US Army files found on MP3 player

By Davey Winder
Wednesday, 28 January 2009 03:11

Home IT

A New Zealand man bought an MP3 player while in Oklahoma only to find it contained US Army data files. If proof were ever needed that Military Intelligence is an oxymoron, then this is it.

With some 280 million 'victims' in the last three years I guess we are all getting used to data loss stories by now.

But when the story has a government or royal or military connection then it takes on a different light.

And so it was that a strange tale of a New Zealander in Oklahoma came to my attention. According to TV One News Chris Ogle picked up the USD $18 MP3 player in a secondhand shop.

The US Department of Defense prohibited the use of portable data storage devices by personnel last year, which is possibly why this one ended up in a thrift shop. What a shame the previous owner did not think to first securely erase the data on the thing.

I guess Ogle might have looked forward to finding some 'free' music left on the device by the previous owner, but it proved to be a whole lot more interesting than that when Ogle connected the thing to his PC.
 
Amongst the 60 military folders he found were ones containing details of American soldiers based in Afghanistan, details of others who had served in Iraq and even mobile phone numbers of soldiers based overseas.

Apparently other folders included mission briefings, equipment deployments and even data pertaining to pregnant female soldiers.

It is understood that the files relate to 2005, but TV One News says it called some of the numbers listed and they were still active and accurate.

The Pentagon is investigating after the report was broadcast on CNN.