14 DAY TRIAL // Negligence strikes again! As if Formula 1 fans hadn't received a big enough strike, after McLaren had been stripped of all its constructor championship points, now the FIA posts sensitive data on the web for all to see. I cannot believe how these guys can screw things up so bad! Who needs espionage and special tactics, when they post secret stuff on the Internet for all of us to see?
If you happen to be an F1 fan, then you know the news about McLaren spying on Ferrari - it was a complicated situation, with lots of hearings before the final verdict could be reached. So, after all came to an end, what do you think the FIA (F?d?ration Internationale de l' Automobile) did? They published a PDF document with transcripts from the hearings. Noting abnormal till now, but the thing is that the transcript also contained some secret information, that wasn't properly hidden to say so. It was blacked out, but if you were to copy paste the text somewhere else, you would also get a hold of all the sensitive data. Oh, boy! What were they thinking? They fined McLaren $100 million for what happened, so what are they going to do now? Fine themselves?
In any case, this situation has been discovered by the Register (which I congratulate on this matter) and they have immediately notified the FIA about this. The document has been removed and the secret information has been erased. Of course, I can't imagine that the Register guys were the first ones to see this - I wonder how many more have taken advantage of this huge mistake. So, there is not much that can be said - they fine McLaren for accessing the rival's sensitive data, but they offer secret information for free, for the rest of the teams. With such things happening, I think we're going to see an all-Ferrari starting line-up.