Man finds U.S. military secrets on secondhand MP3 player

by Rich Bowden - Jan 27 2009, 04:43

A New Zealand man has stumbled across the sensitive military details of U.S. military personnel after purchasing a secondhand MP3 player in Oklahoma, USA.
 
Broadcaster TVNZ reported that Chris Ogle (29) from Whangerei, NZ, discovered around 60 sensitive military files dating from 2005 on the used music player. The files were clearly marked as 'secret' and contained the phone numbers of numerous soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.
 
Ahough the information is some four years old, some of the details were still relevant as the television station found after attempting to contact some of the uncovered phone numbers.
 
A clearly nervous Ogle told reporters the MP3 device had never worked properly and he was prepared to hand over the player to authorities upon request.
 
"The more I look at it, the more I see and the less I think I should be!" he said while also explaining that the personnel files came up when he connected the player to his computer.

As well as contact information, NZ television has claimed the files also included what appeared to be a secret mission briefing.
 
How such a major security breach could occur has not been explained by the U.S. Department of Defense, although similar instances have been reported in the past. Neither the U.S. embassy in New Zealand nor the U.S. Army has ventured any comment on the breach.
 
Experts have described the incident as an example of "slack" administration.
 
"One of the first rules of military endeavour is not to give the opposition anything whatsoever that they could use to compromise your position, in any way at all," said Peter Cozens of Strategic Studies at Victoria University.
 
"This is just slack administrative procedures which are indeed a cause of embarrassment. And it's the sort of thing which ought not really to be in the public domain," he added. 

Around the Web