LONDON, April 17 (UPI) -- A blunder by British Defense Ministry staff put secrets about British and U.S. nuclear submarines on the Internet for all to see, the Daily Star Sunday reports.
The British newspaper reported a classified government report was posted on Parliament's Web site with sensitive information blacked out in response to a Freedom of Information request by anti-nuclear activists. However, it turns out all anyone had to do to read the extensive blacked-out portions was to copy the text and paste it into another document, Daily Star Sunday said.
"This is hugely embarrassing," a Defense Ministry source told the newspaper. "Whoever is responsible should be sacked. The Americans will be furious their procedures have been exposed."
Computer security expert Graham Cluely called the blunder a "schoolboy error."
"It's a staggeringly stupid thing to do," he said. "Anyone with even an elementary knowledge of computing would know how to read it. I can only assume they gave it to a junior member of staff to deal with.
"If this document is like this, who knows what else is? It's very sloppy security."
The Daily Star Sunday said experts say the document reveals how a nuclear reactor meltdown could be made to happen by just one sailor and details the capabilities of U.S. vessels.
The report says the Royal Navy's ability to cope with another potentially catastrophic event is "unacceptable," the newspaper said.
The sections meant to be censored recounts U.S. methods for dealing with on-board disasters, finding them much better than British procedures, the newspaper said.
British Member of Parliament Patrick Mercer said the information in the 2009 report would be "hugely interesting" to Britain's enemies and "potentially catastrophic."
A Defense Ministry said the document was replaced with a correctly blacked-out version once the mistake was discovered.
