14 April, 2018

Regarding the Freedom of Information “hack” |

Regarding the Freedom of Information “hack” |:



Remember what I said about the other installations being called “PublicPortal”? And how 6750 of the 7000 records were public anyways, and how this system is literally designed for facilitating “access to information?” Looking at it further, there are no authentication mechanisms, no password protection, no access restrictions. It’s very clear that the software is intended to serve as a public repository of documents.
It’s also very clear that there at least 250 documents improperly stored there by the province. Documents that the province had a responsibility to protect, and failed.
Mr. Big asked for a document, the server returned it, as it’s supposed to. Then asked for them all, and unluckily for him, 250 of the 7000 were “confidential.” He didn’t even try to hide, apparently having been traced by his IP address.
Was that access fraudulent? It’s for the courts to decide, but I would argue no.
Had this system been audited, or looked at by any reasonably competent security professional, this would have been fixed before it became national news and an embarrassment to the province.


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