A recent GAO report shows how the Defense Department is somewhat incompetent at dealing with online threats. Of course, it's not clear that anyone else in the government is any better. The GAO is back with yet another report, dinging the State Department for its dreadful computer security monitoring program. In this case, it's talking about threats to the State Department's network, rather than to third parties. And while the State Department spent a whopping $1.2 billion of taxpayer money on a fancy computer system, called iPost, to monitor everything, it turns out that it only works on Windows machines:

But the iPost service only covers computers that use Microsoft's Windows operating system, not other assets such as the roughly 5,000 routers and switches along State's network, non-Windows operating systems, firewalls, mainframes, databases and intrusion detection devices, GAO auditors said.

I mean, this is the kind of stuff that makes you shake your head in disbelief. Somewhere in the process of building a $1.2 billion system, no one thought to point out that there are more computer assets than those that run Microsoft Windows? Really? Someone seriously deserves to be fired.

Also, for the Windows computers where you can install it, it appears that the system barely works.

For instance, iPost tools did not always scan computers when scheduled, or they created false positives that had to be analyzed and explained. One scanner vendor failed to update its technology to detect the latest, most common vulnerabilities. And tools manufactured by different suppliers produced disparate scores that staff then had to interpret and modify.

Apparently, all of this is leading to confusion where people don't even know who's responsible for what.

So can someone explain why the federal government is coming down so hard on Bradley Manning, rather than taking some of that energy and focusing on securing the State Department's computers? Honestly, from the sound of things, you have to imagine that lots of people (including tons of foreign spies) long ago broke into State Department computers and had access to all of this info, based on reports like this. If anything, it makes you wonder if the Wikileaks leak may help get the State Department to better secure things.