ICE agents allegedly exposed searching crowd-sourced agent database
A viral post claims immigration enforcement officers searched their own names in a crowd-sourced list, potentially revealing their identities.
What to know
- A Mastodon post alleges ICE agents used work computers to search themselves in a crowd-sourced database of immigration enforcement officers.
- The incident illustrates a basic operational security failure: interactive databases log user queries, exposing those who search them.
- Security experts in the thread note the broader risk of entering PII into databases, even ones designed to check for compromises.
The dispute Whether the incident is primarily a failure of individual agents to understand basic security, or symptomatic of a broader design risk in interactive databases that collect user data. · positions read across 5 posts and comments
This reflects a basic lack of cybersecurity knowledge among law enforcement.
-
“What having zero understanding of one's tools does to someone. It's an interactive service. That's an obvious risk.”
lispi314@udongein.xyz · Mastodon ↗
The real problem is that interactive databases inherently collect data about who searches them, creating a trap for users.
-
“This is why I never type my PII into a "have you been pawned" website. "Here, has your social security number been stolen? TYPE YOUR FULL NAME AND SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER IN THIS FORM"”
ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org · Mastodon ↗
ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Agency implicated in security incident
How it unfolded 3 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump posts
-
background
Critics compare incident to lack of operational security awareness — Commentary characterizes the incident as reflecting poor understanding of cybersecurity tools and operational security practices.
-
3
Observers note interactive services inherently log queries
An analysis points out that the fundamental design of interactive databases—logging user searches—creates an obvious security risk that should be understood by trained agents.
“What having zero understanding of one's tools does to someone. It's an interactive service. That's an obvious risk.”
— lispi314@udongein.xyz -
What having zero understanding of one's tools does to someone. It's an interactive service. That's an obvious risk. source: https://social.vivaldi.net/@xtaldave/117526018053115068 @ xtaldave
-
-
2
Security concerns raised about data collection risks
A commenter highlights the broader cybersecurity risk of entering personally identifiable information into interactive databases, noting the irony of being asked to provide sensitive data to check if it was compromised.
“This is why I never type my PII into a "have you been pawned" website. "Here, has your social security number been stolen? TYPE YOUR FULL NAME AND SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER IN THIS FORM"”
— ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org -
A
This is why I never type my PII into a "have you been pawned" website. "Here, has your social security number been stolen? TYPE YOUR FULL NAME AND SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER IN THIS FORM" https:// social.vivaldi.net/@xtaldave/1 17526018053115068 # cybersecurity
2 more of the top 3 · 3 posts in this stretch
-
S
RE: https:// social.vivaldi.net/@xtaldave/1 17526018053115068 😅 :success:
-
V
This is roughly equivalent to the Johnny English class of American cops. https:// social.vivaldi.net/@xtaldave/1 17526018053115068
-
-
1
Claim surfacesICE agents search crowd-sourced agent list from work computers
A post on Mastodon claims that ICE agents searched a crowd-sourced database of ICE agent names using their work computers, apparently to check if they were listed.
“ICE agents: search a crowd sourced ICE agent list for their own names from their work computers.”
— xtaldave@vivaldi.net -
ICE agents: search a crowd sourced ICE agent list for their own names from their work computers. Crowd sourced ICE agents website: _yoink_
-