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Missing Hard Drive Spurs Data-Theft Fears In Canada

Posted by timothy on from the get-your-new-ehdentity dept.

DevNull writes "A government of Saskatchewan (Canada) hard drive has gone missing, and it contains significant personal data - in fact, the government won't even detail what all is contained in it. Read about it from the CBC. So much for people who think the internet is the cause of all their security fears! Identity theft is the major concern at the moment." B5_geek links to this report on Bloomberg.com which says that "'[t]he information includes names, addresses, beneficiaries, social insurance numbers, pension values, pre-authorized checking information and mothers' maiden names," according to Co-operators Chief Executive Kathy Bardswick

4 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. It was encrypted, wasn't it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    REGINA - Thousands of Canadians across the country are being cautioned that a computer hard drive missing for two weeks from a Regina office contains their personal data. Saskatchewan government officials fear the data could be misused.

    And people give de Raadt a hard time for encrypting the swap file...

  2. If found, send to... by misfit13b · · Score: 4, Funny
    ...oh, forget it, you already have the address.

    ;^)

  3. so? by 3-State+Bit · · Score: 4, Funny

    It was encrypted, right?

    I mean, these days any schmo with an iBook goes /Applications/Utilities/Disk Copy, clicks File | New | Blank Image and chooses a name for the file, the desktop for its location, and AES 128 for encryption (recommended).

    Then just unmount the drive image (drag it in the finder from your desktop to the trash -- which will turn into an eject button) before you leave your computer for the day, or whenever somebody's using it who shouldn't have access to the contents of that drive -- even if they're using your account, cuz' you're letting them sit at your computer.

    Double-clicking the drive image prompts for a password (don't check 'save to keyring') before mounting it and once more you're good to go.

    You don't even ever have to turn your computer off.

    Um, yeah. (Eyes dart around the room looking for a way not to receive a bunch of off-topic downmods. Um....)

    Wait! Got it!

    "You know, this wouldn't happen if hard-drives were encrypted by default, and the OS needed a password from the HARDWARE (or a hash) such that on bootup if your configuration is different radically from what it was before, your valuable information becomes unreachable.

    Oh wait, XP does this already.."

  4. the real threat by sirsampson · · Score: 2, Funny

    We all know that the real threat is those 31337 skr1p7 k1ddiez and no other threat

    At least that is what *they* keep telling us. You do believe them, right?

    heh heh