Michael Gracie

Not particularly favorable.

The world is getting a sexy little laptop with wireless-only connectivity and an irreplaceable battery - the MacBook Air. They are also getting a 1TB drive that works over the radio - the Time Capsule.

This time next year, a bunch of MacBook Air owners will have laptops that lose their charge in twenty minutes, and they’ll have to pay $120 or so to get them fixed. They’ll be looking silly at their next coffee-shop meeting too, when the colleague says “oh I’ve got that file on CD.” Or worse…”I’ve got that file on my portable Firewire drive” (there’s no Firewire on the device either). This convenience have cost them roughly two grand to start.

Meanwhile, a whole bunch of other folks will have nifty storage units sitting on their shelves. They’ll download a 1.4GB movie from iTunes, which takes this user roughly a half-hour, and then they get to stir for another fifteen minutes when they decide to store it for future use. Big drives mean lots of (and big) files - transfer over the airwaves is a pain in the ass, 802.11n or not. I’m shopping for a new backup drive now, and won’t even consider one without (at least) Firewire 400.

It’s a lot of kit that seems destined to waste time as well as money. There’s an economic slowdown in the midst, and by the time people have money to burn there will already be something better out. Technology advances quickly, and I think Apple’s timing is off. Steve Jobs spoke, then Twitter went down? Give me a break - nobody cares.

But how about Apple’s stock price? Down 15 points in the past two days.

After the Veterans Administration wrote the script for downplaying risk, when tens of millions of data records were stolen out of an employee’s home, the Bush Administration issued an edict - encrypt all data on government laptops.

Good idea, but nobody’s listening. Wonder what the TSA’s “100,000″ number will grow to?

The VA, who lost a laptop then found it, declaring the data had not been tampered with, has decided to listen to the White House. They are taking the high road, and going to encrypt all laptop data (actually, all sensitive data, which I assume includes that which resides on desktops as well).

All I can say is congratulations. They are “getting it.”

Laptop + parked car = theft risk.

But still, people don’t get it - even employees of the Department of Transportation.

Now there are another hundred thousand or so names and social security numbers floating around. Next up, spin.

Companies need a phone tree to deal with stolen laptops full of personally identifiable data, according to this report over at eWeek.

How about a simpler “tree”:

- Keep important data off of laptops and on in-house secure servers, followed by…

- Keep laptops full of data out of the back seats of cars standing in dark parking lots, followed by…

- Keeping laptops full of data out of the hands of foolish employees who think said laptops are safe in the previously mentioned location (as well as safe unattended in crowded wi-fi enabled cafes).

If you don’t make contact, repeat the above steps until you do.

The Bush Administration’s Office of Management and Budget is advising federal agencies to encrypt laptop data, among other measures, following a flurry of data thefts (think VA).

I don’t track my inbound stats at Spamroll all that thoroughly, but I do think I would have remembered if the White House visited. Therefore, I wonder where they came up with that bright idea, since I’ve been pissing and moaning about it for over a year.

You would think that after letting someone go home with millions of personal records, only to have it stolen, you might want to get your actual exposure to such a theft sorted out right away. In the case of the VA deal, silly excuses were made first, and now the inevitable has occured - the theft is worse than originally thought.

Silly little government boys and girls.

***UPDATE***

Yes, silly. But what an absolutely moronic blatantly incompetent move as well. Complete and utter disrespect for the citizenry that should be held in the highest regard. None too surprising, however, from a pack of government lackeys an institution with no real accountability for its actions. A Slashdot reader agrees.

Of course, the veterans are suing, and I hope they get every penny they can (and a few heads rolling might not hurt either).

The financers of kids’ college educations are doing it too!

A contractor for the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan company lost 1.3 million names and SSNs when a piece of equipment (which was not identified - meaning it was a laptop left in the front seat of a parked car), was stolen. The incident happened May 24th, the TGSL was notified two days later. The notice included a statement about the data being encrypted, then decrypted, followed by a “well the machine needs password access” - why didn’t they just say everyone listed in the database is now completely screwed?

While I deplore laptop theft, I hate hearing how careless people are with them particularly when the machines are loaded with personal data. And an auditor should not held solely responsible when a laptop full of client information is stolen from that client site.

At first I gave Ernst & Young some benefit of doubt, even though one of their people left one of the machines in a parked car (arghh!). Not this time.

Email Battles noted that a Veterans Administration laptop with 26.5 million social security numbers was stolen, and that the VA responded by saying the thieves may be..

“..UNAWARE OF THE INFORMATION WHICH THEY POSSESS OR OF HOW TO MAKE USE OF IT.”

Uh..were the thieves “unaware” before or after they cased the situation, noting where the laptop might be and at what time? Or maybe they were “unaware” until they realized how stupid the VA was, and that just such a major announcement was forthcoming, and then they would become “aware” of what was on said machine. No, they were probably just regular readers of these pages, and became “aware” of what prime targets laptops were.

My bad.
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