Students Find U.S. Security Data in Ghana eWaste Dump

06-28-2009, 07:39 PM

These University of British Columbia students were investigating electronic waste sites in Ghana. It's a very big business and environmental issue in Ghana. Now, it's also arising as a problem for crime, as well as national security.

B.C. journalism students find U.S. security data at Ghana computer dump
Tue Jun 23, 8:39 PM
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/0.../computer_dump

"They looked at them in Ghana and we brought them back and looked at them further in Vancouver, and we found that these drives had all sorts of personal information on them," he said. "Credit card numbers, family photographs, resumes, all the sort of stuff we have on our computers."

But one of the hard drives was corporate from Northrup Grumman, a major U.S. military contractor, Klein said.

"That drive happened to have details of multi-million-dollar U.S. contracts with high level government agencies, The Pentagon, (U.S.) Homeland Security, places like that," he said.

Klein said the class reported the find to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and they "were certainly concerned about it."

The students contacted Northrup Grumman, who would not grant an interview, but said the company was trying to find out how the hard drive ended up in Ghana...

06-28-2009, 07:39 PM	#1
no caste Guest Posts: n/a	Students Find U.S. Security Data in Ghana eWaste Dump These University of British Columbia students were investigating electronic waste sites in Ghana. It's a very big business and environmental issue in Ghana. Now, it's also arising as a problem for crime, as well as national security. B.C. journalism students find U.S. security data at Ghana computer dump Tue Jun 23, 8:39 PM http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/0.../computer_dump "They looked at them in Ghana and we brought them back and looked at them further in Vancouver, and we found that these drives had all sorts of personal information on them," he said. "Credit card numbers, family photographs, resumes, all the sort of stuff we have on our computers." But one of the hard drives was corporate from Northrup Grumman, a major U.S. military contractor, Klein said. "That drive happened to have details of multi-million-dollar U.S. contracts with high level government agencies, The Pentagon, (U.S.) Homeland Security, places like that," he said. Klein said the class reported the find to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and they "were certainly concerned about it." The students contacted Northrup Grumman, who would not grant an interview, but said the company was trying to find out how the hard drive ended up in Ghana...