Air Force One data still on the Web Once classified info posted, it's out there

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

A week after Pentagon officials ordered an Air Force base in Georgia to remove from its Web site security information about the two Air Force One aircraft, the data remained publicly available Tuesday.

Officials at the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center did not ignore the Pentagon command to remove the information. In fact, within hours of the Air Force chief of staff's office learning of the online posting, Warner Robins authorities removed the technical order that had caused consternation at the Pentagon and White House.

The Air Force has discovered that once it -- or for that matter anyone -- places a Web page on a publicly accessible Internet site, that information moves into the public domain.

"Once a page is out on the Net, Google and the Way Back Machine make copies ... for long-term archive," said Internet security expert Steve Gibson, president and founder of Gibson Research Corp.

Although the Air Force has attempted to put the proverbial genie back into the bottle, Gibson said the effort is all but a lost cause. Once something is on a public Web site, "there is nothing, from a technological standpoint, that can prevent anyone from copying the information. There should be no expectation that once published, that information can be withdrawn."

He's an example of the government failing in their mission to keep their own information secret.Imagine if they run health care and your personal information gets on the web.Something to think about.