31 Jul File sharing leaks sensitive federal data, lawmakers are told
The indiscriminate use of a popular online data-sharing technology has led to the disclosure of sensitive government and personal information — including FBI surveillance photos of a Mafia hit man, lists of people with HIV, and motorcade routes and safe-house locations for then-first lady Laura Bush, a congressional panel was told on Wednesday.
The information is often exposed inadvertently by people who download the technology to share music or other files, not realizing that the “peer-to-peer” software also makes the contents of their computers available to other users, experts said.
The issue is so pressing that the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), said he would introduce a bill to ban such software from all government and contractor computers and networks.
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