Intel Lacks Game With Leaky Gamer Kids?

“Intelligence Leaks [Have] Cast Spotlight on a Recurring Insider Threat: Tech Support” aka young tech nerds? Hadn’t anyone in Intel seen the 1983 “War Games” where a teen hacks into Pentagon computer, almost starts WWIII?

Not that the fictitious kid played by Matthew Broderick had any bad motive or evil intentions. But the handwriting for such potential security breaches was certainly written on the wall in the earliest stages of the Computer Age. Only now, 40 yrs later, we’re told in a WSJ report officials worry it’s “IT specialists like Jack Teixeira & Edward Snowden [who] pose challenge to government control of classified information”? In each case, the alleged leakers were not only barely past their 20th birthday but both worked in tech support roles, while being given access to top secrets. In the latest incident, Airman Teixeira’s alleged disclosures in a social media chat room “demonstrate anew how information-technology workers responsible for routine tasks such as network maintenance pose a potential risk to … classified information.”

WSJ columnist Dan Henninger in a related column not only alluded to the role “youth” played in this latest fiasco, but a society-wide denial of accountability: “It’s no revelation to say that when we began to devalue conscience (about 30 years after Disney’s ‘Pinocchio’), blurring a pragmatic understanding of right from wrong, we were putting at risk a lot of psychologically vulnerable people … Teixeira had no idea what he was doing. He has a lot of company.” After the Snowden affair, we are assured, security reforms were generally recommended to protect secrets, including heightened clearance reviews & a “two-person rule” modeled on the protocol for launching nuclear weapons. But, the measures have apparently been “unevenly applied across intel agencies & the military.” Is it asking too much to maybe crack the whip a little harder, keep secrets out of a clueless Pinocchio gamer’s hands?

Davd Soul