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Print 30 comment(s) - last by seajeff.. on Jul 2 at 1:09 PM
The laptop was turned in by an unidentified woman

It was earlier reported that a laptop with the Social Security numbers and birth dates of 26.5 million veterans had been stolen in late May.  The Department of Veterans Affairs announced yesterday that the missing laptop and hard drive containing the sensitive material has successfully been recovered.  The Federal Bureau of Investigation believes that the information has not been copied or misused.  The laptop was taken after a Department of Veterans Affairs employee brought the material home without authorization.  The VA had been working hard to ensure that everyone affected has been protected.   

After the information about the theft was made public at the end of last month, the VA and FBI put a $50,000 reward towards the return of the laptop.  The person that returned the laptop is not a suspect and has not been charged with any crimes.  It has not been announced if the person who returned the laptop will be eligible for the reward.

During the same House Committee on Veterans' Affairs in Washington that revealed the laptop had been returned, a bit of bad news was reported.  A tape missing since May 5 has 16,000 records from the Department of Veterans Affairs Regional Counsel Office in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Almost 12,500 of the records contain Social Security numbers, birth dates and medical records.

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come again?
By kattanna on 6/30/2006 11:27:06 AM , Rating: 2
"The Federal Bureau of Investigation believes that the information has not been copied or misused."

now how they making this assumption?





RE: come again?
By lwright84 on 6/30/2006 1:08:13 PM , Rating: 1
"Date Last Accessed" & "Date Last Modified"


RE: come again?
By Mday on 6/30/2006 1:19:50 PM , Rating: 2
yeah, and that can't be faked... ;) assuming you know how


RE: come again?
By kattanna on 6/30/2006 1:29:33 PM , Rating: 2
LOL..yeah..but those get the date/time from what ever windows is set to..

so..if i want to open a file without leaving a trace all you have to do is to set the date/time on windows to what ever the date/time that is listed on the files settings..open/copy..whatever..then set the system date/time back to current..and no one would ever know i just opened it..


you can also use that method to reset a files dates to when ever you want




RE: come again?
By ablkshrt1 on 6/30/2006 1:41:00 PM , Rating: 2
Do you really think that the FBI's tools are that limited. Their comptuer forensics team is a little more sophisticated than just checking creation/accessed dates.



RE: come again?
By metromiami on 6/30/2006 1:50:36 PM , Rating: 2
No one said it was FBI Computer Forensics.
No one said the files had not been copied.

The article said that the FBI believed that the information had not been copied or misused in any way. There isn't a computer program that can tell you if information is being misused, is there? That means that it was from their investigation of the suspect, that they believe no one has touched the laptop.

In other words, they confirmed that some yahoo took the laptop with them to some place, that no one had access to it during that time, and that it was returned safely.
That's how they know.

Incidentally, on a side note, do you think the FBI has computer tools that are not available to the general public at any price?


RE: come again?
By metromiami on 6/30/2006 1:54:17 PM , Rating: 2
Nevermind that last!

Other papers are reporting this:

The equipment was then turned in to officials in Montgomery County. No suspects were in custody. The FBI, in a statement from its Baltimore field office, said a preliminary review of the equipment by its computer forensic teams "has determined that the data base remains intact and has not been accessed since it was stolen." More tests were planned.

Well, then, that's "preliminary review".

i wonder if there's a way to tell if the entire drive has been imaged? i would think it's not difficult to image a drive and not leave any sign at all. after all, you aren't opening any files on it.

that's what encase and all that does.


RE: come again?
By bob661 on 6/30/2006 2:50:52 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
i wonder if there's a way to tell if the entire drive has been imaged?
Norton Ghost "marks" the drive before it creates the image but I don't know where you could the mark.


RE: come again?
By amdsupport on 6/30/2006 6:32:49 PM , Rating: 2
If you use programs such as encase or any other forensic grade utility (or any regular image utility combined with a hardware write blocker) you could image any drive you wanted to and there would be no way to tell it was imaged.

All you would have to do is get some stuff similar to this http://www.digitalintelligence.com/forensichardwar...


RE: come again?
By amdsupport on 6/30/2006 6:36:25 PM , Rating: 2
you can get the some of the same tools the FBI uses in their labs...but a crude single specialty program would run about $3000-5000.


Worse then suing for a stupid reason...
By UsernameX on 6/30/2006 10:50:49 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
It has not been announced if the person who returned the laptop will be eligible for the reward.


umm, what if I "accidently" abducted a kid for a week or two, waited for the missing reward to present itself, then reaped the rewards. That makes complete sense to me!!




RE: Worse then suing for a stupid reason...
By rushfan2006 on 6/30/2006 10:56:10 AM , Rating: 2
Oh damn you UsernameX you stole my thunder! LOL.

My point exactly...the second I read this article I though "well how convenient is THAT?!, lift a laptop....wait for the reeward to be announced and then turn it back in...bingo..bango you have an extra $50k to play around with!".

Also how know that the information wasn't misused for fact, especially if the "person who returned the laptop is not a suspect"? What does the FBI use the honor system now "FBI to Suspect: Did you do anything illegal with this information? Suspect: No of course not. FBI: Cool, that works for us. Have a great day!".

;)



RE: Worse then suing for a stupid reason...
By ablkshrt1 on 6/30/2006 1:44:26 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah I bet that is what happened. Some stoner breaks in, and steals the laptop...already knowing what is on it, and then waits for the reward.

Oh yeah, and they usually give you the reward the same day.

Honestly, are you that ignorant as to beleive that what you are saying is even in the realm of possibility.


RE: Worse then suing for a stupid reason...
By AbelIAN on 6/30/2006 2:19:04 PM , Rating: 2
It said in the article that they haven't given the woman a reward yet. Are you high right now?


By UsernameX on 6/30/2006 3:07:13 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
It said in the article that they haven't given the woman a reward yet. Are you high right now?



lol


RE: Worse then suing for a stupid reason...
By rushfan2006 on 6/30/2006 4:00:19 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
It said in the article that they haven't given the woman a reward yet. Are you high right now?


Wow I'm 2 for 2 with idiots....What prize do I win Bob?

;)



By bob661 on 6/30/2006 7:08:08 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Wow I'm 2 for 2 with idiots....What prize do I win Bob?
All I have is my sword of flaming idiots. <shrug>


RE: Worse then suing for a stupid reason...
By rushfan2006 on 6/30/2006 3:59:21 PM , Rating: 2
Its called sarcasm, and you call me the ignorant one?

Its joking around dumbass....but as most jokes do -- there is a hint of truth/seriousness to it.

Now since you weren't smart enough to figure out the joke, I save your brain from a developing a tumor...They aren't considering the woman who returned the laptop as a suspect, and the laptop wasn't returned until *after* a reward was made known.


By UsernameX on 6/30/2006 4:51:54 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Now since you weren't smart enough to figure out the joke, I save your brain from a developing a tumor...


Zues has stepped back into the building ;)

hahahaha


I Don't want to be too critical, but ...
By cpeter38 on 6/30/2006 10:29:54 AM , Rating: 2
"The person that returned the suspect is not a suspect"???

I believe the person returned a LAPTOP ...




By stncttr908 on 6/30/2006 10:44:57 AM , Rating: 2
I suppose it's possible they heard about the reward, knew the person who took it, and swiped it from THEM.


By NMDante on 6/30/2006 11:09:21 AM , Rating: 2
What if the person who returned the laptop was the "Dept. of Veteran's Affair employee" who just returned from a vacation? Maybe that's why it took so long to get it back. Also, maybe that's why the reward money might not be given to the individual who returned it, as the article mentions.

But on a side note: 26+ million veteran's information on a laptop? WTF? As a vet, that's pretty disturbing that all that info is on a portable unit, which can clearly be taken without anyone's knowledge. How about putting all that info on a secure server, and give the laptop wired/wireless access via any type of security measure? Geez...


By AbelIAN on 6/30/2006 2:17:34 PM , Rating: 2
This *is* stupid explanation day. Maybe it was an illegal immigrant?


I can't believe it!
By headbox on 6/30/2006 2:47:45 PM , Rating: 2
My brother and I are both Veterans and we received letters in the mail saying our info was stolen. 2 days later my brother's credit card was being used to make huge purchases in California while he's in Texas. Saying they recovered the laptop without any ID theft is a damn lie by the feds to make themselves look good. The news media just eats it up without ANY real investigation. Why? Because every newspaper, tv station, and magazine all gets the mail from the same single source. There's no such thing as investigative reporting anymore.


RE: I can't believe it!
By melgross on 7/1/2006 7:28:33 PM , Rating: 2
That could be a coincidence as well. I recently had fraud on my AmEx card, but I'm not a veteran. So it happens. With 26+ million veterans, it was bound to be that some would have that problem around the same time. Can you prove otherwise?


Confidence
By cpeter38 on 6/30/2006 11:04:24 AM , Rating: 2
As a veteran, I feel SOO much confidence in the privacy of my personal information now (NOT!!!)!!!




By psifertex on 6/30/2006 1:53:12 PM , Rating: 2
So I read the quoted article in question and I didn't see any information about "the person who delivered the laptop". Other articles said that the individual turned it in to a US Parks Services officer because of a prior relantionship, but nothing besides that.

Can somebody point me to the article that says it was a woman who turned the laptop in?




Stolen Laptop
By oneboysurfing on 7/1/2006 8:40:57 AM , Rating: 2
I would like to beleive no harm will come to the many veterans whose records were on that laptop.It was a pretty long time between lost and found. No laptop lojack? You would think that in this age of technology that latop would be beaconing 24/7 with its GPS technology until it was located and retreived.




whew? aint I lucky
By seajeff on 7/2/2006 1:09:43 PM , Rating: 2
great article...
my only thought was i can finally be grateful that I was booted out after four wonderful years in the crotch . Being unavailable for benefits probably means I wasnt on the list!!




how dumb
By ElJefe69 on 6/30/2006 8:51:48 PM , Rating: 1
How dumb and dishonest can someone be to steal this magnitude of information?

how pathetic can an information systems be that it can be just copied and carried on a regular laptop and brought out of the VA?

US security on identity is pathetic. Government and corporations agree to make information about people mandatory to the nth degree in order to maintain "security". Government is anti-individual and seeks to know all movements and control all transactions and relations. sickos run the country, the VA included (I worked 2 years for them), and enforce the existence of a very loose and accessible information system to anyone that is not an individual.




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