraged populace that does not want their personal/medical information available in the wild.

    I have no idea what someone could potentially DO with the information on the drive unless it had financial and/or SSN information. I guess SOMEONE could use the info, but why?

    Perhaps the person that took it simply erased it and used the drive for personal use. OOH, LOOK! Somebody left this cool looking HD laying around. I could use more space for my pron and muzic.
  • dattaway, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1That's nothing. Anyone who has ever bought a surplus load of computers knows some hard drives have been left inside without being wiped for some reason, leaving a snapshot of the server for the time capsule in the future.
  • Ravatar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Something tells me an identity thief or spam organization would pay a hell of a lot more than 25,000 for it.
    • Vlatro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1No they wouldn't. Getting sensative data is the easy part, who would pay for that? Exploiting it in a way that profits you but doesn't leave a trail of money to your door... Now that's where skill comes in.

      There is no guarantee of who's information will be on that drive, the amount of detail included, or a validity of the data (it came form the VA, half the claims a *****, and the other half simply documented as though it were bull *****). Mostly you are looking a list list of people with very little money (or they'd buy real insurance and not get ***** by the VA), so I doubt it's a scam for financial gain.

      I'm leaning towards the "Disgruntled Employee" theory. After seeing what happened when the VA lost those names a few months ago, it seems like a good way to Stick-it-to-em. They had to mail out letters to everyone who's information may have been compromised, and the fact that they are facing numerous class-action lawsuits, and I'm sure there's been a significant amount of pressure from the "powers that be" to tighten security. Mostly, it's gonna cost a ton of tax payer money to correct.

      This should be assumed by the DA, and when the person is found, their motive- to undermine the state for the purposes of illustrating their incompitance and thus inciting the public against them, would constitute sedition. The act it's self - theft of information from a government agency with intent of inflicting harm on that agency, that's treason.

      It was likely a lapse in judgement from a scumbag employee who never intended this much harm, but the fact remains, they are a criminal of the highest order, weather that was their intent or not. Ship their sorry traitor ass Guantanamo Bay and beat them with their own severed limbs. Put the video on YouTube and send a warning to people who would willingly compromise the security of a half-million people.
  • semvhu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3More Alabama idiots making the rest of us Alabama natives look like fools.


    Like that's hard to do in the first place....
  • ApeInago, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1somebody's going to lose their job over this. hippa pwns. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIPPA
  • Altotus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's got information about veterans on it. I though that the government didn't care about veterans -- at least Bush's proposed budget leaves you with that impression (slashes Veteran's Administration budget).
  • astrotrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Why in the hell did they use Iomega... they're expensive ancient technology. Might as well have stored the medical records on a few thousand 8" 1/2 floppies.
    • sdsurf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If by ancient you mean Zip disks, sure... but just FYI - this article is talking about an external HDD. Not exactly "ancient". You can buy them at your local CompUSA, Staples, Frys, etc... same drives as anyone else inside the case.
  • mapkinase, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Iomega hard drive... and LP player. LOL
  • zhulien, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0damn, I don't have it - that means I cannot smash it on the ground and laugh at the FBI for losing it - idiots.
  • uchimalbanish, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Dugg that. Things like this happen everywhere.
  •  

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