The files Ogle found on the MP3 player contain the names and personal details of US soldiers, including some who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. There are no details on exactly how many personal records are contained within the documents (most of which date back to 2005), but they also have information on mission briefings and equipment deployment.
This incident is probably not the worst breach of military data in recent memory. [...] Still, Ogle's situation is a bit bizarre in that no one knows how or why this sensitive information was stored on an iPod, or how that MP3 player slipped out to a used hardware vendor. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), some of the phone numbers from the MP3 player's records still work, and the identified individuals indeed picked up on the other end.
"The more I look at it, the more I see and the less I think I should be [seeing]," Mr Ogle told ABC. He says he will hand the player over to the US Defense Department should it ever ask.
WTF? You mean, they haven't asked?
For the past eight years the Bush Administration used “national security” as the excuse for all sorts of bizarre decisions, from refusing to strengthen federal whistleblower protections to censoring a quote from the Supreme Court to--I shit you not--withholding transcripts of a World Trade Organization agreement related to online gaming.
Yet military secrets are stored on an iPod and its sold for $15 to some schlub in New Zealand who just wanted to listen to some tunes.
Strange.
