Mass shut down of Interior Web Sites ordered

A FEDERAL judge, on Friday, ordered the shut down of several of the US Interior Department's web sites. Apparently, the judge was trying to prevent hackers from reaching $1 billion in American Indian money, which is managed by the department.

The case was proposed by the attorney for the Indians, Dennis Gingold. He assured the judge that there was no way to be sure that the American Indian money was safe from hackers unless extensive tests were carried out.

Is the Indian money safe? See the stories below about previous shenanigans over there.

This is the second time that judge Royce Lamberth ordered an Interior Department web shut down, the first being in December 2001. Back in December, nearly all of the Interior Department's PCs were disconnected, and all of it's sites forced to be shut down.One of these sites was the National Earthquake Information Center, which couldn't issue its regular seismic activities report, due to the shut down.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs web site is still not back online. Last time the sites were shut down, it took several months before they could go back up again. µ

See Also
Hacking blamed for federal Native Indian cockup
EDS, US government cooked up fake computer figures