MP3 BUYER TAPS INTO US MILITARY DATA

United States military security may be slack, but a Whangarei man who found American defence information on an MP3 player he bought in a secondhand store is keeping the little electronic device under lock and key.
Chris Ogle wasn't allowing the MP3 player to be photographed yesterday, although he did show the Northern Advocate files taken off it describing US troop and equipment movements and installations in Europe.
The files also contained the names, social-security numbers, telephone numbers and other details of American soldiers, some of whom served in Afghanistan and Iraq.
And the data explained procedures to follow in a nuclear attack.
Mr Ogle, 29, bought the 250mb MP3 player in November, paying about US$10 ($15.40) for it in an Oklahoma City thrift shop which he described as "like a Salvation Army store".
He put some music on it, but the device "kept stopping and starting" and wouldn't function as well as he expected.
It wasn't until he returned to his parents' Kensington home in New Zealand in December after living in the US for five years that he discovered the military files.
Some of the information, such as maps and details of US bases in Germany, dated from 2005 and was labelled "unclassified".
But a telephone call to one of the soldiers in the files had got through, demonstrating the numbers listed were still current.
And Mr Ogle said he knew, from personal experience, no American would be happy about their social-security details being "out and about".
He did not know the military value of the information on the MP3 player and was unsure what to do about it.
He didn't want to contact US government officials about it, believing they would get in touch with him after his find was made public on television on Monday.
His concern that some data on the MP3 player could be top secret had made him nervous about possessing it.
He had been alarmed when a man with a thick accent phoned on Monday night to say: "It's Abdul here. I am a relative of Osama bin Laden and I want your iPod." However, his fears were allayed the following morning when a friend admitted making the call.
The giant American news network, CNN, was showing an interest in Mr Ogle's story yesterday, but the US Embassy in Wellington was more cautious.
Embassy spokesperson Janine Burns told the Advocate: "We don't have anything to say about it at this stage."
New Zealand Defence Forces spokesman Bas Bolyn would not comment on the information on the MP3 player because "it's not really directly related to us".
But he said the NZ military had policies governing information security and any breaches of these procedures would be taken very seriously.
"We have nearly 450 people around the world, including Afghanistan and Timor, and their safety and security is important to us," Mr Bolyn said.
Victoria University strategic-studies director Peter Cozens said information from the MP3 player which he had been shown was a little dated and was more of an embarrassment than something which would rock the foundations of American society.
"Nonetheless it is sensitive because it deals with real people," he said. "In terms of conflict, you never want to give the enemy any information they can use against you.
"There has been a breakdown in military security allowing this material to be compromised so it could be used mischievously."