NRA Reports Data Breach With California’s Assault Weapon Registry
Posted at 12:00 pm on July 9, 2018 by Tom Knighton



Registering any kind of guns is abhorrent. It’s wrong on every level. There’s absolutely no reason to do so except to know where to go when you’re ready to round up guns for some reason, and anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves. We all know it to be true. The only reason to register guns is to make confiscation easier.

So that’s a big problem with California’s assault weapon registry. However, it’s not the most pressing issue at the moment.

According to the NRA, there’s a serious problem with California’s registry on the technical side. Other than it not working when people needed it to.

Following the closure of the “assault weapon” registration period, NRA and CRPA received complaints from hundreds of individuals who were unable to register their firearms as required because CA DOJ’s online application system was unable to handle the amount of traffic it received. Constant crashes and errors plagued DOJ’s online registration system for weeks leading up to the registration deadline. Because DOJ only provided an electronic means of registration, it was impossible for those who faced these issues to register their firearms.

Another DOJ Data Breach

Possibly even more concerning with DOJ’s online registration system were the reports of the system’s improper disclosure of personal information to other users. There have been confirmed reports of individuals attempting to register their firearms who were improperly given access to the account information associated with another individual, due to a complete breakdown of CA DOJ’s registration application system. In some cases, the system allowed users to see all the personal information (including home address, telephone number, email, and Driver’s License number) for another user and all the information that user had submitted for registering their firearms as “assault weapons”—including the firearms make/model/serial number and all of the photos and attachments to the user’s registration application.

Unsurprisingly, this isn’t the first time CA DOJ has improperly disclosed the personal information of California gun owners. In 2016, CA DOJ admitted to releasing the name, date of birth, and California Driver’s License and/or Identification Card numbers of FSC instructors to a reporter for Southern California Public Radio. In response to that disclosure, CA DOJ offered a one-year membership of Experian’s® ProtectMyID® Alert. Whether CA DOJ will do the same for this blatantly improper disclosure remains to be seen.
To err is human. To really foul things up, you need governmental involvement.

Seriously, I can’t even fathom how this is remotely possible. How can any system go live with such obvious and ridiculous faults still within the system? Further, isn’t this the kind of thing you make sure is good to go first?

Yet, California didn’t.

I’m sitting here, writing this, just shaking my head at the stupidity of it. I mean, it’s bad enough that you’re going to make law-abiding citizens register their weapons as if they’re all potential criminals or something, but then you make their personal information accessible to everyone and their brother? Seriously?

Look, I knew California had some serious issues as a state. I didn’t realize that in addition to feeling like they needed to be in every aspect of people’s lives they were this stupid.

It seems I should learn never to underestimate the stupidity of the State of California. Live and learn.

https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/...mail&utm_campaign=nl

too bad it couldn't be hacked and all of the data destroyed

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
too bad it couldn't be hacked and all of the data destroyed

My fear would be anti-gunners know who owns what and where they live....

that too

I was warned by friends...one of whom made the mistake of registering his "AW" years ago.
Featureless is the way I go.

quote:

Originally posted by downtownv:

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
too bad it couldn't be hacked and all of the data destroyed

My fear would be anti-gunners know who owns what and where they live....

Um, the State of California runs the registration. The State of California is anti-gun. So.....too late.

I wonder how much might be true ignorant stupidity, how much might be arrogant stupidity, and how much might be intentional stupidity.

Same end result, but I think only a small minority of CA politicians and bureaucrats are honest people.

The North Carolina General Assembly had to pass a specific law making the list of concealed carry permits and pistol purchase permits confidential as the "so called news media" (actually the 24/7 entertainment medium that hides behind the first amendment) was demanding the information and publishing it in the news papers.

So, are all the owners who were unable to register their "assault weapons" by the deadline, now considered to be felons for not abiding by the law?

Absolutely, it was part of the plan.

Regarding bad computer systems, sometimes contracts are let for the lowest bidder, who hires unqualified and inexperinced programmers with somewhere between little and zero oversight. See it all the time dealing with flagship software products. Even the great Oracle Corporation, their flagship Enterprise database product has major flaws that could have otherwise been avoided by putting more experienced people on the technical side, and giving them the time to release product after it has been properly tested. I found a bug recently that makes one of their major database auditing products unusable, and this particular product was released over 4 years ago. Pretty bad from my perspective. And you know thousands of organizations are using this function all over the world in a big way. I filed a ticket with them, they didn't want to mess with me, but I stuck it out and insisted they test it for themselves, and after writing them code to test their own product, they confirmed it and filed it as a formal bug, but now it's stuck in a black hole. Given the severity of the bug I was hoping they would put it out there as a warning until they could fix it. Good luck with that.

Once again, no one is held accountable, so it will happen again. And again. And again.

Does anyone truly believe that any significant policy maker in a government that mandates such a registry gives a rat’s turd if it’s compromised and personal information of the gun owners is disclosed?

“Oh, oh, Moonflower: The assault weapon registry has been hacked! We must take immediate steps to ensure that never happens again, and the first steps will be to end the registry requirement and purge all the previously collected information.”

quote:

Originally posted by Yellow Jacket:
So, are all the owners who were unable to register their "assault weapons" by the deadline, now considered to be felons for not abiding by the law?

I would say yes. A few days ago their supreme court upheld the microstamping law, saying that just because there was no way to comply with it doesn't invalidate it. There is a thread on it here somewhere.

Not only are they unaccountable, it is the responsibility of the owner to comply.

Whether or not the system is secure, functional or accessible matters not.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
Once again, no one is held accountable, so it will happen again. And again. And again.

quote:

Originally posted by Yellow Jacket:
So, are all the owners who were unable to register their "assault weapons" by the deadline, now considered to be felons for not abiding by the law?

For the time being the minimum recommended thing to do is separate your bullet button lower from the upper if you couldn’t properly register. Or if you chose not to register and didn’t make your rifle featureless or otherwise compliant.

So yes by the stroke of a pen the legislature made thousands if not tens of thousands of AR owners who bought a rifle with the last 15+ years a felon let along pre 1999 owners who should have registered the first time almost 20 years ago. I know guys who own a AR rifle but are no means “gun guys” and they have NONE idea of the potential trouble they are in if they didn’t register or modify the rifle that was perfectly legal when they acquired it.

I thought there was an ex post facto clause in the constitution somewhere. Any lawyer want to chime in on that ? Maybe scotus takes it as a case that way. Not necessarily a gun control case

quote:

Originally posted by ElToro:
I thought there was an ex post facto clause in the constitution somewhere.

Yes, perhaps a lawyer will chime in, but ex post facto refers to making an act that was not a crime at the time it was committed a crime later. I can’t be charged with killing a protected animal if at the time I did it that wasn’t a crime. It’s over and done with. If, however, I took body parts from the animal, such as feathers, and there’s a law on the books prohibiting possession of body parts from protected animals, then the act is ongoing: the law is in effect now, and I’m in violation of the law now.

At one time possession of heroin was not a crime, and if I acquired some prior the passage of the law making it illegal, I could not be charged with the acquisition. But if I kept it after the law was passed, then I’m breaking the law now, and that’s not ex post facto.

It’s also the same if I find a machine gun that was never registered with the ATF in my grandfather’s wartime footlocker. Possessing it in 1918 when he brought it back from France wasn’t a crime, but if I keep it now, it is.

There is nothing to keep legislatures from making previously legal acts illegal now: that happens all the time, and there’s nothing ex post facto about it.

Full Disclosure: I was born in Fresno, CA in July of 1941... escaped in January of 1979

That said, I chuckle at some of the responses here to disclosure of the breach in security of the CA database...

OF COURSE IT WAS BREACHED! I believe it is part of the Grand Plan to dissuade law abiding citizens of CA from owning (eventually) any kind or type of firearm.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Jerry Brown is selling the information to help finance his various hair-brained activities, such as his "railroad to nowhere" out in the Central Valley...

It's a damn shame! Beautiful place to live with many wonderful attractions, both natural and man-made to enjoy, all made absolutely worthless in the zeal to pander to the illegal alien population at the expense of the LEGAL and Tax Paying citizens.

Don