UK Data Leaks: Public Sector Vs. Private Sector

 Computing, Media, Politics  No Responses »
Nov 022008
 

Today we woke up to learn of yet another UK government data leak. Apparently a memory stick was left in a pub car park. Of course as always, not is all quite as it seems; the person who actually left the memory stick where it was, actually worked for a private sector company doing contracting work for the government. So was this really a UK government data leak at all ?

Well yes, the data was government data and it does not matter who leaked it. From memory (i.e. I am too lazy to hunt down the links to check) this is not the first time that government data leaks have been caused by private contractors. Perhaps the government should stick to doing their own work when it comes to working with data that contains personal information; if there is anything more aggravating than being slated for your own stupidity it is being criticised for someone else’s stupidity.

Of course most people will be under the impression that data leaks pretty much only occur when the government is involved; somehow data leaks from private sector companies never seem to hit the headlines in quite the same way. For instance the headlines for this morning’s leaks were all about the government role in the data loss and no mention of the private sector firm involved :-

  • “Government memory stick found in pub” – Independent on Sunday.
  • “Government passwords left at pub” – Guardian; also “Fears for personal data after government passwords left in pub car park”.
  • “Brown says government cannot ensure data safety” – Times.

I have left out a few … I could not find the story on a few websites belonging to the gutter press, and lost interest after one too many pages with lurid colours and half-naked women popping out at me. But it’s all “the government” in those headlines; although they do in the end point out that it was a private contractor who lost the data.

Anyone reading (and trusting!) the media would be under the impression that the Government cannot be trusted with our personal information whereas private sector companies can because they rarely end up as front-page stories for losing data. Well I am not totally convinced that the Government has a monopoly on stupidity; there seems more than enough to go around.

Hunting down stories about private sector data leaks is kind of tedious because there does not appear to be that much out there, but a few stories did show up (not linking to anything before 2007) :-

The last story is particularly interesting – 56 reported data leaks from financial firms in 2008 (who are not required to report data leaks). In a report by Verizon, it is estimated that of all private sector data leaks, only 14% of leaks are from financial firms; doing a little arithmetic indicates that there have been at least 400 data leaks this year.

So is the private sector any better or worse than the public sector ? They are probably just the same – woefully irresponsible. People rarely care about information security of others in their daily lives; in fact they are often also completely naive about their own information security.

So why does the government come in for so much criticism in comparison to the private sector ? Partially it is simply that we do not get a choice in the matter of whether to do business with the government or not. And partially it probably makes for a better media story. Or perhaps the media just wants to attack the government.

Perhaps some journalist can take a proper look at the private sector leaks, do the job properly and just for once the private sector can get some justified criticism. They might also want to take a closer look at the media’s preference for attacking the government on this matter.

Onto another matter; encryption. The government response was that the only personal data leaked in this case was encrypted as though that would protect the data. Well maybe, but only if it was strong encryption. Most people who use encryption are not aware of whether the encryption method is strong or not. For instance a quick google for “Word document password recovery” returns a huge list of choices for applicatiosn which will break the encryption on Word documents – making the encryption built into Word completely pointless. But how many people who use this encryption know that they are getting a false sense of security ?

Film Review: No Country For Old Men

 Film  No Responses »
Nov 012008
 

Format: Blueray

IMDB entry: here.

On the surface this seems to be a simplistic story about a man who stumbles on a drug trade gone wrong, picks up some money, and finds himself pursued by those who want it back at any cost. But there is a far more complex story going on hidden beneath the violence having to do with the thoughts and feelings of an old sherif who follows on behind trying to pick up the pieces.

The added complexity adds interest and makes this interesting than a typical action film. It keeps your interest during a lazy rainy afternoon and is worth the time.

Pink Floyd Rambling

 General  No Responses »
Oct 312008
 

I have just watched a documentary on Pink Floyd, which I had unfortunately messed up the audio and video synchronisation which made the viewing somewhat peculiar – perhaps somewhat appropriately.

To me it seems that Pink Floyd is one of those bands where everyone meets. Amongst friends who listen to music, they have widely varying tastes in music and everyone has their own list of favourite bands. Oddly enough that rarely includes Pink Floyd, but when asked the response is almost always “Yeah! Them too”. And usually they will have every studio album produced by Pink Floyd even if they do not have every studio album of their favourite band – I have every Pink Floyd album, but not every Black Sabbath album.

It is almost as though there is no need to mention Pink Floyd as a favourite because anyone with any serious interest in music of almost any kind will have Pink Floyd as a favourite. I do not spend a great deal of time thinking about what music to listen to on my iBox, but every few weeks I find myself listening to Pink Floyd.

In some ways, we all hunting for another band as good as Pink Floyd.

Film Review: Closer

 Film  No Responses »
Oct 302008
 

Format: Blueray

IMDB entry: here

An interesting film about the relationship between two couples – a writer, a photgrapher, a dermatoligist and a stripper. The story revolves around their relationships and breakups, with some minor twists. Nothing earth-shatteringly dramatic about it, but entertaining enough.

Russell Brand, Jonathan Ross, and “That” Radio Show

 General, Media  No Responses »
Oct 292008
 

Over the last week or so, the news has been swamped with details of a certain radio show that involved Russell Brand (the host), and Jonathan Ross (the guest) phoning up Andrew Sachs and leaving “abusive” messages on his answerphone. I have not heard the show myself, but from the descriptions it goes well beyond what should be acceptable. But the right word is “silly” and not “malicious”.

But does it really deserve all this attention ? From what I can tell, there are plenty of other more serious problems that could be reported in the news. This is after all really just a couple of idiots on one radio show insulting another “showbiz” personality.

Russell has resigned, and the BBC has suspended Jonathan pending the outcome of an enquiry. There are some grounds for complaining about the BBC’s tardiness in dealing with this. Although this feels like a typical corporate tendency to keep quiet until everyone has huddled around and come up with an answer rather than responding immediately with “we’re investigating”.

Some of the criticisms around focus on the fact that the BBC is not a commercial organisation and there are claims that this sort of thing would not happen in a more commercial organisation. This is just classic anti-Beeb propoganda by those who believe that all broadcasters should be commercial. There are those who believe that free-market forces would ensure that such things never happened. I have no belief that the commercial sector is any better at dealing with such incidents, and those same free-market forces will ensure that broadcasters would be much less inclined to take risks.

There also seems to be some jealousy around the level of pay that these two celebreties get. I am not entirely sure why they are worth the amount of money they get, but criticisms of their pay should not be a consideration during this incident.

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