Another big breach in one of our government computers:

For the second time in two weeks, Social Security numbers and other personal information of Navy personnel have been discovered on an Internet site, triggering an investigation.

The Navy said Friday that information on more than 100,000 naval and Marine Corps aviators and aircrew was on the Naval Safety Center Web site and on nearly 1,100 computer discs mailed out to naval commands.

There was no indication that the information has been used illegally, said Navy spokesman Lt. Ryan Perry. He said Rear Adm. George Mayer, commander of the Naval Safety Center, had the information removed immediately and officials are looking into how the data was posted on the Web site.

The Navy is also attempting to retrieve the computer disks, he said, and individuals whose data was revealed on the Internet were being notified. Both active and reserve members were affected by the latest incident, including aviators who may have served within the last 20 years.

Hey – thanks for fighting this war while we let your information go out to the whole world. You will be welcomed back as heroes and given the honor of high debt obtained by someone else who got your information from your own country.

This is going to cost tax payers billions before it is all said and done. Congress already had to approve $160 million just because of the VA breech. While this one is not that big, there are numerous smaller stories like this and those numbers are adding up quick.

There are so many safeguards the government could take to prevent this, but they want to live in the stone age. Yesterday I was reading some documents sent to CREW from the Secret Service in regards to the Abramoff White House visits and I noticed something:

See that mdb at the end of the file? That means they are using Microsoft Access for a database. See other information stored in that table? SSN- Social Security Number. That means every person who visits the White House has their social security number stored in a Microsoft Access database.

Now you may be asking – so what? Well Microsoft Access is one of the most insecure databases in the world. This also shows that the government is using Windows – one of the most hacked operating systems in the world. This is really alarming.

Why is our government wasting tax payers money and risking security on such a vulnerable platform? I wish I knew. The NSA employs some of the best minds in the computer world. They even offer their an operating system that they say is highly secure. Is that operating system Windows? No. It is Linux.

To really show you how bad this is, let’s talk backend of this blog (and about 99% of the blogs out there). This blog uses MySql as a database. If you surf the web enough, I am sure you will hear about it. It is a very powerful database server that is also pretty damn secure. Now I am not saying it is unhackable, nothing is, but it does trump Access time and time again when it comes to the world of security. Oh and did I mention this – it is free. That’s right. MySql is more secure than Microsoft Access and it is free. Considering all the government computers there are – that is a massive savings of tax payer dollars.

Everything now comes down to this – our government must take drastic measures to secure our vital information. Congress must be involved and they must employ the assistance of the best computer minds around. Once a more secure system is in place then the human factor must be accounted for. That means placing strict policies in effect that would make it a crime if someone removes vital information from government computers and a policy forbidding any information like this be taken home to work on. If we don’t act on it now then before long our enemies will control the cyber battleground.