Comments on: Yeah, Right – Trust Us

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 05:20:20 +0000

Well, if the software on the computer has an audit trail, you could tell if it had been accessed through the software, but there’s now way of determining if the entire thing was copied to another device.

The computer should have been password protected and the data base encrypted even if it never left the building.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 04:23:23 +0000

One irony is that this makes the entire VA look bad. The folks I know at the local VA who handle veterans’ personal information take data security very, very seriously; they are both crestfallen and furious that this happened at all. One dumb (expletive) is all it takes to ruin the reputation of an institution.

Another irony: among that many veterans, surely some will suffer identity theft completely unconnected to this database, but no one can be sure of that, either. Suspicion will attach to this screw-up from now on.

At least the FBI did not have the temerity to assert that the data had not been accessed. Let’s face it: no one can know whether the data has been accessed.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 00:16:00 +0000

All we can do is hope. No one needs the aggravation of identity theft.

By: andante

andante — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 22:50:08 +0000

Bumbler that I am, even I could figure out how to copy a hard drive without leaving tracks.

Let’s hope they’re right, for a change, and this just isn’t another made-for-TV happy ending.