tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1913143473082500114.post6206224186771781282..comments2008-10-20T17:36:41.313-07:00William Morrisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679044599000737422noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1913143473082500114.post-60092084273982464072008-10-20T17:36:00.000-07:002008-10-20T17:36:00.000-07:00While incidents like this might make the federal government look hypocritical when it goes after private companies for security flaws, I doubt they will have much effect on enforcement. For example, when the Federal Government went after Choicepoint, they did it based on the FTC act's prohibition on deceptive and unfair trade practices. Regardless of whether the federal government can keep its house in order, a deceptive practice is still a deceptive practice (though, of course, the specific defenses available would depend on the charges brought and the facts of a particular situation).William Morrisshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09679044599000737422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1913143473082500114.post-91352919554888220952008-10-20T08:38:00.000-07:002008-10-20T08:38:00.000-07:00Good article William! Like you I am curious as to the decision, (and I beloeve it was a conscious decision), to not include the necessary secuirty features of its new juggernaut of a program. As with all government programming projects this was outsourced to a private contractor for development. I wonder if the decision was made simply for cost cutting reasons or if the contractor dragged its' heels on the "hard bits" and due to deadline considerations the IRS caved? Whatever the reasons it is a classic demonstration of the leaky boat of regulation and enforcement. With something like this in placce at a government agency will the feds be able to persue cases against private database leaks citing the laws?John Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15220821369172645158noreply@blogger.com