[Infowarrior] - Japan's navy to replace all PCs to prevent more high-tech spying

[Richard Forno]

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Japan's navy to replace all PCs to prevent more high-tech spying
East-Asia-Intel
March 13, 2008
http://ibloga.blogspot.com/2008/03/its-little-things-key-aegis-anti.html

Embarrassed by a spy scandal, Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force will
replace all of its personal computers with systems that have little memory
and no local storage to prevent leakage of classified information, sources
said.

The move comes after the leak of information about key functions of
Aegis-equipped destroyers. The leak triggered criticism of the MSDF's lax
information management.

A 34-year-old MSDF officer has been arrested for allegedly taking
confidential data on the U.S.-designed Aegis defense system from a computer
system task force in violation of a bilateral agreement with Washington.

The MSDF plans to replace some 30,000 PCs by 2010 with units that have no
disk drives and which run applications from central servers, the sources
said.

Sumitaka Matsuuchi arrives at a police station in Yokosuka, Japan on Dec.
13. Yomiuri.co.jp

So-called "thin clients" use a remote display protocol and do not have
USB-based wireless adaptors.

The leak was discovered early last year after information on the
capabilities of the Aegis was found on the home computer of a second-class
petty officer in Kanagawa.

After a year-long probe, Japanese police arrested Sumitaka Matsuuchi for
allegedly leaking secret data on the high-tech Aegis combat system, a top
line defense against a possible attack by North Korea.

He was the first Japanese arrested on suspicion of violating the Secrets
Protection Law, which is based on the Japan-U.S. Mutual Defense Assistance
Agreement signed in 1954.

The classified information reportedly includes data on performance limits of
Aegis destroyers' interception systems.

The U.S.-developed Aegis system has cutting-edge radar and can
simultaneously track hundreds of targets, such as missiles and enemy
aircraft, and can attack dozens at the same time.

According to Kyodo News on March 9, the MSDF uncovered defense documents and
file-sharing software on Matsuuchi's private computers. They are attempting
to determine whether the data include confidential files.

Matsuuchi, who was assigned to the MSDF's Maizuru headquarters, began
storing data on his computers about 10 years ago and added information from
a number of units to which he was assigned, Kyodo said.

He also apparently failed to obey recent Defense Ministry directives to
delete sensitive data and file-sharing software from private computers, it
said.