Today in the Utterly Stupid Zone... - FastSilicon.com

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Today in the Utterly Stupid Zone...

How many hard drives do you have to lose to let loose 3 million individuals identities? Apparently only one!

In yet another instance of "why is some security lax moron holding personal data on millions of people in the trunk of his Toyota", a vendor with Affiliated Computer Services has "misplaced" a hard drive containing an estimated 3 million individuals personal information.

This begs so many questions, it's hard to know where to start. How does one lose a HDD? Was someone letting the HDD out for a bit of fresh air? Did it magically grow legs? Took it to Walmart to go shopping and then got seperated at the checkout? Did the HDD forget to bring it's cellphone? Why only the HDD and not a complete system?

This is mind bogglingly stupid. Why do things like this happen? The Inquirer Reports...

NEARLY THREE million peoples' identities are up for grabs after a hard drive went missing, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The HDD contained social security numbers, birth data and names of people who got health care benefits and medical aid, the report said.

The vendor which seems to have lost the HDD - Affiliated Computer Services - is now being asked by a Georgia health department to tell everyone that's affected they will get free credit reports.

Which begs the question how the vendor can do that as it's lost the HDD with the peoples' information on it. Unless, of course, it has a backup drive, which hasn't gone missing.

The Journal (subscription required) didn't mention the size of the hard drive, nor which firm manufactured it. Probably because it's irrelevant.

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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.