Friday, July 18, 2008
How Many Laptops Does It Take...?
How many stolen laptops does it take before someone realises that a government department has a problem. More than 658, if you're from the Ministry of Defence. THIS story is quite incredible. And the MoD "insisted that its policies were "generally fit for purpose", and said all data losses were fully investigated." Well that's alright then. Multiply this over other government departments and it's likely that more than ten thousand laptops have "disappeared" over the last few years. Astonishing.
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8 comments:
Not sure about the rest of the MOD but the army have recently insisted on full encryption for laptops leaving army bases.
I also wonder what percentage the 658 represents - I reckon it's probably fairly low.
I know none of this excuses the losses but I do suspect that if similar figures were available for business then the MOD would not look so bad.
Oh just another example of a minister lying then.
But given the MoD's record on procurement, these laptops are going to be a couple of grand apiece, so the total cost of hardware lost is in the millions.
I bet the data was the canteen menu, or the Christmas party details, cos the MoD do bugger all serious work anyway
If the laptops contain Government Statistics then any respectable thief will want to remove the corrupted data anyway.
Pssssst! Wanna buy a lap top cheap?
"Multiply this over other government departments etc"
That may be going to far. 'Defence' very often seems to live in its own special world of incompetence.
When I worked for another government department as a computer programmer we would very occasionally have to phone the programming department in Defence. No matter which one of us phoned and spoke to a so-called IT person, we always got the impression that the IT people at defence knew absoulutely nothing about IT.
I suspect they are all so paranoid about 'security' they don't bother about actually knowing anything about anything, including security of property.
Laptops are frequently lost it seems:
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/147739/laptops_lost_like_hot_cakes_at_us_airports.html
At 36 medium sized airports 10,000 go missing each week.
One presumes that the hard drives are encrypted in the case of the MOD though. Although wasn't this the government that sent social security details in an unencrypted database on CDs via the post? Umm.
I doubt if any Government Dept is "fit for purpose"
An aid to Gordon had his blackeberry stolen by chinese secret agents apparently on a trip to Beijing with the Dear Leader.
Click to see the report
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