Re: [privacy] 26 IRS Tapes Missing in Kansas City

["Brian Loe" <knobdy () gmail com>]

On 1/22/07, Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu <Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu> wrote:

> This, of course, implies that you (as the manager) understand that knowing
> how to encrypt a hard drive is important enough to fire somebody who doesn't
> know how.  And I don't think anybody expects the clueless IT guy to fess up
> voluntarily and ask to be fired because his skill set isn't big enough.

No. The IT manager's job is to make sure his people are providing the
company with what the company needs. If a laptop gets lost, and loss
of data becomes an issue, he'd not supposed to tell his tech to
implement full disk encryption - he simply says to make it so this
can't happen again.

> (And it's not "obvious" that firing "most of" the 3 guys wouldn't make things
> worse - although it doesn't take a *lot* of tech clue to replace dead hard
> drives and install software patches/upgrades, it's the *very* rare IT shop
> that's so brain-dead that canning them and making the social workers do that
> stuff instead wouldn't be worse. A *LOT* worse.)

I don't know, I've known companies without IT staffs that do just fine
calling in the occasional contractor.

> I'll overlook the fact that most non-IT managers actually *believe* that
> computers are supposed to be balky things that rarely if ever work smoothly,
> so if things mostly-sorta-kinda work 90% of the time, they think they're
> actually ahead of the game.  So they have no reason to expect better from
> their IT staff.

I think you need to get out more - I've never worked for a company,
even a firehouse, who's employees expect crappy service. Perhaps its
because most of them depended on their machines to conduct business,
but regardless, what kind of worthless IT group does one need to have
for 90% uptime to be viewed as good by the users? I've never seen it.

<snip>
> (For an example of how this works, see how quickly the US Govt moved to require
> full-disk encryption once the VA exposure of millions of records ignited a
> fire under the appropriate people.  Feedback of the *actual* costs happened,
> and change is actually taking place).

Not sure what the point is here - didn't we start this thread off with
questions about WHEN these people will pull their $hi7 together,
specifically Kansas City? I believe the costs are known - the question
is when will they do something about it.


The idea that companies need stimulus to move forward with security
projects is not a new idea, but the stimulus can be internal as well
as a lost laptop.
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