GAO's 1998 Audit and the Total Failure of FAA Computer Security
Thousands of air travelers were left vulnerable when a federal watchdog found the systems guiding their flights failed every critical security test.
By Miriam Adler ·
Cybersecurity
Rome Laboratory and the 150 Access Attempts that Broke Air Tasking
A research project was damaged "beyond repair" after a 1994 security breach that stayed hidden from the public for two years.
By Harlan Pryce ·
Curt B. Weldon and the 1998 GAO Shell Game on DoD Security
While the FBI scrambled to stop "Operation Solar Sunrise," a June 1998 letter reassured Congress that a new management process had solved the problem.
By Miriam Adler ·
Ted Phillips and the 1997 Mapping of Information Warfare
While the government fought to break encryption in 1997, a consultant for the intelligence community was mapping the gaps in our privacy—a plan kept unclassified only in its most sanitized form.
By Miriam Adler ·
DIA’s 1999 Purple Book and the Strategic Blind Spot for Domestic Ruin
A 'Secret/Noforn' primer kept from foreign allies for years mapped the threats facing the US through 2020, but the planners left the internal rot of the American state entirely off the ledger.
By Constance Bell ·
Renée James and the 1995 Handover of Digital Defense
While the CIA mapped terrorist networks in South Asia, a 1995 security assessment began moving the burden of national defense onto private corporations under the guise of technical risk management.
By Marcus Boone ·
Howard and Longstaff's Blueprint for Sanitizing Nuclear Breaches
While the FBI tracked hackers attacking the Air Force in 1998, Sandia researchers built a system to scrub the gore from security failures, keeping the true scale of nuclear vulnerability in the dark.
By Eleanor Voss ·
Intelligence chief guarded most sensitive digital data with DCID 6/3
Specific methods for protecting the government's most sensitive data remain hidden in a missing manual, though later breaches jeopardized national security for a generation.
By Vera Kessler ·
Senate Committee Probed Whether U.S. Government Was Safe From Cyber Attack
Federal infrastructure remained fragile after Y2K as Senate investigators used subpoena power to probe whether the government could survive a targeted human cyber attack.
By Harlan Pryce ·
Senate Committee Grilled Social Security Over Citizen Data Risks
Personal data for a significant portion of the population faced operational risk during a three-part Senate probe whose specific findings now remain hidden.
By Miriam Adler ·