What do a group of sex crime victims [1], police informants, traffic violators [2], members of Japan's largest crime syndicate [3] and a man being stalked by his girlfriend all have in common this week? If you count yourself as part of any of these groups, and particularly if you live in the Suginami Ward [4] of Tokyo, you might want to check that your personal information was not among the 10,000 confidential police files [5] — 9000 documents including private testimony, interrogation reports, bank account numbers, licence plate numbers and personal reports, as well as 1000 photos — that were leaked onto the Internet [6] early Tuesday morning.
According to news reports [7], at about 8 a.m. on Tuesday morning, confidential police information, originally stored on the computer of a 26-year-old senior policeman of the Kitazawa police station in Setagaya, Tokyo, began appearing on the hugely popular Japanese bulletin board service 2channel [8]. Apparently the police officer, contrary to instructions issued last year by bureau chiefs [9], had installed the file-sharing software Winny [10] on his personal computer. The officer's computer reportedly already having been infected with a computer virus, all pieces were in place for an information leak on a massive scale.
As soon as the data [11] was posted, a flood of messages to 2channel started to pour in [12], prompting the creation of a wiki page exclusively to the incident [13]. Those who dug into the details of the data files found more than a few secrets they were never meant to know about [14].
Reactions to the information leak among bloggers for the most part expressed frustration and outrage. Much of bloggers’ anger was directed at the fact that a very similar type of incident happened just over a year ago [15], prompting the introduction of new countermeasures which apparently didn't work [9]. Compounding this situation, very recently confidential information was leaked by the Japanese Self-Defense Forces [16] in a case which attracted considerable publicity.
An early comment (#35) on the 2channel bulletin board [12], posted by m r g n on the 13th at 16:10, summarizes the feelings of many:
またまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたまたつこうたか
Blogger nekotsume [17] echoes the sentiment in slightly more verbose terms:
警察馬鹿だろ。
何度同じことを繰り返せば気が済むのかね？
しかも今回の流出量は半端無いようだし・・・馬鹿が道具を使うとこうなるという良い例。
How many times do they have to repeat the same thing before they are satisfied?
On top of everything else, this time the amount of leaked data is apparently enormous… this is a good example of what happens when idiots use tools [like this].
[…]
あーあ、馬鹿だねぇ・・・公務員って学習能力無いのかよ。
どうする気なんだろ、流出した捜査資料とかすごくやばいんじゃないの？
スレで言われているように２次被害が発生したら責任をどうとるつもりなのか。
まあどうせいつものようにウイルスやWinny開発者などなどのせいにして責任逃れするだろうけど・・・で、また同じことをくりかえす、と。
What are they going to do about this? The information from investigations that was leaked, this is really serious stuff, no?
As people are asking on the thread [of 2channel's itai news blog], how do they intend to take responsibility if there is secondary damage [to the people who's information was leaked]?
Well, as always, people will probably try to escape by pinning responsibility on viruses or on Winny software developers, etc., etc… and the same thing will be repeated again.
開発者に対策させればいいのにそれもさせない、警察って能無しなのか。
とりあえずこの流出させたヤツをどう処分するかが気になる。
ちゃんと責任取らせるのかな？
それにしてもニュースに使われている画像は恣意的だなぁ。
まるで２ｃｈが悪いかのような構成だし、これも責任逃れの一つなんだろうな。
Anyways for now, I'm just wondering how they are going to deal with all the leaked information.
Are they going to be held responsible?
And also, the images that were used in the news were used arbitrarily.
They [the images] are made to look as if to say 2-channel is the bad guy, and I guess this is one of their ways of dodging their responsibility.
Blogger newskaisetsu [18], who lives in Kitazawa, was also angry:
あれ？ 警察の情報がWinnyに流出するのは、これで何度目でしょうか？
警察ほどの巨大な組織ともなると、末端まで学習するのは至難の業ということでしょうか。
In the case of huge organizations as large as the police forces, I guess that teaching every last person is an impossible task.
え〜と、今度は北沢警察署…？ あれれ、ウチの近所じゃないですか。私は特段警察のお世話になっていないので、私の個人情報は入っていないと思いますが、「お世話になった人たち」にとっては心配かもしれません。
Blogger nagas [19] questions the focus of the media on the software Winny rather than punishment for the police officer:
Winnyの報道内容は全てWinnyとその発祥地である2ちゃんねるに向けられ、なぜか行った部署、個人を罪で問うことはない。番組のシーンの多くはなぜかソフト、2ちゃんらしき掲示板と露出情報を思わせる紙である。
司法、マスコミともにソフトのせいにするほうが状況を良くするとの認識であれば痴呆の塊であるとしかいわざるを得ない。人災を自然災害として扱ってるのに気づいてないようだ。
Winnyの影響力の是非については事件とは関係ないので別で議論し対応するべきであろう。そもそも紙が情報漏えいの一番という事実があるのでセキュリティに対しては個人の徹底と、そういう情報を隔離する手段のほうをよく検討すべきである。
Blogger chako [20] makes some suggestions:
自衛官や警察官は、日本で一番大切な情報を取り扱っているひとたちだと思います。
それが、このところ、情報流出源になってしまって、事件に取り上げられてしまっています。
However, they have become the source of information leaks and have been covered as scandals.
普通のセキュリティに気を払っている民間企業ならば、私物ＰＣにもファイル共有ソフト、特にＷｉｎｎｙのインストールは、組織から禁止されているはずです。
だいたい、Ｗｉｎｎｙの利用目的は、著作権の利用権限のないひとたちが、違法に映画や音楽などの有償データを、不法に無償で交換し合うためのものです。
For the most part, Winny is used by people who do not have copyright authority and who use it to illegally exchange for-profit data for movies, music, etc., at no cost.
Ｗｉｎｎｙソフト自体を所持していることは、現段階では違法でないかもしれません。
でも、Ｗｉｎｎｙを使うひとは、明らかに著作権侵害をしてまで、違法コピーを手に入れようとするひとたちです。
However, people who use Winny are people who want to get their hands on illegally copied material, and these people go as far as clearly committing copyright infringement [to do this].
個人的な趣味の範囲のデータ収集では、各自は問題ないと思っているのでしょう。
一昔の日本でも、有償ソフトの不正コピーが流行っていましたから・・・
It was, after all, very popular in Japan, not a long time ago, to illegally copy for-profit software…
どうしても、Ｗｉｎｎｙを使いたいひとは、Ｗｉｎｎｙ専用パソコンを別に用意すべきです。
そして、このパソコンには、機密情報は一切保存しないと決めて使うべきです。
And, it needs to be made a rule that no classified information should be save on this computer.
こういう手法を隔離システムと呼びます。
どうしても、Ｗｉｎｎｙを使うなら、隔離システムで使いなさい◆
By all means, when using Winny, use the sequestration system.
Finally, blogger kyasubaruniisan [21] asks about the rights of the victims:
何度も言うけど、包丁で人を刺しても包丁メーカは悪くない。
まあ、包丁とWinnyでは”この世に登場した理由”の時点で異なる側面を持ってるけど。
Well, in the cases of kitchen knives and [the software] Winny, there is a difference in the aspect of “why they appeared in this world” from the beginning.
ホント、「頭が悪い」としか言いようが無い。
なんでよりによって業務上の資料が入っている端末でWinnyやるの？
しかも、被害内容とかも含めた詳細な個人情報らしいじゃん。
警察が被害者の傷をさらに深くえぐってどうするの？ 被害者の人権はどこにあるの？
Why, of all things, was this person using Winny on a computer terminal that contained work-related materials?
And on top of that, detailed personal information related to content about victims’ injuries and damage was also apparently there.
And another thing, what are the police doing adding further insult to the victims’ injuries? What happened to the victims’ rights?
この巡査長は”被害者”ではなく、
・過去に何度も「危険だから使用するな」といわれたツールを
・それでもなお、業務用の機密ファイルが存在するPCで使用した
悪意ある”加害者”だってことを明確にしないとダメだと思うんだよね。
しかも最初、「Winny使って無い」ってウソついてたんでしょ？（ソース忘れ）
– in the past, however many times it was said that these tools are “dangerous and therefore should not be used”,
– even so, [these tools] were used on PCs containing sensitive files for institutional use only.
This will not be resolved until it is made clear that he is the malicious person who is responsible for this.
And on top of this, from the very beginning, weren't they lying when they said: “We're not using Winny.” (I forget the source.)