iPod: Your Portable Corporate Hellraiser

MrAndrews writes "In an article on ZDNet UK, a Gartner says that "Companies should consider banning portable storage devices such as Apple's iPod from corporate networks as they can be used to introduce malware or steal corporate data" I recently came into contact with a similar policy at a consulting firm that was concerned that top-secret information might escape through my USB watch, and made me leave it at the front desk every day. In that case, I know it was absurd overkill ... but is this concern a legitimate concern? No more music on the way into the office?"

Comments

First

[Anonymous Coward]

Post

Good old gov't

[strike2867]

Good thing the information of most of the US population isn't on any handheld devices.

ROFL

[Ag3nt]

For some reason yet unknown to me, the instant I finished reading this story, I pictured a company's network administrator hugging his file servers while morphing into Gollum..... *Caresses the file server* ......My precious.......

What?

[jsin]

What ever happened to Jon Katz?

Re:you're in the US, yes?

[YankeeInExile]

Maybe Charlton Heston would balk, but the FAA did not. Federal Air Marshall Program

Re:Stupid is as Stupid does.

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderators: Please note that "twitter" is a known fanatical psycophant whose obnoxious offtopic rants are legend here on Slashdot. It doesn't matter what the topic is, he'll find a way to scrape in some pointless Microsoft bashing. While nobody expects us to love Microsoft in any way, his particularly tepid style of calling anyone he replies to "troll" or "liar" or "fanboy" because he happens to disagree with whatever they're saying is well documented and should not be rewarded. If anything, twitter is the type of person that should not be part of the open source/free software community. He is an anathema to all that is good about free software.

I'm posting this so that you (the moderator) have some context to consider twitter and not mod him up whenever he posts his filler preformatted rants about installing Knoppix or whatever that unfortunately get him karma every single time and allow him to continue posting his trademark toxic crap (read on) day in and day out. You may consider this a troll - I consider it community service. And I ain't kidding.

If you're a /. subscriber, I invite you to look through some of his posting history. I guarantee that you'll be hard pressed to find someone that is more "out there" than twitter. You'll also probably notice he's got quite an AC following. Don't just read his posts, make sure you go through the replies.

To get an idea of what I'm talking about, check this post out. I mean, this is an article about email disclaimers, right? The parent of the post is complaining about the ads in the linked page and so on, and twitter actually goes off on a rant to blame it on Microsoft and recommend Lynx. WTF?

Here's another. In this post twitter not only calls the OP a troll but attempts to "tell it like it is" while making some vague argument about "GNU". Yes, if you're confused, you're not alone. The reply (modded +4) proceeds to simply destroy his bogus argument. You will notice he did not reply. This is what some people call "drive-by advocacy". A sort of I'll just leave you with my thoughts here and move on to the next flamebait kind of deal. In fact, he almost never replies because he knows that his fanatical arguments simply do not hold up to any sort of discussion. It's not that he's chosen the wrong cause - he's just going at it in a completely wrong way.

More? Just read though this post and the subsequent replies. I guess this stands on its own. Or these two. Or this one.

Still not convinced? This is what twitter considers "humour" while going about his daily "M$" routine.

More? Bad spelling in astounding conspiracy theories, more offtopic FUD and uninformed "I'm right, look at me" rants, promptly proven wrong. Worse even, twitter wants to be RMS, apparently (that first one is a winner). I mean,

5.56mm bullets don't usually overpenetrate.

[caveat]

The .223 has been gaining popularity with LE over the years due to the development of frangible bullets - they still pack enough kinetic energy to slice through body armor, which is one of the primary reasons for choosing a 5.56 instead of a 9mm, but once the bullet hits a 'resistant' material like flesh or a wall, it disintegrates into small, harmless pieces. Anecdotal evidence from tactical entry situations that even NATO M855 ball ammo (62gr steel-core) doesn't tend to overpenetrate - the bullet is traveling so fast and is so hydrodynamically unstable that it tumbles and snaps in two after about 10cm of travel through flesh.

Now, in Europe (or at least Geneva), where the army d00dz have H&K 7.62mm battle rifles, the overpenetration issue is legitimate - a 168gr 308 bullet will blow right through a man like a hot knife through butter,.

Re:you're in the US, yes?

[ViolentGreen]

"Insightful?" More like "off-topic." These are two different situations.

Your comparison is akin to comparing visitors to the White House carrying weapons with the secret service carrying weapons in the white house.