You still think your personal information is safe in the hands of the government? Think again. Every time they come up with a way to keep your information secure, they also come up with a more creative — or more stupid — way to lose it. And now, the government can lose your personal information even if you never gave it to them.
In Vermont, a state computer that was taken offline because technicians thought it had a virus turned out to actually have been broken into. The computer contained 12,000 names of people who owed back child support, who the state presumes don’t need any protection from identity theft, as well as 58,000 names of New England Federal Credit Union account holders, nearly every member. Also found on the computer was a pirated television show.
The state, while going after deadbeat dads, requests bank records from various banks all the time. But instead of just sending individuals’ records to the state, this credit union gave them everyone’s records to poke through at their leisure.
“We have a number of people who are going to be very frustrated and unsettled by this breach,” CEO David Bard told the Associated Press. “This never should have happened.”
The state said that along with those 70,000 names, it also lost 2,800 other people’s information from eight other credit unions as well. It appears your personal information isn’t safe with them either.
In other news, thieves broke into the National Guard recruiting office in Lowell, Mass., on Tuesday, stealing a laptop left out in the open which “may contain some personal information of potential recruits,” a National Guard spokesman said. To gain entry, the thieves just threw a brick through the window, a plain old smash-and-grab.
And last week in Bremerton, Wash., thieves broke into a government vehicle in a downtown parking structure and stole paper files containing personal information on military veterans. Paper files.
Government is not composed of superhumans. They’re ordinary people. Most of them, in fact, are quite average. And even if they want to do the right thing, they’re often hamstrung by their own bureaucracy. Many of them, however, are so wedded to the “rules” that they’ll breach all bounds of human decency to ensure that their arbitrary “laws” and “regulations” are followed, whether the words on their goddamned pieces of paper are right and decent or wrong and insane. You should not, therefore, be surprised when government does something wrong, or even utterly inhuman. Nor should you be surprised that it can’t be trusted.
P.S. About those missing IRS tapes in Kansas City. The city government is now saying they have no record of ever receiving the tapes with personal information on virtually every city resident and many nonresidents. As far as anyone will admit, the tapes vanished into thin air. Ponder that one while you fill out your RD-109 and your state and federal 1040 forms.
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Fraud Guy
Jan 31, 2007
Who can’t be trusted?
How about the Credit Union who failed their customers by forwarding all of the info to the government instead of going through and only sending the pertinent records.
Sorry, brought back an example from my early fraud-fighting days. I called a bank (named after a large MA metropolis on the bay) while investigating a possible fraudulent charge. I asked the security investigator to contact the cardholder, but was informed that they could not perform outbound calls. Instead, I was given the cardholder’s name, address, phone, Social Security Number and mother’s maiden name so I could verify the charge with them myself.
Corporations can be just as culpable as the government when it comes to being careless about people’s data. They do things in the name of efficiency, but efficiency does not mean accuracy or safety. It just means that you have saved enough money to make a profit and pay the attorney bill when you get caught.
Michael Hampton
Jan 31, 2007
That’s a good point. The credit union wasn’t required to turn over data on all their customers. So why did they? Because the state asked them to do so, whether nicely, or (more likely) not so nicely.
Doc
Jan 31, 2007
But Michael,
You can’t be a “Bank” in this country unless the governement says so. Since the Government can revoke (or at least make renewal difficult) a bank’s permit to operate, of COURSE they are going to do whatever is asked with gusto.
How many people, when stopped by a cop for speeding, say “I want to know the law that says you have a right to stop me, and I want to know what legal authority you have for asking for my ID, and which statue empowered you to break the speed limit to catch me without being arrested yourself,” etc..?
no – we say “Here you go, officer” – because we don’t want him to cite us for the fuzzy dice on our windshield or the cracked tail light. The credit union was responding to a request from an organization that can, quite literally, ruin them. As a manager, I would probably say “send em everything”, too.
Michael Hampton
Jan 31, 2007
Doc, you made my point for me. It’s the government’s fault, and if we’re going to recover our privacy and our liberty it’s the government we need to get out of our lives.
MAJ Arkay
Jan 31, 2007
“Doc, you made my point for me. It’s the government’s fault, and if we’re going to recover our privacy and our liberty it’s the government we need to get out of our lives.”
Too glib. Implies you’re not also concerned about the commercial databases and the failure to secure them. A company who collects information about you, then fails to secure it, is just as big a privacy violator as a government. In fact, since there are thousands of companies with terrabytes of info on us, it’s logical to assume the greater ID theft will occur out of their unsecure files.
Michael Hampton
Jan 31, 2007
I’m quite concerned about commercial databases, but it’s not the knee-jerk response of “database bad, business bad, privacy good!”
The reasons commercial databases concern me are:
First, that government can tap into them without having to abide by the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended, or get search warrants, or give even a nod to the goddamned piece of paper which is supposed to be the highest law of the land.
Second, if a company does lose or misuse my information, the government limits my legal recourse against such a company. The most I can hope for is to have my credit history restored. The company is largely shielded from liability. In a free market, I could hold the company liable for such a breach.
If the government loses my information, I have no recourse at all, except whatever they want to give me, which is even worse. Don’t think that because I go after the greater evil first that I’ve forgotten about the lesser evil.
tyler durden
Jan 31, 2007
remember fight club? the movie was pretty insane but they had one good idea, wiping out all the credit unions and credit card companies, effectively resetting everyones credit back to zero.
Feb 01, 2007
BLOGical Thoughts » Thursday, 1 February, 2007
Kevin Fields
Feb 01, 2007
Security is a joke. I work for a company which processes medical claims for workers compensation. We’ve all been through HIPPA training. The company itself has strict rules as to how employees conduct themselves and what sorts of devices they use.
Most of the managers have wireless phones with cameras built into them, although they are prohibited. Employees who do not need access to a phone are allowed to carry cellphones with them, and even though you’re not supposed to use them in “production areas”, nearly everybody does. Many employees have to use computers to handle sensitive data, many of them are also allowed to use MP3 players which can be connected to their workstations, those MP3 players can also be used flash drives to copy data from.
It is frightening that I could very easily compromise the security of hundreds of people every day right within my workplace, and not only have little fear of being caught, but little fear of being detected or stopped in the first place. In fact, the more hours that I work, the more hours I could spend doing this, and I would be looked at by my employer as a hard worker, and earn bonuses for doing it. Names, addresses, social security numbers, drivers license info, insurance data. The only thing stopping me, in all honesty, is the fear of God and a healthy respect for people’s privacy.