FC: RFID files marked "confidential" leaked from MIT group (oops!)

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Mon Jul 07 2003 - 18:27:37 PDT

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    From: "J.D. Abolins" <jda-irat_private>
    Reply-To: jda-irat_private
    To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private>
    Subject: Cryptome, RFID documents, Web error (?), and more
    Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2003 20:15:16 -0400
    
    Today (7 July 2003), the Cryptome.org site posted an item about a collection
    of "confidential" documents that were posted on the MIT AutoID Center's Web
    site. The "confidential" documents were placed so that anybody using the old
    trick of searching for words such as "Confidential" in the site's search tool
    would not only find the listing of the documents but also viable links to
    them.
    
    At a quick glance, it appears to be another case of a site relying upon
    obscurity for limiting access to online documents rather than more distinct
    access control techniques, encryption, etc. In the case of other Web site
    where documents intended to be limited access were open to the world, the
    assumption was that if there were no links from "public" pages (and perhaps a
    robots.txt to tame the spiders), then the documents were accessible to only
    the people who knew the URLs. Yes, and to people using site search engines.
    <g>
    
    
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