IP: Despite Court Order, U.S. Interior Web Site Down

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> X-Sender: mom () mail netmom com
> Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 08:47:50 -0500
> To: farber () central cis upenn edu (David Farber)
> From: Jean Armour Polly <mom () netmom com>
> Subject: Despite Court Order, U.S. Interior Web Site Down
>
> Monday December 10 4:52 PM ET
> Despite Court Order, U.S. Interior Web Site Down
>
> By Andy Sullivan
>
> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Interior's Web site 
> (http://www.doi.gov ) remained largely inoperable Monday, despite a 
> judge's ruling over the weekend that only portions that manage a fund for 
> American Indians need to be kept offline.
>
> The Interior Department took down its Web site last week after a judge 
> ordered it to unplug all computers that could access a system that 
> allocates royalties to 300,000 American Indians for use of their land.
>
> A court-appointed investigator found that hackers could easily change 
> records and steal money because basic security measures like passwords 
> were not in place.
>
> U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who has overseen a five-year-long case 
> dispute between the agency and Indians who say it mismanaged the funds, 
> clarified his order on Saturday to say Interior could reconnect systems 
> that do not host the Indian accounts.
>
> Two days later, Web surfers could track earthquakes and volcanoes at the 
> Web site of the U.S. Geological Survey, a subsidiary of the Interior 
> Department.(http://www.usgs.gov/)
> But the department's main Web site was still unavailable, as were sites 
> for many of its subsidiary agencies including the National Park Service ( 
> http://www.nps.gov/), the Bureau of Land Management 
> (http://www.blm.gov/)  and the Fish and Wildlife Service (http://www.fws/gov)
>
> E-mail messages could not get in or out, an employee said, but department 
> employees could send messages to each other.
> <snip>
> full story
> http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nm/20011210/wr/tech_interior_dc_1.html

For archives see:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/