Lock up your data!

Veritas

You hear on the news about stolen laptops with a shit load of data out in the open.  As if it seems hard to secure your data.

Horseshit. 

Just watch this video to see how easy it is.

http://twit.tv/show/know-how/43

terreneous

Most federal agencies and government contractors have truecrypt or an equivalent installed on their laptops.  Mine has it - when booting you must enter a password first before you are even allowed to boot-up!

Amusingly, many banks don't do this.

dgm

Most banks don't permit the taking o company data offsite in a laptop.

terreneous

In theory, yes.

Remember I do computer security audits for a living.

MC Escher

terreneous said:

In theory, yes.

This

Veritas

terreneous said:

In theory, yes.

Remember I do computer security audits for a living.

My Mom lives in a very high end retirement community in Sarasota.  They have a "computer lab" -holy shit.  There is no security at all.  I bring up gmail and I'm reading the mail of whoever used it last.

People need to learn a few basics and not all but a lot will be well.  A good 80% of small businesses I go into for the first time have no security at all.  Many think that a simple profile password on Windows fixes everything.  

My one big mess up was when I was setting things up for a small motel on Saint Pete Beach after they had a break in and their puters were stolen.  They wanted everything locked down so I set up whole drive encryption and the owner had a stroke the next month and can't remember the password, or where he might have written it down.  Shit.

terreneous

Well, it comes down to Risk.  People have to judge what the risks are, and spend money to address the risks as they see fit.  If they get screwed, well, that's evolution for you:   live and learn.

Sorry to hear about the lost password.  I hear Los Alamos has a quantum network.....  But then, is this any different than an owner forgetting the combination to a lock or where he put the safe deposit box key?