The following 17 December 2009 article by Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News features some highlights from a 16 December 2009 hearing of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation Security on the ongoing problems caused by an accidental release of very sensitive security information by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Based on these highlights, it would appear that several members of Congress do not understand the difficulty of getting web sites (including AirSafeNews.com partner AirSafe.com) to remove a sensitive TSA procedures manual form the Internet. Additional notes,links, and commentary were added by AirSafeNews.com
After a Transportation Security Administration manual containing “sensitive security information” was inadvertently disclosed on a government website (see earlier AirSafeNews.com article), it was reposted on several non-governmental websites where it remains freely available. Asked what TSA intends to do about that, Acting TSA Administrator Gale D. Rossides told Congress that her agency does not have the legal authority to compel members of the public to remove sensitive TSA documents from their websites, though she wished that they would do so.
“Do the current regulations provide you a mechanism to keep individuals from reposting this information on other web sites?” asked Rep. Charles W. Dent (R-PA), at a December 16 hearing of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation Security.
“No, sir, they do not,” Ms. Rossides replied. “We do not have any authority to ask non-government or non-DHS (Department of Homeland Security, which includes TSA) sites to take it down.”
“What action does TSA intend to take against those who are reposting this sensitive document that should not be in the public domain?” Rep. Dent persisted.
“Well, right now, there really isn’t any authoritative action we can take,” Ms. Rossides said. “Honestly, persons that have posted it, I would, you know, hope that out of their patriotic sense of duty to, you know, their fellow countrymen, they would take it down [1]. But honestly, I have no authority to direct them and order them to take it down.”
But Rep. Dent expressed his own indignation at the web sites that ignored the official control markings on the TSA manual. “To those who reposted this security information on the internet, you should share in the blame should security be breached as a result of this disclosure,” he said [2].
But the urgency of the need to restrict continued access to the leaked TSA manual seemed diminished by Ms. Rossides’ declared view that aviation security has not “been compromised or weakened because of this incident.” Furthermore, she said, that manual was now obsolete because “very significant changes” have been made to airline security policy since the manual was issued.
Ms. Rossides added that in order to prevent further inadvertent disclosures of the newest security measures, she was refusing to provide a hardcopy of the latest edition of the TSA security manual to Congress. “I just wanted to take the absolute measures to protect that information, and that’s why a hardcopy wouldn’t be presented,” she said [3].
Rep. Dent objected to this. “By refusing to give a document to this committee because of concern about a public disclosure, that’s implying that this subcommittee would disclose the document. And that’s what, I guess, troubles me the most.” He said he would press the issue.
Subcommittee chair Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) said she would introduce legislation to bar contractors from access to “sensitive security information,” since contractors apparently were at fault in the inadvertent disclosure of the security manual. “It’ll be my legislative initiative to insist that contract employees not be used to handle sensitive security information, period,” she said [4].
Rep. James Himes (D-CT) asked whether TSA was examining who had downloaded the security manual.
“I believe that is part of what [the TSA Inspector General] is looking at,” Ms. Rossides said. “We do know — our CIO shop has done an initial review of who did download it and has it on their website — non-government, non-DHS websites. We do know that.” [5]
Resources
Listen to a brief description of the TSA document controversy
Full TSA report
Redacted TSA report
TSA prohibited and restricted Items
TSA Statement from December 9, 2009
Original AirSafeNews.com article on this topic
Follow-up article on how to safely redact an electronic document
Visitor feedback on the TSA data release
NSA procedures for redacting a document
Microsoft advice for minimizing metadata in Word documents
Tools for removing hidden data from Government Computer News
Notes
[1] The creator of AirSafeNews.com and AirSafe.com, Dr. Todd Curtis believes that in this particular situation, that threat to public safety made by making the document freely available to the public is minimal, and the the higher patriotic duty is to make the public aware of the situation, including making the document available through AirSafeNews.com and AirSafe.com.
[2] Dr. Curtis has stated that this attitude is complete nonsense. Security was breached when TSA accidentally released the document, and by now any attempts to erase a document that is already widely available online would be at best futile.
[3] If you wish to have a hardcopy of either the redacted or unredacted version of the document, please visit 2009.airsafe.org, download the appropriate PDF file, and print out your own hard copy edition. There are no legal limitations to printing this document, which is in the public domain. Any security classifications on the document must be followed only by those who are legally required to do so, which would likely include any US government employee or members of the US military.
[4] Dr. Curtis hastens to point out that any contractors would have been overseen by US government employees. This member of Congress implies that contractors are not fit to handle sensitive security information, but a reasonable extension of this argument is that government employees are also not fit to handle such information.
[5] The TSA Inspector General is invited to contact AirSafeNews.com for a list of all those associated with publication of this web site who have downloaded this document. AirSafeNews.com will also willingly supply information on the number of downloads made from the server at AirSafe.com that contains this manual. As of 24 December 2009, that number is just under 7,000. Unfortunately, AirSafe.com's privacy policy prevents that site from tracking the destination of these downloads, so we can only provide the US government with general guidance on just how daunting any search for copies of this document will be.
Showing posts with label pdf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pdf. Show all posts
25 December 2009
10 December 2009
How the TSA Could Have Easily Avoided Its Recent Security Problem
The recent controversy over the accidental release of extremely sensitive security information by the TSA has been a huge embarrassment to the agency, and very likely revealed details about the TSA security process that could make it easier for individuals or groups to bring prohibited items into the secure areas of airport terminal or onto aircraft. It would also make it easier for someone to take steps to avoid extra screening at the airport.
TSA Problem Was Completely Avoidable
One step that the TSA reportedly took, putting five employees and contractors involved in the document release on administrative leave, may have only involved those who were responsible for preparing and releasing the document. Perhaps a more important issue is whether this problem could have been avoided. It is very likely that the problem was not only avoidable, but specific step-by-step procedures to avoid this kind of problem have been widely available to the US government for several years.
According to an article in Federal Computer Week, over the last few years, the US military in Iraq, the White House, and the US Department of Justice have all had similar situations where a improperly redacted document was released to the public, and the sensitive information within those documents were later uncovered.
In wake of those events, the National Security Agency (NSA) issued guidance to US federal agencies that included detailed instructions on how to process a word processing document in such a way that any sensitive information would be eliminated from the final PDF document. The report, titled “Redacting with Confidence: How to Safely Publish Sanitized Reports Converted From Word to PDF,” has been freely available to the public for several years, and the instructions in that document could have been used by the TSA to avoid their recent embarrassing episode.
Highlights of the NSA Report
Word processing documents such as Microsoft Word contain many kinds of information such as text, graphics, tables, images, and metadata, and more. This complex combination of data makes it easy to accidentally expose information, especially when someone does not properly remove sensitive information before the document is released to the public.
Techniques that work with printed documents, such as blacking out an area of text or graphics, or reducing the size of a graphic, often do not work with electronic documents because the information is still contained within the document. Most word processing documents also contain hidden information such as comments or prior versions of the document, that may also be very sensitive.
The NSA's document had very clear instructions that anyone could use to take an MS Word file or just about any other kind of word processing file and systematically remove any sensitive content, including metadata, before creating a PDF file for public distribution. Let's hope that the TSA has the good sense to follow the NSA's procedures, or something like it, the next time they redact a document.
Related Articles
TSA Releases Extremely Sensitive Security Information Online
Continued Fallout from TSA Release of Sensitive Security Information
Resources
Full TSA report
Redacted TSA report
TSA prohibited and restricted Items
TSA Statement from December 9, 2009
Original AirSafeNews.com article on this topic
NSA procedures for redacting a document
Microsoft advice for minimizing metadata in Word documents
Tools for removing hidden data from Government Computer News
TSA Problem Was Completely Avoidable
One step that the TSA reportedly took, putting five employees and contractors involved in the document release on administrative leave, may have only involved those who were responsible for preparing and releasing the document. Perhaps a more important issue is whether this problem could have been avoided. It is very likely that the problem was not only avoidable, but specific step-by-step procedures to avoid this kind of problem have been widely available to the US government for several years.
According to an article in Federal Computer Week, over the last few years, the US military in Iraq, the White House, and the US Department of Justice have all had similar situations where a improperly redacted document was released to the public, and the sensitive information within those documents were later uncovered.
In wake of those events, the National Security Agency (NSA) issued guidance to US federal agencies that included detailed instructions on how to process a word processing document in such a way that any sensitive information would be eliminated from the final PDF document. The report, titled “Redacting with Confidence: How to Safely Publish Sanitized Reports Converted From Word to PDF,” has been freely available to the public for several years, and the instructions in that document could have been used by the TSA to avoid their recent embarrassing episode.
Highlights of the NSA Report
Word processing documents such as Microsoft Word contain many kinds of information such as text, graphics, tables, images, and metadata, and more. This complex combination of data makes it easy to accidentally expose information, especially when someone does not properly remove sensitive information before the document is released to the public.
Techniques that work with printed documents, such as blacking out an area of text or graphics, or reducing the size of a graphic, often do not work with electronic documents because the information is still contained within the document. Most word processing documents also contain hidden information such as comments or prior versions of the document, that may also be very sensitive.
The NSA's document had very clear instructions that anyone could use to take an MS Word file or just about any other kind of word processing file and systematically remove any sensitive content, including metadata, before creating a PDF file for public distribution. Let's hope that the TSA has the good sense to follow the NSA's procedures, or something like it, the next time they redact a document.
Related Articles
TSA Releases Extremely Sensitive Security Information Online
Continued Fallout from TSA Release of Sensitive Security Information
Resources
Full TSA report
Redacted TSA report
TSA prohibited and restricted Items
TSA Statement from December 9, 2009
Original AirSafeNews.com article on this topic
NSA procedures for redacting a document
Microsoft advice for minimizing metadata in Word documents
Tools for removing hidden data from Government Computer News
09 December 2009
TSA Releases Extremely Sensitive Security Information Online
The latest TSA controversy involves an inadvertent release of a document containing very sensitive security information that resulted in making key security procedures available to the public. The document, “Screening Procedures: Standard Operating Procedures,” provided standard procedures for TSA screening personnel in airports. It was the third revision, and was dated 28 May 2008. The document contained a range of information, including some sensitive security information that was redacted by the TSA.
The TSA posted it on the web site FedBizOpps.gov in March 2009, and it was removed from the site this past Sunday after the TSA realized, with the help of a number of blogs including Wanderingaramean.com, that the blacked out portion did not hide the information. You can download the redacted version and see for yourself.
It appears that the part of the TSA responsible for releasing the document to the FedBizOpps.gov site had a fundamental misunderstanding of how electronic documents work. It's likely that when the TSA 'redacted' areas of sensitive information in the original word processing document, black rectangles were placed over those areas, covering the information, but not deleting it. By selecting the blackened areas in the PDF document, copying it, and pasting it into a word processing file in a program like MS Word, Notepad, or OpenOffice Writer, anyone can recover the information that was within those blackened areas.
By the time the TSA had the document removed from the FedBizOpps.gov web site, it was too late. Copies of the redacted and unredacted information were now widely available online, and the information that was once hidden from the pubic is now out in the open.
Potential Security Impacts
The aviation security manual included details on TSA procedures for screening passengers, special rules for handling the diplomats, law enforcement officials, and CIA employees, and the technical settings and tolerances used by metal and explosive detectors used at airports.
Some of the more sensitive details in the TSA document were not widely known prior to the release of this document. Clearly, anyone attempting to do harm to the US air transportation system may use this information to attempt to fraudulently gain access to airliners or to secure areas of an airport terminal, or to take prohibited items through TSA security. This breach of security may force the TSA to change one or more procedures, and may make current security procedures and technology either less effective, or completely ineffective against some threats.
Because details about aviation security procedural or policy changes are typically not released to the public or subject to Freedom of Information Act requests, it is unlikely that the public will be made aware of any TSA changes, unless of course such information is accidentally released.
Highlights of Redacted Information
The redacted sections of the document contained a range of information, some of it mundane, and others frightening. The highlights, with page numbers from the 93-page document, are below:
Lessons Learned
Perhaps the most important lesson to be learned here is that electronic documents are not like printed documents. Depending on the document, what you see is not necessarily what you get. The version that you see may have coded within the document data about previous edits, formatting information, and hidden characters. There may also be several layers of information, such as the case with the TSA document where the blacked out portion did not eliminate the sensitive information, but merely covered it up.
A more effective method for redacting a document would have been to delete the sensitive information from the original document before turning it into a PDF file. Perhaps this TSA security controversy will be a lesson to anyone who works with electronic documents that they should be careful when 'redacting' documents.
Resources
Full TSA Report
Redacted TSA Report
TSA Prohibited and Restricted Items
Follow Up Articles
How the TSA Could Have Easily Avoided Its Recent Security Problem
Continued Fallout from TSA Release of Sensitive Security Information
Survey and Comments
Given the security implications of this TSA release of information, AirSafeNews.com would be particularly interested in any comments that you may have. Please take the time to fill out the survey below:
The survey is now closed. The results of the survey are available here.
The TSA posted it on the web site FedBizOpps.gov in March 2009, and it was removed from the site this past Sunday after the TSA realized, with the help of a number of blogs including Wanderingaramean.com, that the blacked out portion did not hide the information. You can download the redacted version and see for yourself.
It appears that the part of the TSA responsible for releasing the document to the FedBizOpps.gov site had a fundamental misunderstanding of how electronic documents work. It's likely that when the TSA 'redacted' areas of sensitive information in the original word processing document, black rectangles were placed over those areas, covering the information, but not deleting it. By selecting the blackened areas in the PDF document, copying it, and pasting it into a word processing file in a program like MS Word, Notepad, or OpenOffice Writer, anyone can recover the information that was within those blackened areas. By the time the TSA had the document removed from the FedBizOpps.gov web site, it was too late. Copies of the redacted and unredacted information were now widely available online, and the information that was once hidden from the pubic is now out in the open.
Potential Security ImpactsThe aviation security manual included details on TSA procedures for screening passengers, special rules for handling the diplomats, law enforcement officials, and CIA employees, and the technical settings and tolerances used by metal and explosive detectors used at airports.
Some of the more sensitive details in the TSA document were not widely known prior to the release of this document. Clearly, anyone attempting to do harm to the US air transportation system may use this information to attempt to fraudulently gain access to airliners or to secure areas of an airport terminal, or to take prohibited items through TSA security. This breach of security may force the TSA to change one or more procedures, and may make current security procedures and technology either less effective, or completely ineffective against some threats.
Because details about aviation security procedural or policy changes are typically not released to the public or subject to Freedom of Information Act requests, it is unlikely that the public will be made aware of any TSA changes, unless of course such information is accidentally released.
Highlights of Redacted Information
The redacted sections of the document contained a range of information, some of it mundane, and others frightening. The highlights, with page numbers from the 93-page document, are below:
- There exists an explosives trace detection screening protocol in which a percentage of checked baggage is screened using closed bag search (40%), limited open bag search (40%), and full open bag search (20%) procedures (page 9).
- Transportation Security Officers should not handle explosives, incendiaries, or weapons if such items are discovered during the screening process (page 20).
- There are specific procedures to follow to check the credentials of law enforcement officers and other armed government employees (page 21).
- Calibration testing procedures for walk-through metal detectors (page 27).
- Daily testing procedures for walk-through metal detectors (page 28).
- Operational test procedure for x-ray systems (page 29).
- Contamination control procedures for explosives trace detection devices (page 30).
- Procedures for clearing armed security officers into the secure area of the terminal (pages 28-40).
- Procedures for the screening of foreign dignitaries being escorted by the Central Intelligence Agency (page 43-44).
- Screening exemptions for TSA employees (page 45).
- Categories of passengers who are to be exempted from closer scrutiny after initially being selected for extra screening (page 47).
- Alternate screening procedures go into effect when primary screening devices are not working (page 52).
- Matrix of special screening procedures for law enforcement officers ( pages 54-55).
- Photos and graphics of with sample credentials for Federal Air Marshals, ATF employees, CIA employees, and members of the US Congress (pages 57-60).
- Procedures to use if explosives trace detection devices or x-ray devices are are unavailable or have limited function (page 77).
- Explosives trace detection exemptions for persons with disabilities (page 78).
- Allowing explosives trace detection procedures for bags and containers while using physical searches for all other items (page 78).
- Unless exempted by the airline or the TSA security director, passengers with passports issued by the following countries are to be selected for extra screening: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, and Algeria (page 81).
- Characteristics of suspect identification (page 82).
- Alternative methods for checking travel documents (page 83).
Lessons Learned
Perhaps the most important lesson to be learned here is that electronic documents are not like printed documents. Depending on the document, what you see is not necessarily what you get. The version that you see may have coded within the document data about previous edits, formatting information, and hidden characters. There may also be several layers of information, such as the case with the TSA document where the blacked out portion did not eliminate the sensitive information, but merely covered it up.
A more effective method for redacting a document would have been to delete the sensitive information from the original document before turning it into a PDF file. Perhaps this TSA security controversy will be a lesson to anyone who works with electronic documents that they should be careful when 'redacting' documents.
Resources
Full TSA Report
Redacted TSA Report
TSA Prohibited and Restricted Items
Follow Up Articles
How the TSA Could Have Easily Avoided Its Recent Security Problem
Continued Fallout from TSA Release of Sensitive Security Information
Survey and Comments
Given the security implications of this TSA release of information, AirSafeNews.com would be particularly interested in any comments that you may have. Please take the time to fill out the survey below:
The survey is now closed. The results of the survey are available here.
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