Interesting People mailing list archives
more on Bank loses tape with personal information on 90,000 customers
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 17:18:49 -0500
Begin forwarded message: From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com> Date: January 12, 2006 12:54:35 PM EST To: dave () farber net Cc: lauren () vortex comSubject: Re: [IP] Bank loses tape with personal information on 90,000 customers
Bingo. As Dan notes, lost tapes in transit, even when the data is unencrypted, are a very low probability vector for identity theft problems. In fact, the majority of identity thefts are usually highly targeted and often are "inside jobs" based on realtime access to running database systems -- and frequently the perpetuators are "friends" or acquaintances of the targets. In fact, offhand I know of no case where one of these big reported "tape loss" stories that get so much play actually have been linked to later problems. All of the attention over lost tapes and proposed laws to force encryption of the transported data simply divert attention from where the real problems are -- the people who have realtime access to the running data systems and the amount of data being collected and stored in the first place. In a way it's similar to the MPAA making such a big deal about trying to catch people with camcorders in theaters making low quality copies, when in reality most of the pirated versions of movies that really give them grief are the result of prints copied by insiders along the production or display chains. With identity theft, as in movie piracy, the key word is *focus*. No pun intended. --Lauren-- Lauren Weinstein lauren () vortex com or lauren () pfir org Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 http://www.pfir.org/lauren Co-Founder, PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org Co-Founder, IOIC - International Open Internet Coalition - http://www.ioic.net Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com DayThink: http://daythink.vortex.com - - -
Begin forwarded message: From: Dan Shoop <shoop () iwiring net> Date: January 12, 2006 9:41:01 AM EST To: dave () farber net, ip () v2 listbox com Subject: Re: [IP] Bank loses tape with personal information on 90,000 customers This actually happens all the time. The bank FedEx's or otherwise sends a tape, it get's lost. This happens. In a past life as a datacenter manager at Citibank we used to receive palettes of tapes by FedEx every morning from Sioux Falls, SD, where the credit card processing center was, a truck of tapes having better bandwidth at lower cost that any telco line. Occassionally tapes got lost, it was no big deal and no one thought much of it other than to request another copy. California, IIRC, was the first state to mandate that any lost customer records of any sort has to be reported, and other states have followed suit. Since such laws been enacted that it must be reported it's been getting recent press and what is actually a common occurance is now "news". The risk from this is considered very low. In most all cases the data is encrypted. Even if it wasn't other policies prevent keeping say account numbers and names, or other required pieces of information necessary to commit a fraud or identity theft with information together in the same place at once. Having names and Social Security numbers together is considered low risk since this information is readily available through numerous sources. -- -dhan---------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Dan Shoop AIM: iWiring Systems & Networks Architect http:// www.iwiring.net/ shoop () iwiring net http:// www.ustsvs.com/1-646-217-4725pgp key fingerprint: FAC0 9434 B5A5 24A8 D0AF 12B1 7840 3BE7 3736 DE0BiWiring provides systems and networks support for Mac OS X, unix, and Open Source application technologies at affordable rates. ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as lauren () pfir org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ipArchives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting- people/
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- more on Bank loses tape with personal information on 90,000 customers David Farber (Jan 12)
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