Just checked out this video on SecurityDreamer.com.  Steve Hunt, CPP CISSP, spent 3 minutes in the dumpster of a large Chicago financial institution and you'd be amazed what he found.

Make sure you watch to end, for one of the more amazing finds.

All the passwords, encryption, dongles, and other IT-solutions in the world won't fix this problem.  I've seen similar treatment of my data in banks and retail stores and most employees are oblivious to the fact that they have a obligation, both morally and legally* to respect my data.

*In most countries :(

SecurityDreamer

Ellen Messmer writes in a recent itbusiness.ca article that 59% of laid off workers admitted to stealing company data on their way out the door.

I never would have guessed that number would be so high.  First, I'm thinking that many people who had actually done this would not admit to it.  So the actual number must be much higher.

I've also worked at companies that waited weeks, months, or even years before turning off accounts for laid off employees. So who knows how many former employees are still "data mining" after they are gone.

That's according to the "Jobs at Risk - Data at Risk" survey published Monday by Ponemon Institute.

The research firm found that 61per cent of respondents who felt negatively about the company took data while only 26 per cent of those with a favorable view did. Only 31 per cent of those surveyed said they had "trust" in their former employer to "act with integrity and fairness," 25 per cent were "unsure" and 44per cent did not have trust.

Of the 945 individuals in the survey, which was sponsored by Symantec, 37 per cent said they were asked to leave, 38 per cent said they had found a new job and 21 per cent moved on because they anticipated lay-offs.

I've also had to fight to protect my clients when new hires show up with CDs and thumbdrives full of data models they are offering to "share" with their new employer.  While I have worked at companies where this corporate stealing was allowed and rewarded, I can't think of a more stupid sign to send to your new boss than the fact that you are willing to steal from your employers.

Nearly 60 per cent of fired workers "steal company data" before quitting

Comments (0)

Karen Lopez: Musings on Data, Process, and Architecture Reading, Watching and Listening

Found this article while perusing @Michael_Corey's blog.  A wickedly scary horror story based on having the wrong data model, the wrong database, the wrong technical environment, the wrong skills and the wrong decider.  Another penny-wise and pound foolishness that I hope makes you think about the small, cumulative errors that add up to a catastrophe.

Alex Papadimoulis writes in Redmond Developer News about the the series of un-professional mistakes that ran a small retail chain out of business.

Further investigation found that 98 percent of all the company's requests came from one set of IP addresses, which turned out to be its stores and home offices. Rick guessed that MegaPetCo had kiosks for something and perhaps ran some of its sales traffic through the database. How little he really knew. The shared database for this Web site -- a 10MB file which was meant to power nothing more than a couple of blogs and small-traffic forums -- was the database for the entire company. The Web site itself accounted for less than 5 percent of the total data in MegaPetCo's database. The rest was home-office stuff, including POP sales registers, payroll, HR, inventory, tax records, and a kind of dynamic storage for invoices and maintenance tickets. The database was incredibly simple: a single table with hundreds of columns. It probably had humble beginnings as a spreadsheet and organically grew into a vast monolith over the seven or so years that MegaPetCo was in business. If MegaPetCo wanted to find out what insurance it gave a truck driver five years ago, it was in the same table as the one serving up pictures of bird seeds for sale. All told, the database had millions and millions of rows -- had being the operative word.

I think I need a drink after reading this.  I'm off to check on my most recent backups....

Redmond Developer News | Dev Disaster: Death by Delete

Comments (0)

Karen Lopez: Musings on Data, Process, and Architecture Reading, Watching and Listening

I used to post some fun facts most Friday's to our discussion groups, but got too busy with paying work to keep up.  But I'm thinking that an occasional Friday blog post with some interesting data-related resources, trivia, and whatnot would be doable.

So let's start with a recommendation that came from my mother, Senora Datachick.

http://www.fun-with-words.com/index.html

This site is full of funny stuff, all word-related.  I especially liked the Funny Signs Gallery, such as this example:

I have a feeling that some of these are testaments to Photoshop skills rather than sign faux pas collections, but the really are funny either way.

The site has information and links on palindromes, word games, puzzles, anagrams, and more.

I liked this palindrome:

may a moody baby doom a yam

and this anagram:

To be or not to be: that is the question; whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them?

==>

I wrote all of Shakespeare's plays, and the wife and I got together, did most of his sonnets for our entertainment. But tormentors oft attribute that our brash quotes as being bogus. O! no! no! no!

Check it out.

Comments (0)

Karen Lopez: Musings on Data, Process, and Architecture Reading, Watching and Listening

I found a nifty Q &A in the Recovery.gov website:

Frequently Asked Questions | Recovery.gov

Q: Is the spending data on recovery.gov available in a format (like XML) that developers can use to create mashups and gadgets?
A: Not at this time. But, as new systems are developed to capture the allocations and expenditures under the Act, we plan to make that data available in exportable form.

I don't think that this one answer in itself is that significant, but what struck me about is all the possibilities that it promises for future interaction and integration with public data - our data.

I'm also wondering what role any data or semantic standards will play in the US Government's deployment of such data.  It's great that they will be sharing data, but it's always the definitions and meanings that make turning that data into information the greatest challenge.

Mr. Harper, are you watching what's going on here?  Since you'll be meeting with Mr. Obama tomorrow, perhaps you could ask him to share those data models and XSDs that Recovery.gov is going to have to publish along with the XML.  Then you could publish Recovery.gc.ca with the same sorts of data.  If you need help with that, let me know.  I have a lot a friends with good expertise in these areas.

Frequently Asked Questions | Recovery.gov