Security, Security, Security.

The story last week that someone had left a secret folder of documents on a train - which were then given to the BBC brought back memories for me. Shortly after my wife and I had moved into our first house, she brought home a brown paper envelope she had found on a train. In it were some legal papers which related to a celebrity (one we didn't like much). There was nothing deeply personal in them but it was an interesting bit of gossip, so I suggested she ring a couple of newspapers and one of them bought the story and ran it the next day. It paid for our patio. I suspect if the traveller got anything for the papers they found it was more than the price of a few dozen paving slabs.

Just through on my News feed, is the story that "A personal computer holding sensitive documents relating to defence and extremism has been stolen from Hazel Blears' constituency office in Salford." I say the same thing to customers over and over again. Computers get lost, they get stolen. Vista makes it easy with Bitlocker. If Vista isn't your plans, then do it with something else. If you don't use full volume protection and you have "secret" data on them you know what is coming. Interestingly whilst this story of a stolen laptop made the news it has a totally different tone because it was encrypted.  It sounds like Hazel Blears' PC was not.

According to the BBC. "The machine contained a combination of constituency and government information which should not have been held on it.". Oh deary, deary me.  I'm not going to venture in opinions of Hazel Blears... except to say I would laugh - a lot -  if the "documents on defence and extremism" led to of her facing court for possessing "a record of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism". Sadly the Police only have 28 days to hold her while they find out if a charge can be brought.

If I were Hazel I'd stay out of the boss's way for a bit. He was saying only at lunch time that we really didn't need principles like habeas corpus any more and we could trust the government with an ID cards database, Facial recognition CCTV, Automated Number Plate cameras, a DNA database etc etc. ... a state of affairs which a colleague who grew up in the old East Germany called "Beyond the dreams of the Stasi".  No party politics here: no government can be trusted with that data, whether the person in charge is named Erich, Gordon, or Dave.

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  It was 18 years ago, and 10 years before I became a Microsoftie. It was a Moral dilemma: if I had the level of income I have now I might not have made the suggestion, and if it was highly immoral my wife would have said "NO!". Had it been about the health or finances of the celeb concerned I might have felt differently. I'm not proud nor ashamed of it. The document was  a warning to say that the celeb was encouraging fans to congregate outside the building where they lived to the distress of other people and if they didn't stop their lease might be under threat. Before criticizing my wife and "Microsofties" in general, you might ask about the newspaper which bought it, and the morals of the people who buy papers every day which source stories in this way. If people thought this sort of thing was morally unacceptable then the papers would be a lot thinner.

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 17, 2008
  And they said on the news tonight that the data was secure on the disk - Oh Yea!!!!  So much for security systems that even allow the data out of the secure area in the first place.  Bet is that it was a simple email attachment!!

• Anonymous
  June 17, 2008
  ...I suggested she ring a couple of newspapers and one of them bought the story and ran it the next day... Wow - you must be proud of yourself. The morally correct thing to do would have been to turn them over to the owner, or if that were not possible to shed them. This is a perfect illustration of the great moral fibre that many of you Microsofties have.

• Anonymous
  June 20, 2008
  The comment has been removed