Ameritrade Customer Data Lost

Rollie Hawk writes "Continuing the recent trend of customer data blunders in the news, Ameritrade has announced the loss of the personal data of up to 200,000 customers. The suspected cause is a routing error, but not the network kind. The online discount broker admitted that a backup tape of customer account data from 2000 to 2003 has been misplaced. They claim the cause is an error on the part of a shipping company. The tape was identified as missing in February, soon after being shipped. According to spokeswoman Donna Kush, nothing suspicious has been reported. Further blaming the shipping company, she explained that "this was not an Ameritrade Systems issue or a compromise of our technology. This was related to a third party vendor." It's doubtful that current and former customers with exploited information will care how this occurred. She further claimed that Ameritrade "has every reason to believe" that the tape has either been destroyed or is being held by the shipper. There's no word yet on how they arrived at this conclusion."

Comments

Data loss... or ... data collection?

[rsborg]

Maybe I'm wandering into tinfoil-hat territory here, but what's with this recent spate of customer data loss? I mean, holy hell.. there's been something like several millions of records of customer data being reported as "lost" or "stolen" lately... is someone trying to collect data on everyone surreptitiously?

I mean, it's probably more likely that some law got passed in the past few years that's forcing companies to highlight all these incidents of compromised data, but it seems pretty spooky that we just recently hear about all these stories...

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh. Even more amusing is the possibility that they are releasing just enough information to create the appearance that self-policing is "good enough". (Not that this will work...)

We don't know the full extent of what's going on, and this might be a calculated risk to keep it that way.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are right. There is a new law that forces companies to publish this info

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[stinerman]

A comment on one of those stories considered that a lot of this data theft/loss has to do with the fact that many companies (Choicepoint) are collecting data on people who are not their customers. There is no incentive for those businesses to keep the data safe.

As far as customer data loss, it could be any number of factors. I think a lot of it has to do with lax security policy at some of these businesses. Perhaps after this round of scares, others will step up their security.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[sellin'papes]

This is possible. However, the Ameritrade privacy policy states that they can share personal information of clients with non-affiliated business to improve quality of service. The only thing preventing this from happening is an option that clients can request to not have their information trade with non-affiliates. I don't see any reason to pretend to 'lose' customer data, when you simply sell it legally.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[Reignking]

As a "financial institution", Gramm-Leach-Bliley requires that they safeguard their non-public information, and that any third parties that they use do the same.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[Daedala]

This isn't a recent spate of customer data loss. It is, as you note, a recent spate of customer data loss reporting. It's mostly due to California Civil Code 1798, formerly known as State Bill 1386. Before we were just quietly leaking like a sieve; now we know we are.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[jd]

California did pass a law requiring the reporting of incidents. It is unclear if this has anything to do with the reports, other than these reports all came out afterwards.

At least two companies have increased initial estimates of data loss by an order of magnitude, which means at least one incident does indeed involve between one to two million records.

It is reasonable to assume that these companies are not any less concerned about security than others. If we assume, then, that these incidents are on a national basis rather than just in California, between fifty million to a hundred million records holding sensitive personal data are at risk or have been compromised. Between a third to a sixth of the entire population of the US.

At this point, the existing system is broken enough as to be unsafe. No matter what is done to it, up to a third of the population will remain at significant risk. That, to me, is unacceptable.

The "best" method may be to place a requirement that all future systems with confidential or sensitive data be locked down and secure, with extremely limited, controlled access. And 100% liability if standards are not met. After that legislation is in place, change the format of Social Security numbers to deliberately break all existing systems, forcing an upgrade.

Yeah, that's going to be a pain to a lot of businesses. But as the problem was caused by the deliberate recklessness of said businesses in the first place, it is hard to be too sympathetic.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[homer_ca]

It's because of California's law requiring notification of these incidents. In the past this would never have been reported. The banks and brokerages would much rather keep these things quiet.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[Amoeba]

I mean, it's probably more likely that some law got passed in the past few years that's forcing companies to highlight all these incidents of compromised data, but it seems pretty spooky that we just recently hear about all these stories...

Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002. This act was a response to the corporate/financial malfeasance of Enron and Worldcomm. Every publicly traded company is required by law to have SOX controls in place, with corporate executives asses (and financial fines to the company) on the line if they are not in compliance.

I know this because it's currently my own personal hell. The deadline for SOX compliance has been pushed back several times (most recently this past friday when the SEC gave another 6 month extension depending on a company's fiscal year end) but for most companies with a market cap >$42 million the deadline is June 30. Publicly traded companies with a market cap The Act is a Good Thing but it is definitely not an easy thing to implement due to the depth of controls needed and the nebulous definitions the SOX act provides as guidelines. Most companies in the process of becoming SOX-compliant are looking at major hits to their financial bottom line getting this up and running. Cisco, IBM.. ouch.

On a side note, if you have security and/or financial systems background the job market for SOX specialists is red hot.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[Amoeba]

I know this because it's currently my own personal hell. The deadline for SOX compliance has been pushed back several times (most recently this past friday when the SEC gave another 6 month extension depending on a company's fiscal year end) but for most companies with a market cap >$42 million the deadline is June 30. Publicly traded companies with a market cap

Should have read: Publicly traded companies with a market cap less than $42 million have a deadline farther out.

preview is a good thing. *sigh*

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[tomhudson]

So it's okay for me to bid $10 for the copy of it that's being sold on eBay?

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[markild]

I really cannot see how a serious 3rd party company (well hopefully that _is_ what it is) can get away with such a thing.

One would think that if a company looses a larg customers data during a transit, or if the misplace it, they would have to answer to themselves.
At least we should question the company owning the data when they just shrugs about it whereabouts.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[The-Bus]

The incentive is still there -- for the to remain in business.

If you are Friendly Neighborhood Bank (A Division of FinancialFirst GlobalCon Holdings Unlimited), will you use Choicepoint or someone that has 100% perfect records?

That's like saying, "Well, if the company doesn't host their own servers, how could they trust a hosting company? What does the hosting company care?"

They are performing a service and are being paid for it.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[Anonymous Coward]

No you are being reasonable.

I have recently cancelled all auction accounts., my paypal account, and contacted my credit card companies telling them I would like to rescind any permission they may have to share my data.

Now, if anything happens I have written proof that my accounts were to be cancel and removed and that my data was not to be released without my permission.

I figure this will at least get me the maximum $5000 settlement in small claims count in the event of identity theft as I can prove that either my data was supposed to be deleted or the company from which it was stolen was negligent in their duties to protect said information.

I think a few civil suits would do the industry good. Say suing one of these big companies for $100,000,000 for the damage they cause when the get hacked.

I hate trial lawyers but until there are concrete punishments for the companies that allow this theft to happen it will just continue as business as normal.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[FatAlb3rt]

There is no incentive for those businesses to keep the data safe.

No incentive?! There's a HUGE stack of negative PR that says you're wrong. Granted, Choicepoint may or may not have considered this before hand, but they've been raked over the coals over this issue (justifyably so). I'd bet that nearly every customer of Choicepoint is wondering if their data is safe.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[kabocox]

I mean, it's probably more likely that some law got passed in the past few years that's forcing companies to highlight all these incidents of compromised data, but it seems pretty spooky that we just recently hear about all these stories.

Ah, this type of stuff has been going on forever. The only new thing about it though is now people out side of company IT departments know that the data was misplaced/lost/stolen and it is reported in major newspapers now. I like having this information in the news. In the long run, it will do more good than harm.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[stinerman]

I'd bet that nearly every customer of Choicepoint is wondering if their data is safe.

It went way over your head.

Choicepoint is little more than a data aggregator. Choicepoint's customers are people who buy the information they collect on people like you. You are not a customer of Choicepoint even though your information is what they are selling. They have no incentive to keep your data safe because you aren't their customer.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[frikazoyd]

Actually, no. Let me be the first to tell you, Choicepoint has competition. And, more than likely, Choicepoint paid for that information. So, it is inherent in their business model that they would want to keep the data safe from anybody else. Not only that, but they lose face with their customers if they seem insecure. And once again, there are strong competitors ready to scoop up the new business.

Also, security has always been the primary concern with these (data collection) companies. Choicepoint's only big flaw is that they trusted their customers too much, so it was easy for someone to pose as an up-and-coming business with need for Choicepoint's services.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[SunFan]

"At least two companies have increased initial estimates of data loss by an order of magnitude, which means at least one incident does indeed involve between one to two million records."

Well, there are some freaky smart computer crackers out there--I'd say it's safe to assume everyone in the developed world has had some of their data stolen. Most of that data is probably of very little value, but imagine landing occasional record from some type of political enemy, such as a world leader or even a competing company.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[Cecil]

If you are Friendly Neighborhood Bank (A Division of FinancialFirst GlobalCon Holdings Unlimited), will you use Choicepoint or someone that has 100% perfect records?

When they discover that Choicepoint has more data, better prices, more marketing, better reputation (from their point of view), more name recognition they can toss around to their shareholders...

Which one will they use, indeed.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[Winkhorst]

What? You mean in the past they just pretended it didn't happen or blamed it on the mailman? I am shocked! Positively shocked! How could this be?! Great big Amerikan companies that refuse to take responsibility for their mistakes? This cannot be! ;-)

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[FatAlb3rt]

No, it didn't go over my head. I fully understand that the perpetrator pretended to be a 'valid' customer, and began harvesting data. What you fail to understand is that Choicepoint may be sued into oblivion by people whose data has been compromised. Choicepoint may lose customers because they no longer see CP as competent, many of whom have probably given CP financial info, like credit card numbers, for their monthly billing. Not to mention, there's more than a handful of people that will refuse business with a CP customer because they don't understand the situation, but would rather avoid CP altogether. So, once again, CP does have an incentive to protect this info. It's pretty irresponsible to ASSume they just don't care.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[SunFan]

Even better: even though the data was 'stolen', in reality they still have it and can keep selling it!

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[ImaLamer]

Hey, let's be real this sort of thing happens all the time. Data is lost, it gets put on the Internet instead of the intranet, deleted, e-mailed to competitors... it happens.

However anyone working with this type of data needs to be insured to cover the cost of either data recovery or replacement (it costs a fortune to call all of your customers and tell them their credit cards have been exposed to the world). Anyone working with sensitive information needs to be bonded, it's true in enterprise computing and it's true with paperwork.

The biggest bank in my city, the sixth in the nation just gave 1/3 of their credit card customers numbers away a few years ago. A young, ambitious administrator (22 years old maybe) posted millions of credit card numbers on their website. Didn't matter because he was bonded and it covered the entire cost to the bank, around $3 million dollars.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[chipmeister]

I would look into the book by Robert O'Harrow Jr entitled "No Place to Hide". Good read so far. William Saphire had a review of it and another book on surveilence in last weeks New York Times Book Review.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[Bullfish]

Hold companies accountable for their security! You hippy pinko!

Seriously, don't do business on-line and never, never, put real personal information out there. If the pentagon can't keep people out of their system... do you really think commercial business is going to do it

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[stinerman]

What you fail to understand is that Choicepoint may be sued into oblivion by people whose data has been compromised.

I was speaking to so-called traditional market forces. That is, there is no way to get them to stop unless, as you said, they were sued into oblivion by people whose data has been compromised.

As far your point concerned, I can only guess that they didn't take that into account as the average Joe probably can't afford a legal battle. That or he doesn't know/care that they have his information. IIRC, the only reason we knew about Choicepoint was because California made it manditory to notify people if their data had been compromised. That is, you cannot sue if you didn't know.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I was speaking to so-called traditional market forces. That is, there is no way to get them to stop unless, as you said, they were sued into oblivion by people whose data has been compromised.
"

Oblivion doesn't have to be that far away. It would really only take one high-profile suit, and the damage could be done before the case even reaches a courtroom.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[spagetti_code]

You know, there actually may be a positive side to this. The SSN is a primary key for commerce, banking and government interaction. But its a darn stupid one - they are easily stolen, copied and misued.

The offshoot of nearly everyone's SSN becoming well known could force the government to mandate alternate identification methods - one that are less prone to hacking.

Of course, it will probably take a senator's ID being stolen for this to actually gain steam.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[darthtrevino]

More than beefed up policy, we need a Bill of Privacy Rights.

Consumers should know exactly WHO has WHAT data of theirs, and that data needs an expiration. The wholesale marketing of millions of people's information is criminal. This morning on the radio, and recently on Slashdot, identity theft and privacy invasion/abuse has shown itself to be a huge issue facing us all and needs to be taking care of...

But it seems all congress wants to take care of is big corporate interests and the IP-paranoia of the MPAA and RIAA.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[Anonymous Coward]

Consumers should know exactly WHO has WHAT data of theirs, and that data needs an expiration.

It's funny. I tried launching a startup 6 years ago specifically to safeguard consumer privacy, and build a protective wall against abuse of Social Security numbers (issue a block of 16-30 digit numbers to members, so they can use that instead of an SSN, issuing unique numbers to everyone they do business with, much like credit card issuers allow you to generate numbers now), culling your personal information from lists, aggregators, and the dreaded credit bureaus, and allowing you to choose to take a cut of of the information traffic (ie, if someone is selling your info, you have the right to a percentage.)

Long story short, it didn't happen, and ended up mutating into something else before it died (here's some advice - don't bring people on board, especially B-school students, if you don't have money and a concrete product - a 5 year business plan, and detailed ideas just aren't enough). Oh, and did I mention that we wanted to allow trading of online currencies (including rewards points) too?

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[CodeBuster]

The government needs to amend the current laws so that people who suffer at the hands of identity thieves due to the negligence of these companies have the right to sue for damages. The threat of massive class action lawsuits would put the fear of God into these data aggregation companies. Perhaps then their executives would begin to take security more seriously.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[ATMAvatar]

Don't forget:

Never get a credit card.
Never open a bank account.
Never take out a loan.
Never accept compensation from work in any form but cash or material goods.
Never give your tax in formation to your workplace for W2s.
Never get a savings card from your local grocery store.
Never rent an apartment.
Never pay for utilities (water/gas/power).
Never buy a car.

There are plenty of every-day things you do offline that would put your information in the hands of the very companies that so often "misplace" our data.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[Bullfish]

There are certain things you have to do and certain things you don't have to do. I recommend only doing the things you actually have to do. Just because you have to do somethings, it doesn't mean you have to do everything

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[khrtt]

What, lousy fucks put all their customer data on one backup tape, and it's not their fault when the tape gets lost?

Hell, of course it's not their fault that the tape got lost

But it is their fault that the data got lost when that one tape got lost. Don't they, like, have anyone in the company who knows the meaning of the word backup?

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[HunterA4]

I use to work for Ameritrade and I still maintain a close working relationship with them. I can verify that they do use a major third party data collection company. This particular company does a lot of business with several companies in the area, so it is conceivable that they did indeed mistake a sealed box of tapes as scrap and destroyed them.

Re:Data loss... or ... data collection?

[exhilaration]

Iron Mountain (which picks up, stores, and delivers backup tapes) once gave us one of Pfizer's backups. Presumably, Pfizer got our backup.

Few companies bother to encrypt their backup tapes, which needs to change.

I would expect some congressional

[Anonymous Coward]

action soon.

Re:I would expect some congressional

[ackthpt]

In action soon.

There, that's better. Sure, they'll convene a committee of grandstanders, a taskforce of paper shufflers and a special investigative body of stern and concerned looking faces, but unless it's a 'right to life', 'let's put some mean git in the UN' or 'drilling for oil in Alaska' issue, don't expect any midnight oil burning.

Re:I would expect some congressional

[Anonymous Coward]

LOLZ U R teh funniez! Bush is stooopid!

Re:I would expect some congressional

[Anonymous Coward]

hehe, I didn't know dubya posted to slashdot as an AC!

Question

[elid]

If date is being transported via a 3rd party carrier, wouldn't it make sense to encrypt the data first?

Re:Question

[Rollie Hawk]

Good point.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Do you encrypt your backups before you ship them out? My company doesn't.

Re:Question

[MyLongNickName]

No. I'll tell you why. Encrypting takes money and time in order to set up procedures and train and implement.

There is no penalty for losing customer data other than bad press. And how many people really pay attention? Not too many.

Therefore, from a bottom line standpoint, it makes no business sense to take precautions.

I do not blame business. Business is out to make money. It is government's job to assign the real cost of carlessness back to the folks who allow the problems. I am not for big gov't regulation, but requiring disclosures of security procedures, and a penalty for each customers' data that is lost would get the attention of management quick.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

If date[sic] is being transported via a 3rd party carrier, wouldn't it make sense to encrypt the data first?

It would, which is why they did:
The spokeswoman also said the tapes weren't marked and the compressed data couldn't be accessed without special equipment. Ameritrade Loses 200,000 Client Files

Re:Question

[TripMaster Monkey]

Encrypting takes money and time in order to set up procedures and train and implement.

Just how much time, money, and training does it take to specify a session/encryption password in the backup dialog?

We encrypt all our backups. Not doing so is reckless, as backup copies are regularly sent via UPS to offsite storage facilities.

Re:Question

[TripMaster Monkey]

Just where do you see the word 'encrypted' in that quote? I sure don't see it.

(I see the word 'compressed', but that's an entirely different word.)

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

...the compressed data couldn't be accessed without special equipment.

IE: Without a DAT drive.

Re:Question

[Trixter]

I concur. I know many people who have reverse-engineered "unknown" compression schemes so compression != encryption.

Re:Question

[lgw]

Yup, you got it in one. You don't need cold-war encryption here, just enough security to prevent someone who receives the tape accidentally from learning that it's valuable. Any real backup software offeres that level of protection (even if the data's not really encrypted).

Actual on-tape encryption would be eve nmore valuable, and is trickling its way downmarket, but that's more about protecting yourself from malice than accident. It's also worth noting that if you use an encrypted filesystem, any decent backup software will back up the raw (still encrypted) files, which is another easy answer.

Re:Question

[AviLazar]

How do you know the data was not encrypted? I read the article, I do not recall seeing anything about encryption.

Re:Question

[lgw]

I like the "special equipment" though: presumably a tape drive would be necessary. :)

Re:Question

[KDN]

wouldn't it make sense to encrypt the data first?

Yes it would, but most places do not encrypt the data. Most backup programs DO NOT HAVE ENCRYPTION EVEN AS AN OPTION. And most backup programs backup over the network IN THE CLEAR. When I had to secure sensitive data, I shut down the database, copied and then GPG encrypted the data. I told backup not to backup the database directory, but to backup the encrypted copy. The private keys are kept on several other machines. So if the backup tape gets lost, I don't care from a security standpoint.

Yes, someone could get ahold of the backup tape and get a copy of the key. Anything is doable, its just a lot harder. And no, the machines with the key are not backed up onto the same backup server.

Re:Question

[soconnor99]

The data was encrypted. According to Ameritrade (my broker), special hardware is required to read the information, even if the tape was found.

All this information was sent in a letter last week.

As a customer, I feel it was nice for them to keep me in the loop, but I don't feel the least bit threatened.

Pretty much every company I've ever worked for uses some sort of courier service to move backup tapes off site. If something happens with that courier, after every reasonable precaution was taken by Ameritrade (which it certainly appears it has), it's pretty much out of their control.

They said what's happened, and what they think the exposure is. What else would you have them do, not send their backup tapes offsite?

Re:Question

[Roached]

Apparently it was compressed an encrypted which is partly why they feel the data would be difficult to use.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Encrypting backups is generally a Very Bad Idea. When you absolutley need to get that data off those 5 year old tapes, which where made by someone who quit 4 years ago, using a platform you got rid of 3 years ago you want as few complications as possible.

Re:Question

[cowgoesmoo2004]

I'm guessing "special equipment" equates to antiquated out of date tape drives that very few people actually have anymore.

Re:Question

[A Commentor]

Not quite what the Ameritrade person was quoted on CNN:

In addition, she said, the missing back-up tape contained compressed data that would require very advanced computer systems to access.

Compressed != Encrypted

Re:Question

[qwijibo]

I agree with the philosophy of encrypting backups. However, in practice it does add another layer of complexity. It complicates recovery in the case of of partially corrupted media. Also, larger companies will have policies and compliance issues surrounding the use and storage of passwords for the backups. An encrypted backup without the password is nothing more than a false sense of security.

Re:Question

[fishbowl]

"No. I'll tell you why. Encrypting takes money and time in order to set up procedures and train and implement."

It also adds a risk factor to the backup integrity.
Tape can be unreliable enough, without adding the requirement that an entire stream must be perfect from head to tail, or else it becomes extremely difficult to recover any data at all.

Re:Question

[lgw]

You'd be surprized how many people have "antiquated out of date tape drives", all for the same reason. Anything Ameritrade would likely be using is easily available on the secondhand market. I know when I worked at a shop using 9-track reel-to-reel (best tape drives ever to watch) it was never *that* big of a hassle to get spare parts.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

" Yes. Do you encrypt your backups before you ship them out? My company doesn't."

Why "ship" them out? If the data needs to travel, can't it go over a SSL socket? Obviously we're talking about a large volume of data, but no more than will fit on some tape medium.

Re:Question

[MyLongNickName]

It takes more time, money and training than doing nothing. And until you hold a stick over the head of business, they will not do ANYTHING not required of it that doesn't earn money.

Simple as that. You may not like it. You may disagree with the reasoning. You may jump up and down and say 'It shouldn't be that way'. But the fact is, that is the way it is. Businesses look out for number one.

Re:Question

[yamla]

If the data was encrypted, there'd be no reason for them to announce a loss.

Re:Question

[NMerriam]

The data was encrypted. According to Ameritrade (my broker), special hardware is required to read the information, even if the tape was found.

Yeah, but that could just be marketing-speak for "you need a $2,000 tape drive to read the tape". Of course you need special equipment, the question still remains as to whether or not the data was encrypted on the fly during backup, or if it is stored as such and backed up in the same state. I would NOT consider it acceptable for a financial services company to ship around huge volumes of unencrypted customer data via third parties.

All that said, this is about the only recent customer data loss that in theory I find "acceptable", just because there are not a lot of practical ways to move backups to the opposite coast, and Fedex is a pretty typical choice. Fedex losing a package is rare, but it does happen -- not a lot Ameritrade can do about it.

Yes, I am an Ameritrade customer, but haven't received a letter so I assume (!) that means I wasn't on that backup tape.

Re:Question

[Politburo]

According to Ameritrade (my broker), special hardware is required to read the information

That's correct. The tape is unreadable with human eyes.

Re:Question

[SpaceLifeForm]

It is government's job to assign the real cost of carlessness back to the folks who allow the problems. I am not for big gov't regulation, but requiring disclosures of security procedures, and a penalty for each customers' data that is lost would get the attention of management quick.

Depends upon who you are talking about. We know that MS does not have this issue to deal with.

Re:Question

[UnknowingFool]

If date is being transported via a 3rd party carrier, wouldn't it make sense to encrypt the data first?

Yes that would make sense, but just bear in my mind encrypting data does not mean that the data is totally safe. Certain types of encryption are vulnerable to brute force attacks. Right now the effectiveness for this attack is limited by raw CPU processing power. As computers advance, it becomes easier to break the encryption.

Since this is customer account information, the data may still be vulnerable in the future. Unlike transaction information which is not useful after a certain amount of time, it is conceivable that the data may still be relevant even after years.

Re:Question

[ScentCone]

There is no penalty for losing customer data other than bad press

How about losing the customers, trust of business partners, and the huge, disruptive cost of having to play catch-up and deal with issues that should have been evolving over time, instead?

Those are very real, potentially company-killing "penalties" - whether handed out by a regulatory agency or not.

Re:Question

[twiddlingbits]

Yes, they look out for number one which is why they SHOULD encrypt. If they are not then someone obviously has NOT explained to the CXO level the possible finacial aspects of "data loss" verus the fact that encrypting backups costs basically nothing (something like PGP costs about $2K) Think about the lost staff time trying to fix problems with compromised accounts or the lost revenue of lost customers. If any of your customers were from CA you have to notify them in writing of the loss and let them make changes. Postage isn't exactly free ya know! Not to mention if this keeps up Congress might decide to enact fines. Think of encryption as insurance, and the data as an asset. Most companies insure assets such as Buildings, Equipment, etc. so why not data too?

Re:Question

[MyLongNickName]

I agree with everything you say. In fact, I suggested we fine companies for each instance of a customer's data being lost. After being in the business world for a few years, I see you have to hit managers over the head before you get their attention.

Re:Question

[B3ryllium]

Okay, do you want to be the guy who streams 400GB to a storage facility?

Or, if it's multiple tapes, how about over a terabyte?

Personally, unless it's on a 10 gigabit connection, I'd rather not.

Re:Question

[Greyfox]

Most IT companies out there don't really understand encryption and to learn how to do it would be "too hard." That's because most of them are managed by Barbie.

For example, the various banks, credit card companies and other institutions that might E-mail you COULD adopt a policy of signing all messages with a PGP key, the public portion of which would be available on their web page. However if you compare the billions of dollars lost each year to the 20 minutes it'd take them to learn how to use PGP, you'll see that the billions of dollars is preferable since they typically don't pay it (It's either the customer, insurance or the taxpayer.)

On a similar note, a lot of companies don't publish SPF records becase the 5 minutes it takes to go to spf.pobox.com and enter your information in the wizard would distract the IT department from their ultra-important schedule of slashdot browsing (You know who you are.)

And yes, the fact that these companies won't so much as lift a finger to contribute toward preventing fraud or protecting your data really pisses me off.

Re:Question

[Greyfox]

They said it was "compressed" and would require "an advanced system" to access the data. I assume they mean it'd require a system with gunzip and a tape drive. Fortunately there aren't any of those out there except in corporate IT departments.

Re:Question

[TripMaster Monkey]

It takes more time, money and training than doing nothing.

No, it doesn't.

In terms of time, it's an extra 5 seconds when setting up the backup job. Not each time the backup job is run, but when it is set up. This amounts to a one-time cost of 25 seconds at my site.

In terms of money, the backup software most corporations use is already capable of encryption. No extra financial outlay required.

In terms of training, the system administrator should not require training to accomplish this, since he is expected to know how to do such things by virtue of his profession (or at least know how to learn for himself). It took me a whole 2 minutes to figure out how to enable encryption on our backups when I first started at this company).

Any competent administrator should be making sure his company's data is protected at all points. If he fails to do this, he opens up the company to possible litigation, not to mention bad press. Ask yourself: how much has AmeriTrade lost because of this latest blunder? (Please don't say nothing...be a little more honest than that). If the admin had encrypted the backup, they would still have been lost, but the data would still be entirely secure. Wouldn't that have been worth a 30-second investment?

So in short, there is no excuse. Period.

Re:Question

[twiddlingbits]

Being a Manager (but also having been an Enterprise IT Architect too) I don't think you have to do anything but present a solid business case nothing too technical :) Then if they don't get THAT you proceed to the hit them over the head approach! I have a few Managers above me that I have to use an aluminum bat on once in a while.

Re:Question

[Wanker]

Yes, I am an Ameritrade customer, but haven't received a letter so I assume (!) that means I wasn't on that backup tape.

This may just mean that your address of record with Ameritrade isn't in California, currently the only state to require notification by law.

Ameritrade is doing the minimum that the law requires for them to do business in California.

As to "special hardware", this is hardly unusual. Most tapes are designed only for a small set of tape drives. However, unless it was encrypted by the backup program (highly unlikely since this devastates performance and increases the chances that a needed restore will fail) the data could be easily read.

With that said, in all likelihood it was misdirected to someone who has no clue what it was and promptly got tossed into a landfill.

Re:Question

[Wanker]

It also adds a risk factor to the backup integrity.

fishbowl is absolutely correct. Encrypting backups significantly increases the chances of being unable to restore a tape when needed. Restores already fail quite frequently due to media problems, operator error, or software issues. Adding another risk to a restore is often a very difficult sell to management.

Laws like the California disclosure law will help make this an easier sell to management since under this law if the data's encrypted notification isn't necessary.

The backup need not be perfect from head to tail in order to restore, since most enterprise class backup systems encrypt/compress in large blocks rather than complete backups. You may lose a few hundred megs of your data, but not the whole backup. (However, often this is just as devastating as losing the whole thing.)

Without encryption/compression usually only the actual damaged tape blocks (a few kilobytes) are lost.

The biggest risk from encrypting is needing a restore and being unable to locate the decryption key. (I.e. several years have passed, company has changed hands several times, different backup system in use, admins safeguarded the keys a bit too well, etc.)

Re:Question

[AviLazar]

Sure there would. They are obligated by law to announce to their clients of such a loss. Once someone external to the company finds out about this information that person could leak it to the press - so it would be in their best interest to be the first to come out with this piece of news. Where did you get the idea that they can keep such an occurance secret?

Re:Question

[RollingThunder]

It's not highly unlikely.

At my workplace, one of our backup clients requires encryption to be used, and it's simply a checkmark in the Netbackup config. The data is encrypted both across the wire and on the tape.

Do most of them use this? No. Most of them don't need to, though.

Re:Question

[yamla]

I got the idea that they are not obligated to report loss of encrypted data here.

Re:Question

[AviLazar]

In the article they posted they notified 175,000 people who needed to be notified. The bill in the bottom article refers to some new legislation that includes breach notifications. Financial institutions are already required to notify if such breaches happen. This has been in place for years.

Re:Question

[LivinFree]

My guess is that, as has been suggested, a courier lost a tape. It's possibly mislabelled at their storage site, sent to another customer (not all that reassuring, but I know for a fact that it's possible - our since-fired tape storage facility delivered another site's tapes to our data center one time), or wedged between some couch cushions.

Either way, encryption is not always an option when sending tapes. For example, my employer (of which I am not a representitive), a financial institution, is required to send tapes to the IRS. It is only within the last year that we have been able to send any format other than open-reel tapes. We can now send IBM square tapes... they're not able to accept any other electronic format - no ISDN line, no SFTP, not even modem.

So it may not be completely Ameritrade's fault even if the data were not encrypted. A simple dump tape of specific customer on it's way to the Fed / IRS / etc may have fallen off of a truck. I personally wouldn't be too upset if I were a customer.

Re:Question

[sector]

Actually, there are better ways to transport sensitive backup tapes. For example, the US Post Office has something called "registered mail". Packages and letters sent registered are separated from the rest of the mail. They go in special sealed bags and every employee who comes in contact with said bag and its contents must sign off on it. Of course, it doesn't prevent mistakes from happening, but it gives you a fairly extensive paper trail when things go wrong.

Re:Question

[soconnor99]

Has there been an official statement by Ameritrade that the data was NOT encrypted? All they said was that it was compressed. That COULD mean compressed and encrypted. The person writing the press release was not an operator.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

> Yes, I am an Ameritrade customer, but haven't received a letter so I assume (!) that means I wasn't on that backup tape.

No, it just means I've already re-routed your mail.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people ship backup tapes to the off-site storage facility, rather than encrypting the data and sending it to the facility over the internet? For incrementals, I doubt bandwidth would be a limitation.

And, for the record, I haven't received any letter, but I don't live in CA either.

Luckily..

[ShaniaTwain]

Luckily it was insured against loss and Ameritrade will be recieving a check for $100 dollars!

oh HooRay!

Re:Luckily..

[grumpyman]

Minus the shipping, handling and processing fee.

Re:Luckily..

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that for one hundred dollars dollars?

Re:Luckily..

[Anonymous Coward]

We regret to inform you that your check has been lost by the shipping company.

We have every reason to believe that the check is being held by the shipping company, once it has been recovered we will ship you a new check.

Thank you,

Ameritrade Customer Service.

actually....

[AviLazar]

It's doubtful that current and former customers with exploited information will care how this occurred.

While I would be upset if this was my personal information, if Ameritrade did what they were supposed to do (as in ensuring the shipping company was a decent company) then I would not be so uptight about the situation. People like to scream, shout and vent. Shit happens. If someone was grossly at fault they should be flayed, if it was a pure accident (as such things happen) well it is what it is.

Re:actually....

[rsborg]

People like to scream, shout and vent. Shit happens. If someone was grossly at fault they should be flayed, if it was a pure accident (as such things happen) well it is what it is.

Great, next time I lose some important info that could compromise someone else's credit security, I'll just claim it's an "accident" and that "Shit happens".

Seriously, people would care if they

• knew what data had been lost (were they SSN/name combos? Trade information? Bank routing info for transfer?)
• Whether their had been affected

But they don't (currently) know... so of course they don't care... it's not clear what the impact is. And Ameritrade has every incentive to hide or destroy any evidence that reveals this. And, of course, the corporate media has no real incentive to reveal Ameritrade's fuckup either.

Re:actually....

[varmittang]

I would think they would send someone who is an employee of Ameritade to hand deliever these tapes. Give them a bag full of tapes in a carry on bag, send him to the destination by car or plane, drop off the tapes, come back for more if necessary. They have the money to do it, why not insure that your customers data doesn't exchange hands that are not apart of the company. To save a few dollors in the end, or end up on the news like this, which would you choose.

Re:actually....

[AviLazar]

No, you are taking my words out of context. Next time read, comprehend and try not to just spout words to attempt to make a point. Again to reiterate: "If someone was grossly at fault they should be flayed," See this is blaming and punishing the parties who showed negligence. Now to continue "if it was a pure accident (as such things happen) well it is what it is", see this shows that accidents happen and nobody is at fault. Such things could happen from glitches in the tracking system, mother nature, vandals/thieves, etc. While a company should try and minimize negative effects to their clients, bad things happen even when people take proper precautions.

Re:actually....

[Anonymous Coward]

Ameritrade should be smacked around as much as possible. They deserve all the bad that comes their way, and likely a good deal more.

They didn't treat the data in a manner commensurate with its value. That was their choice. They wanted to gamble with other people's lives, because, hey, it's not their problem. You know what, fuck them. Emperically, they didn't do a good job ensuring that the company was decent. They don't have custody of their customer's data, and they suspect the offending company does, or at least knows what happened to it, and is LYING about it. And you know what, Ameritrade is responsible for that too. Poor decisions that hurt shareholders, customers and markets in the pursuit of bonuses divisted from the running of their business are what Ameritrade's executives are all about. Every last one of them.

They have a responsability to control risk. They actively chose not to. They plead to be absolved of responsability because, "It's not a perfect world." Well no shit. And aren't we all glad that the engineers who designed the various bridges we all drove across today didn't have the same myopic outlook.

Everyone involved in the chain of failures should be shot in the face and raped by robots.

Re:actually....

[AviLazar]

Because, just like in other banking, companies hire transport services (like the armored car services you see on the street). Does this mean that things are ever 100% secure? NO....then again, Ameritrade - a company that does not specialize in transportation of goods in a secure fashion could hire their own people and do a job that is probably sub-par to say Brinks security systems. They hire specialists.

Re:actually....

[mpeisenbr]

Shit may happen, but companies still have to be held responsible for their negligence.

Re:actually....

[lgw]

Just encrypting the tape would have been enough.

Re:actually....

[The Slashdolt]

Dear Sir,

Recently, we were sending all of the money in your account to another branch and, well, it got lost on the way. Sorry, shit happens.

Sincerely,
Your Bank

Re:actually....

[rsborg]

Now to continue "if it was a pure accident (as such things happen) well it is what it is", see this shows that accidents happen and nobody is at fault. Such things could happen from glitches in the tracking system, mother nature, vandals/thieves, etc. While a company should try and minimize negative effects to their clients, bad things happen even when people take proper precautions.

Bullshit. If BAD STUFF HAPPENS, even if it's an accident, then someone should be held liable (Think Exxon Valdez... they had to clean up the mess). Sad fact of matter is that there is no real liability for Ameritrade's in this case. If there was, you'd bet your ass that either they would have a policy in place to prevent it from happening or to carefully vet their 3rd party shippers to prevent this kind of loss.

Re:actually....

[yamla]

I hope if I get into a car accident, I get into an accident with someone like you. 'It was just an accident.' 'Oh, okay then, no problem. Shit happens.'

Someone was grossly at fault. They shipped unencrypted data via a shipping company.

Re:actually....

[YetAnotherAnonymousC]

Interstingly enough, if you deposit a check at an ATM, and they lose it (maybe a windy day) when unloading the stuff, they aren't liable. This is why I always give deposits to a real person.
(yeah, you could get a replacement check from the payer, but that isn't always easy...)

Re:actually....

[AviLazar]

If bad shit happens the trusted company should make amends (i.e. provide support services for those who fear identity theft, compensate those who had money stolen, etc.) But to penalize them with heavy fee's is a no-no. Those gov't penalities are, in general, levied on companies who are negligent...that is the key word you need to remember. So far there is nothing to indicate negligence.

Why, on gods green earth, your post got modded anything up, other then funny, is beyond me.

Re:actually....

[AviLazar]

Sure get in an accident with me. I will still be compensated for injuries, damages to my personal property, and for pain and suffering. THe same goes for the Ameritrade clients. If any of them suffered monetary loss, identity theft, etc due to this happenstance they should be compensated. I was rebutting the OP'ers notion they should be heavily penalized by the gov't. Those penalities are, in general, only levied (wow this is getting redundant) on negligent companies. So far there is no proof of that.

As for the data not being encrypted. Where does it say that in the article? I read the article, and it is either not there or I totally missed it. If the article mentions unencrypted data my appologies - otherwise shame on you for saying the data was unencrypted.

Re:actually....

[gnuman99]

So? It's not like real cash. If someone lost it, well, just get another check.

Re:actually....

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never been comfortable with depositing checks at ATMs. I have done it ONCE, and the deposit never showed up. I will never do it again. (I wasn't thrilled with the idea even before that experience and had avoided it until then.)

Re:actually....

[lachlan76]

Yeah well if you don't find out until after your payment is overdue....

Not even encrypted !

[Flywheels of Fire]

It was not encrypted, she added.

One ought to be more careful in this Post-9/11 world.

Re:Not even encrypted !

[Skyshadow]

FYI, your link's broken so I don't know if you were being serious/sarcastic/funny with that 9-11 comment.

Let's say "serious", though: It always amazes me how careless many companies are with their customers' personal data. Data left on insecure public servers, data loaded onto laptops or PDAs, data moved around in unencrypted formats, unerased hard drives put in the trash or shipped to recyclers, etc...

If you read the details of these data loss stories, you'll see that in 99.99% of the cases we *know* how to avoid these losses. There's nothing too incredibly new about maintaining data security. The same concepts that we used 15 years ago still apply today -- training your staff to resist social engineering, maintaining discipline in regards to data use, having sound policy in regards to physical security (including the trash, kids!) and using a little freakin' common sense.

So let me suggest *again* that the reason that these companies lose data is not because they *cannot* avoid it, but because they don't give two shits about it since there are exactly zero penalties for losing other people's personal data. I guarantee you that if the CEO had to sign a Sarbanes-Oxley style document each year certifying data integrity, you'd see these stories once in a blue moon. Why? Because when the higher-ups have some skin in the game, suddenly you start seeing attention paid and resources dedicated.

Until there's a measurable penalty for losing data, most companies are just going to continue losing it. After all, what do they care -- it's your data, not theirs.

Re:Not even encrypted !

[Pope is a nazi]

There is a group of mods who hate Flywheels of Fire

His comment on RSS feeds was initially knocked down to -1 before some other mods came and picked it up and made it 5.

And now, a VERY important point has been knocked down as Redundant. But this fact is not mentioned elsewhere.

I think some Mods have a personal vengence agains Flywheels.

As for the point he makes, IT IS valid.

A company like Ameritrade should learn to encrypt there data. Especially in this post 9/11 world.

Re:Not even encrypted !

[Anonymous Coward]

You see that happen a lot these days. I don't really care about people's karma, but having good posts get forced down to -1 with the rest of the noise is really irritating.

I wish those troll-mods would just go back to playing with their own poop and leave the rest of us alone.

Re:Not even encrypted !

[nokiator]

So let me suggest *again* that the reason that these companies lose data is not because they *cannot* avoid it, but because they don't give two shits about it since there are exactly zero penalties for losing other people's personal data. I guarantee you that if the CEO had to sign a Sarbanes-Oxley style document each year certifying data integrity, you'd see these stories once in a blue moon. Why? Because when the higher-ups have some skin in the game, suddenly you start seeing attention paid and resources dedicated.

This is so true. As long as these companies are not liable for losing user data, they have not much incentive to invest any money into making their systems and/or data more secure.

This is one of the cases where opening up these cases for litigation by passing some kind of a liability law will help. True, if there are lawsuits, most of the payout will go the lawyers, not to the people whose personal data was compromised, but at least, it will provide a bit of incentives to invest more time and effort into protecting customer data.

Of course, a new breed of consulting companies are the most likely group to benefit from such legislation. They will probably come up with an insanely complicated (and therefore not very effective) methodology recommendation for protecting customer data. Worse, we may even see some kind of a standard (ISO9042?) that dictates how the effort to protect private data need to be documented...

Re:Not even encrypted !

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats because he, and you, are kack-handedly trying to get more people to visit your mithuro.com website. What, wait in the wings and try to get the scene, and then sneak in and channel away traffic? What a joke... Oh and by the way, you twit, if you check the code on the page here, links are given a rel="nofollow" tag automatically.

Which means all of your links don't add to page rank.

HAND flip.

:D

In Other News

[ackthpt]

HOLLAND, MI (OOP) OSTG has revealed that member data for Slashdot.org, an online technical news site, has been compromised. "At first we thought it was only a network error, until we noticed trends in trolling and moderation making little sense," said Rob Malda, who goes by the nickname of CmdrTaco and was one of the sites founders. "Posts which were clearly uninformative, insightful or interesting were receiving high marks, while better pieces were completely ignored." Further, Malda indicated the loss may have been as high as 100,000 ids and passwords. Which in the wrong hands could tip the opinions of nerds and geeks the world over. In early hours of trading the NASDAQ plummeted 11% on the news and downtown Holland, Michigan was in flames as a mob of panicking and angry posters went on a rampage, before sating itself on chocolate covered espresso beans at the Rocky Peanut Company and pausing to "ooh and ahh" at shiny things in the local Radio Shack window or gaze longingly at the poster for the upcoming Star Wars: Episode III, Revenge of the Sith outside the local theater. Said Holland mayor, Albert H. McGeehan, "Well, isn't this a fine kettle of tulips!" At press time OSTG had not returned any calls on the matter.

Re:In Other News

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who was reminded of the SimCity 2000 newspaper articles?

Re:In Other News

[SoupGuru]

Isn't it almost Tulip Time in Holland, MI? Sucks to be you guys. I went to high school in Zeeland and never could stand to be around for Tulip Time.

Re:In Other News

[theraccoon]

Yeah, come on, slashdot, lose my data. All the cool kids are doing it. You wanna be cool, too, right? Come on, man, just lose it. Lose it all, then you'll be cool.

Re:In Other News

[perdu]

..and pausing to "ooh and ahh" at shiny things in the local Radio Shack window..

Radio Shack??? You must be kidding. What kind of geeks do they have in Michigan anyhow???

Re:In Other News

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you are.

Re:In Other News

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you're saying everyone in Michigan is a homosexual?

Yeah it's nasty but it is this stuff news ?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is happening all the time now. Here's another:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4444477.stm

Re:Yeah it's nasty but it is this stuff news ?

[Spl0it]

As I understand you, "Is this stuff news?", the answer being YES!@#%@#%#@.

If my data was stolen, I would want to be notified, and if a company I don't deal with or do deal with has lost data I wan't do know, for future business reasons of course. The last thing I want to do is signup for a credit card or whatever with a company if they have security problems with customer again and again.

Not only is it news, but in most cases the companies involved should and deserve to have their name dragged through the gutters!

Nothing suspicious?

[Digitaltodd]

So, they lost the data and in transit the backup tape was lost. Hmmmm.....nothing suspicious to see here kids..please move along

Re:Nothing suspicious?

[SpaceLifeForm]

Wishful thinking on your part, just like the Ameritrade spokeperson.

How much longer until personal data gets protected

[Skyshadow]

Once again, let me suggest that it may be time to legislate significant penalties for companies and/or individuals who are careless with personal data.

As an Ameritrade customer I'd be worried...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thankfully, all my tech stocks have tanked and there are no more assets to attack. As a matter of fact, I'm more likely to get sued by identity theives for ruining their reputations and credit ratings.

Re:As an Ameritrade customer I'd be worried...

[SunFan]

Thankfully, all my tech stocks have tanked...

Mine, too. Also, all the major indices have broken support lines. I think the last six months of the government saying "Everything's fine! The economy is on track for a good year!" were there to pump false optimism--a sure way to boost the stock market...until reality kicks in.

Biggest data transport method

[kpwoodr]

I remember a while ago I heard that the largest data transport method was the US mail, and by a wide margin. Is this still the case? This may open up an entire new world to identity thieves, if it was not already open.

If we can't count on the companies who handle our money to protect our credit, who can we count on?

Re:Biggest data transport method

[Anonymous Coward]

The US Mail is already an ID theft channel. Thieves will steal bills and credit card applications from mailboxes.

Sigh, a "federal offense" just ain't what it used to be.

Re:Biggest data transport method

[gr8_phk]

" I remember a while ago I heard that the largest data transport method was the US mail, and by a wide margin."

I get more physical junk mail than spam, so I would say this is true. Cheap bulk mail is subsidised by more expensive important stuff. What's a stamp cost these days? 35 cents? What's bulk? 5 Cents? I've heard all the arguments that this is appropriate, but I just don't buy them. The cost of the postman coming to the box is far higher than any other portion of it, and he wouldn't have to stop 5 out of 6 days if not for the junk mail.

Re:Biggest data transport method

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work for defense contractor, and we would routinely send classified information (hardcopy, raw data, hardware, whatever) via the good old U.S. mail. I always thought this was a rather dubious policy.

Re:Biggest data transport method

[fishbowl]

"This may open up an entire new world to identity thieves, if it was not already open."

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Messing with the US Mail can get you life without parole in a federal supermax.

Re:Biggest data transport method

[tompaulco]

You have it backwards. Cheap Bulk mail subsidizes first class mail. It's bulk, remember. It may be cheaper, but they send out thousands of them. Bulk rate minimum is 12 cents. It is usually more like 18 cents and can go up to almost 30 cents.
In your situation, the mailman must come to your box, which takes time. In most cases, he must merely stop at the street. In many communities, regulations will not allow a house mounted mailbox on new construction. It must be on the street. The Postal service does not charge based on the "worst case" of having to go to the box, but on the average case which is a mix of the two. Apartments are even better because they can get hundreds of peoples mail sorted out in maybe five minutes thanks to centralized mail facilities.
The Post office must take into consideration good situations like an apartment building, with bad situations, such as rural routes with one house every mile. Unlike many other delivery companies, they offer the same rate for any mail delivery anywhere in the United States. Great if you like to send mail from New York to California, not so great if you are inviting people to a block party.
The USPS makes money. The billions of peices of bulk mail they send every year helps us to enjoy reasonable first class stamp prices.

Compressed Data Secure?

[Anonymous Coward]

My favorite:

"the missing back-up tape contained compressed data that would require very advanced computer systems to access."

http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/19/technology/ameri tr ade/

Note she did not say encrypted. Modern tape software is often intelligent enough to recognize not only its own compression algorithms, but also formats and algorithms used by other vendors. Maybe Ameritrade thinks they are one of the only companies in the world utilizing LTO, or maybe LTO-2?

Re:Compressed Data Secure?

[Anonymous Coward]

Note she did not say encrypted. Modern tape software is often intelligent enough to recognize not only its own compression algorithms, but also formats and algorithms used by other vendors. Maybe Ameritrade thinks they are one of the only companies in the world utilizing LTO, or maybe LTO-2?

You mean there are others? Oh shit, I hope my boss doesn't see this...

Its not lost, its misplaced

[metoc]

Technically someone is in possession of the tape until their is reason to believe otherwise.

News at 11, [insert company name here] loses data

[lxdbxr]

At this point, I feel it would be useful to have a list of major companies which have not lost hundreds of thousands of customer records.

We could then refuse to do business with those companies on the grounds that they were obviously lying.

Ameritrade needs to fire their IT Director

[ip_freely_2000]

"...Further blaming the shipping company, she explained that "this was not an Ameritrade Systems issue or a compromise of our technology. This was related to a third party vendor."

Ah, no.

This is squarely the problem of Ameritrade management. Protection and recovery of backup data rests squarely with IT. There should have been a detailed process done in conjunction with a reliable shipper to ensure protection ( or perhaps a private courier ) of the tape.

Yet another clueless corporation that has no sense of responsibility.

Re:Ameritrade needs to fire their IT Director

[The Good Reverend]

Even a "reliable shipper" or private courier can lose something. Or do you think there are shipping companies out there who have never lost a package?

I agree the data probably should have been encrypted, but if this really was a shipping problem, I have a hard time blaming Ameritrade.

Re:Ameritrade needs to fire their IT Director

[thenextpresident]

"This is squarely the problem of Ameritrade management. Protection and recovery of backup data rests squarely with IT. There should have been a detailed process done in conjunction with a reliable shipper to ensure protection ( or perhaps a private courier ) of the tape."

So your suggesting that having done all this, they will never lose data? And protection and recovery rests squarely with IT?

You're making a lot of assumptions. I am pretty sure they had a "detailed process" and used what they thought was a "reliable shipper/private courier".

But you know what, shit happens. No one likes it when mistakes happen, but guess what, if I hire a reputable company to do something, and they fail in doing it, they are to blame. I'm not going to say "yeah, I lost the data" when I really didn't. Sure, I am going to work to find out what happened and solve the problem, but I didn't lose the data. The company I hired lost it.

Re:Ameritrade needs to fire their IT Director

[chris_mahan]

The parent is right.

Really bad analogy:
Imagine it's your 11 year old daugther.

"Our 11 year old daughter has gone missing and is feared dead. We "TheParents"(TM) feel that our safety system were not compromised, and that the fault lies entirely on the third-party car-ride provider "R.J.Felon" WeRapeAndPillage Company.

Of course, R.J.Felon provided the service at cut-rate prices and we "TheParents" felt we were getting a great deal on the service.

Thank you for playing.

Re:Ameritrade needs to fire their IT Director

[fishbowl]

"There should have been a detailed process done in conjunction with a reliable shipper to ensure protection ( or perhaps a private courier ) of the tape."

And there probably was. It won't pass your muster, in the court of public opinion, but it almost certainly will pass the due diligence test in a court of laws.

There's no case to be made that USPS, FedEX, UPS, DHL, etc, would not be considered a "reliable shippler" to a reasonable person. You'd have to ask whether the company had the authority to send this data through unsecured channels, and I'm afraid the answer to that, in court anyway, would be yes.

So the only thing left is for an individual with specific damages to file suit on the basis of those damages.

Re:Ameritrade needs to fire their IT Director

[tompaulco]

Wow, the strawmen are out today. Are you implying that the delivery company is really a company that steals data, is known for stealing data, and is merely masquerading as a legitimate delivery company? Where is your evidence of this?

Re:Ameritrade needs to fire their IT Director

[chris_mahan]

No, of course not.

I am saying that Ameritech did not perform and continue to perform due diligence in their selection and retention of a thrid-party that could be trusted with the transport of sensitive information.

Why, for example, did they not use a bonded, licensed two armed guards armored truck service like banks do?

Too expensive?

Let's see how expensive this news will be on their future earnings or the lack thereof...

Re:Ameritrade needs to fire their IT Director

[Reignking]

I am saying that Ameritech did not perform and continue to perform due diligence in their selection and retention of a thrid-party that could be trusted with the transport of sensitive information.

Why, for example, did they not use a bonded, licensed two armed guards armored truck service like banks do?

Actually, you have no idea if they did or did not.

Re:Ameritrade needs to fire their IT Director

[chris_mahan]

Of course not, since they did not release the name of said third-party.

Maybe they should, in the interest of public safety.

Re:Ameritrade needs to fire their IT Director

[Skater]

Yes, and no one has EVER stolen anything from an armored truck...

Nothing is 100%.

Re:Ameritrade needs to fire their IT Director

[chris_mahan]

Well, then, why are we all getting our panties in a bunch, since things are going to get lost and stolen no matter what we do or don't do?

I think Ameritech should have seen this one coming and encrypted everything with AES with a 2048 bits key.

What? Too expensive?

Re:Ameritrade needs to fire their IT Director

[Skater]

First, are you sure they didn't?

Second, the GP was talking about using an armored truck to move the tapes around. My point (which apparently went over your head) was simply that armored trucks have been robbed, too, and they aren't 100% secure. It's not a matter of money (although I think spending money to hire an armored truck to move backup tapes is stupidly insane) - the point is that it's still not totally secure.

Third, the tinfoil hat-types claim the NSA has broken most encryption schemes already. Even if they haven't broken AES 2048 today, how do you know someone won't tomorrow? You'd probably then suggest all the tapes be re-encrypted, but that opens up even more risk vectors: they have to be moved again, more machines involved, and more operators.

That makes sense now...

[krapper]

So that's what is on that tape that my grandmother just received randomly from FedEx...

Re:That makes sense now...

[lgw]

You joke, but when I was in college there was a locally famous incident where a girl recieved comprehensive technical documentation for a "secret" military shuttle mission. Several dozen pounds of paper describing some military satellite in much detail. She had the perfect excuse to not be hassled by the feds when returning the boxes, however: she was blind.

Re:How much longer until personal data gets protec

[Reignking]

There are. GLB (Safeguards Rule), FACTA (Disposal Rule)...

Re:How much longer until personal data gets protec

[Anonymous Coward]

And they were careless in what way exactly?

Not an issue?

[yamla]

What is she on? How is this not an issue? If the data had been properly encrypted, it could have been lost with no danger of the data falling into the wrong hands. Ameritrade decided the data was not worth encrypting, and then lost it.

Even if they couldn't be bothered to encrypt the data, they then shouldn't have shipped it the way they did. They should have shipped the data in a
briefcase handcuffed to a trusted courier.

This is most definitely a failure, and a significant one at that. I am saddened that Ameritrade doesn't have the decency to own up to their mistakes. In Canada, they could be charged under the PIPED Act.

Re:Not an issue?

[bdcrazy]

encrypted data falling into the wrong hands = no longer encrypted data.

Re:Not an issue?

[yamla]

Properly encrypted data is only at risk if the wrong hands have the encryption key. If they can get the encryption key AND the encrypted data, they could just as easily have got the unencrypted data in the first place.

The only other problem, of course, is if the encryption algorithm is significantly broken. But you are only expected to go so far. AES-256, for example, should be sufficient protection and a company can hardly be blamed for using the officially sanctioned encryption algorithm (compare with DES).

Re:Not an issue?

[31415926535897]

If you were one of the customers that received a letter from Ameritrade, you would know that the data on the tape _was_ encrypted. I think you should learn all of the facts before you spout nonsense.

Re:Not an issue?

[yamla]

Are you sure about that? I obviously did not receive the letter. What encryption do they use?

I'm surprised they reported this, then. At the moment, a company is not required (in California) to report a loss of data if the data was encrypted using a reasonable encryption algorithm.

Re:Not an issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

I did receive the letter, and it says nothing about encryption.

Re:Not an issue?

[bdcrazy]

I was meaning that if they have data, its only a matter of time/effort needed to get at the data, which you describe as sufficient protection. Encryption is only a temporary measure of protection in any case.

American Century

[Rob the Bold]

Got a letter last week from American Century that 2 PCs had been physically stolen form the American Century office containing account information -- names addresses, balances, but no SSNs.

I have every reason to believe

[gh5046]

that the walkman I lost on my Grandmother's land (the several acres of it), when I was seven years old, is still there. Although she passed away several years ago and someone purchased the land for farming and have tilled the entire lot, I have every reason to believe that it's still there.

Well, at least I have every reason to believe that it was destroyed.

I'm an Ameritrade customer and I DO care how...

[samdu]

...about how the data was lost. It's a little bit difficult to get angry about a lost package in the shipping process. It happens. It's always going to happen. It's rare, though. I'd be a little pissed off if this was due to a network breach at Ameritrade. As it is, I'm not too concerned. So, yeah, it DOES matter how the data was lost.

Re:I'm an Ameritrade customer and I DO care how...

[Rollie Hawk]

That's kind of like preferring to be raped over being murdered.

Re:I'm an Ameritrade customer and I DO care how...

[cowgoesmoo2004]

My name is in that file, and I care too.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but I see a lot of geeks griping about silly things. Other than bitching about a lack of encryption, there isn't much to bitch about here.

They should have picked a better shipper? I mean come on, even if you use FedEx, UPS and/or the USPS, you will eventually find that things get lost or stolen in transit. This is real life, stuff happens.

Lack of encryption though, the IT staff are incompetent to not realize that appropriate encryption should have been used -- unless they were shipping it to the government and had to follow precise braindead formatting and delivery specifications?

Re:I'm an Ameritrade customer and I DO care how...

[Anonymous Coward]

They should have picked a better shipper? I mean come on, even if you use FedEx, UPS and/or the USPS

Over a bonded private courier who would baby sit the package from beginning to end, and if anything happend to the package they'd be out lots of money and looking for a whole new career?

Theres a reason why there are lots of small courier services. Its because they provide a better service than FedEx, UPS, or the USPS could ever dream of, even though that better service comes at a cost.

So basically, Ameritrade decided that tossing the tape in a box and handing it off to a shipping company and risking the chance that it would be lost was worth the $50 or so they saved per tape transfer to do it right.

Re:I'm an Ameritrade customer and I DO care how...

[Anonymous Coward]

The one thing they didn't mention was that the loss happened during shipping......to India. You see, the data has been lost in a third world country on the way. You know, gotta pay the lowest rate. Soon fake passports will be made in your name and your identity will be stolen.

Re:I'm an Ameritrade customer and I DO care how...

[fishbowl]

"Over a bonded private courier who would baby sit the package from beginning to end, and if anything happend to the package they'd be out lots of money and looking for a whole new career?"

You do one level of risk management for an organ transplant, and another level for routine data warehousing.

Serves Ameritrade right...

[Anonymous Coward]

...for using a Nigerian shipping company.

Not Ameritrade's Fault?

[lbmouse]

Further blaming the shipping company, she explained that "this was not an Ameritrade Systems issue or a compromise of our technology. This was related to a third party vendor."

No, it's an Ameritrade-picking-a-bad-vendor issue. It is still ultimately Ameritrade's fault.

Re:Not Ameritrade's Fault?

[Xiver]

I agree. If someone pays a $10 per hour janitor a few thousand dollars to swap out a backup tape from our server room, we are responsible in one way or another. After all we are stewards of the data.

Re:Not Ameritrade's Fault?

[TripMaster Monkey]

At my company, custodians do not have the keys to the server room.

Of course, this means I have to clean up my own messes, but I'm fine with that, considering the alternative.

No Big Deal.

[torpor]

Just ask Israel for a backup.

Re:No Big Deal.

[Anonymous Coward]

So when did you stop murdering Jews?

One Bart to rule them all.

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's that important, maybe it shouldn't be entrusted to Puck from the Real World San Francisco.

Appearently, "there oughta be a Law." If everyone is going to turn around and say, "I didn't do it!" then the rest of the market needs a device to hold them accountable. Seriously, everyone in that chain of events DID do it. And in fitting "social darwinism" fashion, as any good economist would tell you, they should be destroyed utterly for their failures.

The dumbass executive who decided to use Ganja Security (A Fly-by-Nite subsidiary) probably got a giant bonus for "saving" Ameritrade so much money, instead of fired and sued. Likewise the company that losted the tape pandered to the stockholders how much money they saved by hiring illegal immegrants. It's called integrity, now it's dead, and it used to be America's competitive advantage.

An Epidemic?

[WhiteBandit]

So I've been creating a list of all the major cases I've heard about in 2005. Nearly 1.3 million people have been affected so far this year. Of course now Slashdot won't let me post the information because I have "too few characters per line."

I originally posted an expanded version of this list on my blog to start keeping track of everything.

Here is basically what it looks like:
Date: 04-18-2005
Name of Organization: Ameritrade
How: Lost backup tape with shipping agency
People Affected: 200,000
Link: http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/19/technology/ameritr ade/

Date: 04-14-2005
Name of Organization: Polo Raplh Lauren - Mastercards
How: "Security Breach" - Hackers
People Affected: 180,000
Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/ a/2005/04/14/financial/f064639D31.DTL

Date: 04-08-2005
Name of Organization: San Jose Medical Group
How: Stolen Laptop
People Affected: 185,000
Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/ archive/2005/04/08/financial/f115753D39.DTL

Date: 03-29-2005
Name of Organization: UC Berkeley
How: Stolen Laptop
People Affected: 98,000
Link: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/20 05/03/29/BAG3MBVSFH1.DTL

Date: 03-26-2005
Name of Organization: Northwestern University
How: "Security Breach" - Hackers
People Affected: 21,000
Link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/
chi-050 3260274mar26,1,5138021.story?coll=chi-technology-h ed&ctrack=1&cset=true

Anyway, this is definitely getting ridiculous and out of hand. And it seems we're pretty much helpless to control it as well. When are a lot of these companies going to stop requiring valuable information like social security numbers and such?

Re:An Epidemic?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have accounts with Ameritrade. Just called them up, asked if my user data is stolen. Gentleman on the line claimed he has a list of stolen user data and he can look up by userid/account number. Hmmm.

Re:An Epidemic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats actually quite possible. If its a backup tape of a given year, they'd know that people with accounts during that year would be on that tape, so it would then be simply a task of whether your account was active during that time.

Re:An Epidemic?

[jd]

Delete the linefeeds - HTML doesn't use them, and it bypasses the lameness filter. At least two estimates have gone up by a factor of 10, suggesting that many of the reports so far are underreporting. Most reports are in California, due to State law. There are 50 States, and no reason to assume California is worse than the others. Indeed, as it has a high density of techs, it might actually be doing better.

A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the "true" figure for compromised data may be as high as 90 million. SSNs rarely change, so if someone has that, they can obtain any replacement card numbers or other personal data. On that basis, there is no point in securing the systems and still use the old SSNs. You have to replace the lot, or there's no point.

Yes, that's going to be very expensive. So is dealing with up to 90 million cases of possible identity theft. By companies (and customers) being cheap from the start, everyone has to pay a great deal more. Sometimes you have to spend money to save money.

Re:An Epidemic?

[Feynman]

Nearly 1.3 million people have been affected so far this year

While this may be a reasonable estimate, simply adding the numbers of people affected from each case may overstate the problem. There's bound to be some overlap between all the databases.

Re:An Epidemic?

[booch]

You should include the date reported as well as the date(s) of the incident and the date of discovery. You should also explain what data was lost (SSNs, CC#s, credit info, medical info, etc.) and whether there are any know uses of the stolen data. (I'd also include a likelihood ranking of whether the data will/could be used. For this incident, I'd give it a very low likelihood.) You should include the recent DSW incident, and probably ChoicePoint. (The ChoicePoint incident was discovered in October 2004, but not reported until 2005.)

Re:An Epidemic?

[Dracolytch]

You missed the George Mason incident earlier this year. Maybe that was only tens of thousands of records though.

~D

Re:An Epidemic?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just called them up, asked if my user data is stolen. Gentleman on the line claimed he has a list of stolen user data and he can look up by userid/account number.

I'm going to make a wild guess here: "your data is safe," right? Why would they possibly say otherwise, regardless of the truth?

Re:An Epidemic?

[Vitriol Angst]

This list should be a lot longer. Various banks (like Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America) and Credit Card companies, HR & Block (I think), the IRS, and numerous other companies have had important customer data compromised.

There probably is a web site on this...
Hard to find with all the security alerts.

This is why it is vital that the Gov needs to use a Public/Private key system with authenticity handshaking with SSN (make the SSN a public ID, that is verified by a changeable password, businesses only receive a notice from the Gov that you are authorized to use it). The current system is absolutely broken. I've gotten three calls at home with someone trying to verify my wifes SSN so that they could use it for Identiy theft (tip; if a business doesn't want to give you an address, they are crooks).

Backup Tapes should always be encrypted

[workerbeedrone]

There is no excuse not to encrypt all backup tapes anymore where sensitive data is involved. There are appliance-style products out there specifically for encrypting tape backups, if you can't figure out another way.
And I'm sure there are plenty of SW solutions also.

This kind of crap has been happening too often.
I hate to say we need a law, but we need a law.

Re:Backup Tapes should always be encrypted

[random_culchie]

If you are doing your backups properly you should be storing them in a secure location. IE a big fire-proof safe. You don't need encryption if they are stored correctly. That said we store them in a big secure firesafe with the key sitting on top of it ;)

Shoot the messenger

[ShineyMcShine]

Just shoot the messenger. Age old solution.

Just because firms haven't said they lost data

[WillAffleckUW]

doesn't mean they haven't lost it, but failed to report it in such a way that the media passed it on.

We're dealing with a very small subset of firms that have either been forced to admit, or have voluntarily admitted, data loss of customer records and personal data collected either with or without permission.

The number of firms that haven't admitted it, but have had it happen, is a LOT bigger.

Re:How much longer until personal data gets protec

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again, let me suggest that it may be time to legislate significant penalties for companies and/or individuals who are careless with personal data.

Yes! Because more unenforced legislation similar to HIPAA will make all the difference. After all, leaking of personal medical records is now completely a thing of the past! Just because these laws tend to have loopholes up the wazoo shouldn't be any consern as long as the name of the law makes it sound like things will change.

Ameritrade's pledge to you...

[krapper]

"The trust of our clients is our most precious asset. Protecting your privacy and safeguarding your personal and financial information is one of our highest priorities."

Re:Ameritrade's pledge to you...

[SunFan]

When I worked as a programmer, that's like reading what the marketing people wrote about my program. The usual response: My program does that?!?

Responsibility

[derfel]

I work for a company that designs and builds devices used in the medical industry. If we use a third party for hardware or software, we have to verify and vouch for that software. If a patient gets hurt because some 3rd party app did something wrong, the 3rd party doesn't get sued, we do. It should be the same for personal data. Ameritrade should have made sure the data was secure, whether it was in their hands or not. If anyone's identity gets stolen, or they get ripped off in any other way, Ameritrade should be liable for the loss plus damages! As should all of the other companies that are losing personal data.

Re:Responsibility

[fishbowl]

"It should be the same for personal data."

And it is. There's nothing specific like HIPAA to enumerate rights and responsibilities in the same way, but there certainly is nothing to stop a person with damages, taking their complaint to the courts.

If you cared that much, and if you actually had specific damages, you could sue, and in some states, you'd be guaranteed a hearing (with all the due process rights that come with it).

Re:Responsibility

[Reignking]

There is something specific for personal data that is used by financial institutions. It is called the Financial Modernization Act of 1999, aka Gramm-Leach-Bliley, aka GLB!

As an example of the penalties:
In November 2004, two companies were charged by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with violation of GLB for not having proper safeguards to protect customers' sensitive personal and financial information. One of those, Sunbelt Lending Services, agreed to a settlement that bars future violations of GLB and requires independent, biannual audits of its information security program for ten years.

Re:How much longer until personal data gets protec

[Anonymous Coward]

They took a fairly complete image of their customers' personal data (aka, not broken up or disassociated in any way), copied it onto an easily mobile format, didn't encrypt it and gave it to a third party.

Let's see if you can spot the carelessness here.

personal data protection == big sister

[torpor]

the only solution is the eradication, entirely, of the notion of 'personal data'. by that, i mean: you personally should be recording everything, not just the company. both sides should have their full records, for there to be 'fairness'.

until there is such a common, accepted, standardized practice, there will always be a mis-balance of corporate-Entity(knowledge of individuals) versus indepent-Entity(knowledge of corporate state). the reason we hate big brother is because we have no control over him; we'd accept his conditions, if turnabout was enforced by the state, and we had just as much public oversight of government as 'it' does 'us'.

from now on, simply record every single thing you do, anything thats a part of an agreement made with some company, yourself. save every single thing 'they' print you, put it in your system so that you data-mine them. use your digital prowess to record as much of your 'person->corporation' interaction as possible.

do it for a year, and then see how you feel about corporate loss of data.

its an odd thing, but in fact total-awareness is the only solution to problems of individual privacy versus corporate responsibility. its a wry old universe, doing the irony thing again..

Re:personal data protection == big sister

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to reply as AC because I moderated you up, but I have something to add here. While you can collect all sorts of data about the interactions you have with corporate entities, you can't effectively mine that data the way the corporations can because your relationship with them is closer to one-to-one, whereas their relationships with their customers is one-to-manymanymany. That's where the value of data mining comes into play, seeing trends in the seas of data these companies hold. You can never have that much data about the handful of companies and government entities you interact with.

You just can't get any good information out of this meager amount of data, except to see that these companes are all money grubbing whores. If you really want to watch the watchers, you need to do it as a group. Your data about your own corporate/governemnt interactions needs to be combined with other peoples'. It would be an interesting experiment to see just how long these companies let you keep your collective store of data about them.

Re:How much longer until personal data gets protec

[Rude Turnip]

Let me put on my Dr. Phil voice for a moment...So, how's that working for ya?

Re:How much longer until personal data gets protec

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes! Because more unenforced legislation similar to HIPAA will make all the difference. After all, leaking of personal medical records is now completely a thing of the past!

As someone whose company has spend many tens of millions of dollars on HIPAA compliance, I can't tell you how happy I am to hear it's not enforced! I can't wait to tell my boss! I'll bet I get a big raise this year for saving the company all that money!

Ameritrade Customer Service

[kid_wonder]

Just gave them a call to close my account and I must say that they (or at least the person I talked to) was well versed on the talking points from the press release.

1) Blame third party
2) Data is not lost, we just don't know where it is
3) There has been no evidence of the data being used

The woman I spoke with was pretty adamant about making these points and really tried to keep me from closing my account.

I am not sure if this sort of revelation usually results in a significant loss of business or not, but it would appear they were well prepared to rebut peoples concerns.

Re:Ameritrade Customer Service

[garcia]

2) Data is not lost, we just don't know where it is

And that's when you tell them that just because it's 4/20 does not mean they can be high at work.

Re:Ameritrade Customer Service

[Anonymous Coward]

"I am not sure if this sort of revelation usually results in a significant loss of business or not"

I'm sure it does. I help measure churn (and develop ways to prevent it) as part of my job. In a customer-facing enterprise with a significant number of clients, it's quite clear that any public announcement will have an impact. What's not obvious is that sometimes even *positive* statements in the press will have a negative impact on churn.

But something like this will absolutely lead to many people doing as you did. I guarantee it's something they measure in aggregate, and probably even have a business unit devoted to addressing the phenomenon.

Re:Ameritrade Customer Service

[Anonymous Coward]

Data is not lost, we just don't know where it is

Sounds reasonable to me!

Re:Ameritrade Customer Service

[HikeFanatic]

Mod parent up.

Why am I not surprised to hear that customer service is just reiterating the press release. They'll do anything to prevent people from closing their accounts. If I had something like this happen to me, my money would be out of there in a heartbeat.

I would be interested to hear how this affects their business in the coming weeks once people get word about this. With major banks, they'll usually sweep this under the carpet and forget about it, as the negative press will cause a bigger loss from people moving their money elsewhere, than the act of losing the data itself.

Thankfully we have our law in California that required these companies to disclose any loss of customer data. With all of the recent data loss stories coming out recently, it's about time that we enact some real legislation at the federal level to make companies legally and financially liable for these sort of screw ups. However, I'm not holding my breath as it will most likely wind up watered down to the point of being worthless.

This is just unacceptable and in my opinion shows how incompetant and unprofessional they are.

Re:Ameritrade Customer Service

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll do anything to prevent people from closing their accounts./i.

I literally had a DirecTV rep do baby-talk to me "Awwwww, we so sorry to see you go!" trying to make me feel stupid for leaving. Tough nuts, I took a pay cut and $400 a year to watch people build motorcycles is a lot of money!

Very advanced computer systems

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they were refering to XP's built-in support for zip files.

Re:News at 11, [insert company name here] loses da

[jd]

I'm pretty sure Codependents Anonymous hasn't lost any personal data, lately. I'm also sure that they'd LOVE to take absolute control over everyone else's security. Hell, let them. They can't do any worse.

You're missing one..

[EvilStein]

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/georgia/news-ar ticle.aspx?storyid=35796

"ATLANTA (AP) -- D-S-W Shoe Warehouse officials estimate that thieves stole one-point-four million credit card numbers."

Rumsfeld

[smittyoneeach]

The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2081042/

Re:Rumsfeld

[Anonymous Coward]

People like to pick at this statement by Ole Rummy, but it actually makes perfect sense to me, and strikes me as an intelligent way to look at information gathering. Think of it as "known functionality" "known bugs" and "undiscovered bugs".

Re:Rumsfeld

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds exactly like Newspeak to me.

There are known knowns and unknown knowns and unknown unknowns. Yep, definitely Newspeak.

I swear, these guys read 1984 and they just thought, "Man, these are such great ideas!"

Re:Rumsfeld

[Winkhorst]

This is precisely my approach to spelling. There are words I can spell, and there are words I know I can't spell so I look them up, and there are words I don't know I can't spell so I misspell them. Those are the ones that make you look like an idiot.

Re:Rumsfeld

[Anonymous Coward]

WAIT WAIT WAIT!

I forgot where Rummy worked, that epitome of Newspeak: the Department of Defense. Holy minipax, Batman.

The Department of Defense, formed from the merger of the Department of War and the Navy and the Air Force. That Department of Defense which has no problem attacking Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Korea, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Grenada, Libya, Greece, Panama, or Cuba yet couldn't defend itself against an attack with an airliner on its very headquarters, its center of command: the only attack it has ever faced on the US in the Department's entire history.*

But you know, War is Defense.

* I don't mean to imply that it's unreasonable that they couldn't defend themselves against such a devious attack. Further, I don't mean to imply that any particular war the Department of Defense has waged has been unjustified. I mean only to imply that the very name Department of Defense is a stunning testament to Orwell's insight.

Spokeswoman?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that word just, like, wrong? Isn't the politically correct thing to do in the US to use gender-neutered (oops, gender-neutral) words, like spokesperson?

This is why...

[tomstdenis]

You ***ENCRYPT*** [and authenticate] your backups.

So that even if you lose the media you don't leak the data...

Of course you have to be a Community College grad to figure that out.

I R SMRT!

Tom

And they never heard of encryption?

[Trixter]

At a former financial employer, I didn't hesitate to put encryption into the backup system I designed for a particular product. You have to protect the data at every single failure point, including those of the "whoops, where did we put that tape?" kind.

Re:And they never heard of encryption?

[siraim]

but.. the developer of the app using this data needs his data backed up in x number of hours.. and the users of said app are moaning and groaning about how the app feels.. and the backup folks are complaining that they can't get things done in the window that's needed.. and they shoe horn the solution in to make it all just work with the least number of complaints...

and.. oh yeah.. now the data is on a tape and protected from disaster.. but open for anyone else to peruse...

Or... they could have architected a solution that doesn't impact the app, doesn't impact the customers.. and give the backup folks the piece of mind that the backup was successful, protected and secure.

That would cost money.. and it would take S..M..R..T smart people to implement it.

Re:And they never heard of encryption?

[tomstdenis]

Several points.

1. Be less stupid about data. Environment Canada for instance keeps backups going like 10 years or so of crap like "how much corn grew here"... who gives a shit!!!

2. Use hardware accelerated crypto or just a fast processor. And AMD64 can keep cat-5 speeds without taxing the CPU and will set you back a couple of hundred dollars!!! OH NO NOT $200!!! How can we ever afford that?

3. Do smarter backups. Do you really generate TB's of new data a day? Somehow I doubt that. So rotate older crap out of the nightly/weekly backups.

4. Business costs money.

Really, if you're going to handle my data for a business [because essentially that's the business Ameritrade is in] you'd expect them to actually invest in proper networking, archiving, etc... otherwise why are you using their services?

This reminds me of the "RAM manufacturers don't test chips" ... work isn't supposed to be cost free ... that's why it's called work and why you get paid for it!

Tom

Re:How much longer until personal data gets protec

[AK Marc]

As someone whose company has spend many tens of millions of dollars on HIPAA compliance, I can't tell you how happy I am to hear it's not enforced! I can't wait to tell my boss! I'll bet I get a big raise this year for saving the company all that money!

Dear Troll,
When was the last time the HIPAA Special Agents dropped by to inspect your organizationf for compliance? Never? Then it is unenforced. Thanks for playing. You can collect your parting gift at the door.

Encryption expensive?

[mstansberry]

One of these responses said that encryption is expensive, but from what I've heard it's really not. PKWare http://http//search390.techtarget.com/originalCont ent/0,289142,sid10_gci1079886,00.html recently came out with compression/encryption software that I'm sure it costs less than the lost business does.

Security analyst, Kevin Beaver: All that's needed is just basic security policies, procedures, and common sense safeguards. This is a level of security that far too many organizations have trouble attaining - if the average organization could just implement the basics, that is, reasonable security measures proportionate to the importance of the data and its associated risks - that's often more than enough.

Re:Encryption expensive?

[Daedala]

Encryption is not expensive financially. Decent encryption tends to be computationally expensive, though, and may slow backups. Worse, it involves changing processes. Ever tried to make a bank change how they do things?

You're Fired!

[standards]

this was not an Ameritrade Systems issue or a compromise of our technology. This was related to a third party vendor.

The application development group still has a job! You're doing great!

The management that was involved in choosing the vendor has been sacked.

Those responsible for letting this leak into public view have been "reassigned", and will be terminated once the heat dies down.

FOR SALE

[jchawk]

One tape backup tape. Appears to be functional, bought from local shipping company at auction. :-P

Re:FOR SALE

[SunFan]

Given Ameritrade's brilliance on saying a *compressed* backup tape will require presumably rare and esoteric computing systems to read, I'd estimate you have 2 hours before the FBI is at your front door asking for that tape!

Still their fault...

[Anonymous Coward]

They should have planned for a "shipping problem" with their data. Still inexcusible!

Copy of Ameritrade Customer Data Lost

[ugmoe]

So, they lost the data and in transit the backup tape was lost. Hmmmm.....nothing suspicious to see here kids..please move along

No - the only tape lost was the backup tape - Ameritrade has the original and current data.

So more specifically - the article should be titled "Copy of Ameritrade Customer Data Lost."

Re:Copy of Ameritrade Customer Data Lost

[fishbowl]

"Ameritrade Customer Data Shared"

Blame the Janitor!

[kethel]

I clean up a bank every night which also requires me to clean up their computer room. I see dozens of tapes laying around every night. I'm the first one to get accused of taking anything until they look at their video camera tapes.

Re:Blame the Janitor!

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm the first one to get accused of taking anything until they look at their video camera tapes."

I'm quite certain that the *second* such false accusation against me would lead to litigation with myself as plaintiff. The first time I would not exactly let slide, but after the second time you can make your case easily.

Re:Blame the Janitor!

[kethel]

I'm just glad there are cameras everywhere now. Until a few years ago before there were any I was accused almost every week of taking something.

Re:Blame the Janitor!

[Anonymous Coward]

"I was accused almost every week of taking something."

Really?

Accusing someone of a crime without evidence is slander. If they accuse you of a crime but deprive you of your right to due process of law, and simply take action, it's bigger than that.

Why do so many sites collect personal information?

[amichalo]

I work with eCommerce for a living. Credit card processing requires the CC#, Exp date, CVV2 code (the digits on the back of the card) and the billing Zipcode.

Why then must we supply name, address, phone number, email, and other personal information just to make a purchase? (obvious answer is for customer profiling and contacting post-sale.)

I try to refuse to provide a SSN whenever I recocgize it isn't needed (like to establish an account at the local dry cleaners) but so often, employees become adjitated, as if I am trying to hide something.

We as consumers need to do more to protect our own personal data from getting to 3rd parties in the first place.

Now obviously Ameritrade needs such financial and personally identifying information for SEC and IRS compliance, but in that case, they should be required by an oversight body to protect that information.

HIPPA protects the privacy rights of US citizens healthcare information and has two very important rules:
(1) information must be secured
(2) only the minimal information may be collected when required and only the minimal information may be shared with those who require it.

Why doesn't this exist for SSN, bank account numbers, etc?

non-network router

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one that thinks of equipment like that sold by Dremel when a non-network router is mentioned?

OK, you try PGPing 15TB of data

[Colin Smith]

I'll come back and ask you how you're getting on in a month or two.

Re:OK, you try PGPing 15TB of data

[olddotter]

So what is the Big O of PGP? Is encrypting data slower than say transfering it at 10Mb/s?

Re:OK, you try PGPing 15TB of data

[DigitalCrackPipe]

1. There are algorithms that are designed for realtime encryption, i.e. twofish. 2. There is special hardware that can perform encryption/decryption much more efficiently than your general-purpose CPU. Just because microsoft backup doesn't support encryption doesn't mean that any serious backup software won't do it. If your backup software/system doesn't support encryption, it was designed for home-users (despite what it claims). When the market demands encryption, software vendors will step up. Or maybe I should say "if".

Re:OK, you try PGPing 15TB of data

[twiddlingbits]

There are add-in cards for Sun boxes that do the encryption in hardware. It is VERY fast. In the DOD world we used to have cipher-processors that were basically ASICs dedicated to endcode/decode data with special encryption.

Re:OK, you try PGPing 15TB of data

[Colin Smith]

10Mb/s isn't remotely fast enough, by an order of magnitude. Try encrypting data at 100MB/s.

Re:OK, you try PGPing 15TB of data

[Colin Smith]

1: Realtime encryption is for relatively small amounts of data. An average file server these days is quarter to half a terrabyte, never mind something big like a data warehouse which is most likely to contain customer information. You have to be able to perform a full of one of these within your backup window, say 6 hours. Your backup system needs to be capable of 140MB/s or more, not 50MB/s like a commodity encryption card, 140MB/s or more... It's hard enough getting the data off of disk that fast never mind attempting to push it through encryption.

2: Hardware encryption is expensive, (still not fast enough) and a royal pain in the arse to manage. But here's the killer. It has to be supported on all of the hardware and software platforms your sensitive data might get onto; Sun hardware, IBM Power hardware, IBM mainframe hardware, HP ix86 Linux hardware, ix86 Windows hardware etc etc.

"If your backup software/system doesn't support encryption, it was designed for home-users (despite what it claims)."

Oh, they support it, but as I mentioned, it's only for small amounts of data. The data warehouse installed to hold customer information by a medium sized supermarket chain here in the UK was 20TB in size, around 10 years ago.

Simply saying yeah they should just encrypt it tells me that you have little or no experience in a large heterogenous environment.

Re:OK, you try PGPing 15TB of data

[DigitalCrackPipe]

I'd argue that your points are stumbling blocks due to insufficient demand for encryption. If there is sufficient demand, the boundaries of speed and interoperability always get pushed.

There's nothing preventing realtime encryption from being used on large amounts of data besides bandwidth. I'd argue that it's not really realtime if it can't keep up with the bandwidth of the medium (either the speed of SCSI, or say the maximum write speed of the tape).

The hardware issue sounds specific to the architecture in question... and every data center will probably have different requirements.

And most importantly, the real issue here is the cost of stolen data. If it's important enough to do, people will find a way to back up with encryption, and still meet time windows. If the company isn't willing to pay what is needed for this, then they are not concerned about the security of the data that leaves the site.

It'll be found soon enough

[McGregorMortis]

"Ameritrade has every reason to believe that the tape has either been destroyed or is being held by the shipper."

And now, every bored minimum-wage handler in every depot, while not busy drop-kicking packages marked "Fragile", will be searching every corner for this extremely lucrative opportunity.

Is it time for.....

[The Slashdolt]

Is it time for the USPSS system, or the UPSS system? You know, like HTTPS, but for the postal system or UPS. That way you can securely send your packages using the latest in cutting edge delivery security.

In related news....

[KipCas]

Martha Stewart, while on house arrest, has reportedly just finished an upcoming segment for her TV show called "Hand stitching UPS & Fed-Ex uniforms."

When reached for comment, Stewart replied "Well, that is just nonsense. I have been working on these lovely little doilies with little compartments perfect for holding tape backups....I mean napkins, napkins!...In prison they call napkins "tape backups"....I'm still readjusting to life as a free money....WOMAN! FREE WOMAN!!! BLAAAARRGGGHHHH!" Stewart's voice then abruptly changed and lowered and she started cursing in an ancient Latin dialect that researchers are still trying to identify. Stewart could not be reached for further comment.

Argh!

[crimoid]

"this was not an Ameritrade Systems issue or a compromise of our technology. This was related to a third party vendor."

I'm so peeved when I see comments like this. When will people realize that when they hire a 3rd party vendor to complete a task they are not absolved of responsibility. This IS an Ameritrade Systems issue. They didn't encrypt their data. They didn't hire a responsible shipper. They still "own" the issue.

I did technical account management for years. One thing our group was primarily responsible for was saying "Yes, this is our issue, we will see it to resolution". Even when the blunder was caused by a 3rd party, we owned it. It was our responsibility.

Re:Argh!

[learn fast]

FYI the tape was encrypted

It was his fault!

[Spy der Mann]

Adam: It was Eve's fault!
Eve: It was the snake's fault!
George Bush: It was the CIA's fault!
Ameritrade: It was the third party vendor's fault!

I don't know about you guys, but I see a trend here...

sheesh

[tuxette]

1) Blame third party

"I don't do business with companies that cannot and will not take responsibility for what happens to its personal data (or whatever else). In the end, you are where the buck stops. Not the shipping company that you contracted."

2) Data is not lost, we just don't know where it is

"If you don't know where it is, then it is..." *drumroll*

3) There has been no evidence of the data being used

"Not that you know of...or yet."

MOD PARENT UP!

[Spy der Mann]

+5, Funny. (I mean, come on, you guys mod a guy insightful for sayng "good point"? What's going on with you people?)

Re:MOD PARENT UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone needs to get metamoderated to oblivion for that Insightful...

Re:MOD PARENT UP!

[Rollie Hawk]

Sheesh, guys. I didn't mean to get modded up. I won't let it happen again.

Re:MOD PARENT UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point. ;)

Re:MOD PARENT UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

hahahaha

Re:MOD PARENT UP!

[Rollie Hawk]

Well it's redundant now. I hope you are satisfied. You'll never get my insightful "good point" comments again if this keeps up.

Tape? They're not allowed to use tape.

[Animats]

Brokers aren't allowed to use magnetic tape. SEC Rule 17a-4, "Records to be preserved by certain exchange members, brokers and dealers", requires write-once media.

• (2) If electronic storage media is used by a member, broker, or dealer, it shall comply with the following requirements:

  (i) The member, broker, or dealer must notify its examining authority designated pursuant to section 17(d) of the Act (15 U.S.C. 78q(d)) prior to employing electronic storage media. If employing any electronic storage media other than optical disk technology (including CD-ROM), the member, broker, or dealer must notify its designated examining authority at least 90 days prior to employing such storage media. In either case, the member, broker, or dealer must provide its own representation or one from the storage medium vendor or other third party with appropriate expertise that the selected storage media meets the conditions set forth in this paragraph (f)(2).

  (ii) The electronic storage media must:

  (A) Preserve the records exclusively in a non-rewriteable, non-erasable format;

  (B) Verify automatically the quality and accuracy of the storage media recording process;

  (C) Serialize the original and, if applicable, duplicate units of storage media, and time-date for the required period of retention the information placed on such electronic storage media; and

  (D) Have the capacity to readily download indexes and records preserved on the electronic storage media to any medium acceptable under this paragraph (f) as required by the Commission or the self-regulatory organizations of which the member, broker, or dealer is a member.

Brokers are required to use a storage medium where tampering is evident. Once that was bound ledger books written in ink. Later, it was bound books of computer printouts. Then it was microfiche. Today, it's CD-ROM or DVD-ROM. But not magnetic tape. Not even for backup.

And if a securities firm outsources some of its back office operations, the outsourcing firm has to make certain filings with the SEC:

• (i) If the records required to be maintained and preserved pursuant to the provisions of Sec.Sec. 240.17a-3 and 240.17a-4 are prepared or maintained by an outside service bureau, depository, bank which does not operate pursuant to Sec. 240.17a-3(b)(2), or other recordkeeping service on behalf of the member, broker or dealer required to maintain and preserve such records, such outside entity shall file with the Commission a written undertaking in form acceptable to the Commission, signed by a duly authorized person, to the effect that such records are the property of the member, broker or dealer required to maintain and preserve such records and will be surrendered promptly on request of the member, broker or dealer and including the following provision ...

Ameritrade needs to address these issues. As a broker, they are not allowed to be casual about record-keeping.

Re:Tape? They're not allowed to use tape.

[Anonymous Coward]

You've obviously never heard of WORM tapes made by guys like StorageTek or even the new DLT worm tapes that are coming out (or already out by now).

http://www.dlt.com/aboutdlt/101104.asp

http://sony.storagesupport.com/cgi-bin/sonysuppo rt .cgi/fYj-tC=UL8Ev=QHf=DPZXE=HZha-UeQ7/faq/list/61

Exactly ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's my fault the courier truck was in a highway accident and his load was spilled over the highway, and they could not find the package containing our Backup tapes.

Clearly, that is my fault, and I need to be shot.

Lost tapes

[Viceman001]

I lost our backup tapes once. I left them on top of my car when carrying them to the off site storage. Fortunately, or mabye unfortunately, when I went looking for them, I found that I had ran over them. User data safe, 6 dds4 tapes destroyed, huge ulcer from worrying about server crash on the day of incident.

deliberate reckless? bs

[wsanders]

Do you personally escort you backup tapes to wherever you store them offsite? Have you ever lost or misplaced, even temporarily, a backup tape? (Actually, I have not myself.) Are you willing to go to jail for misplacing a backup tape or having your laptop stolen when you when to freshen your latte and not reporting it to the entire world? That is the provision of the california law.

This is just another attempt at collective punishment of corporations for the deliberate misdeeds of a few idiots. (ooh how we all hate corporations. How many of us /. readers are incorporated corps? Probably a few)

Re:deliberate reckless? bs

[jd]

Some companies I've worked with did actually have a rule that backup tapes had to be personally escorted to their storage facility. Others have used courier services. Very few have had single points of failure and none that I know of have ever relied on an overloaded, understaffed mailing company as that single point of failure.

Re:deliberate reckless? bs

[monkeydo]

Are you willing to go to jail for misplacing a backup tape or having your laptop stolen when you when to freshen your latte and not reporting it to the entire world? That is the provision of the california law.

Actually, the California law only requires notification, and there are only penalties if you fail to notify. In fact, there are ways around notification. If you seperate the data, or you encrypt it, you aren't required to notify anyone when it is compromised.

It isn't usually neccessary to escort your backup tapes everywhere they go (otherwise, you could just store them yourself), but you better make sure that as your agent, the company you use complies with the same laws you are responsible for, and that they indemnify you against any liability resulting from their conduct.

Re:deliberate reckless? bs

[cprincipe]

I would rather think it is another example of corporations failing to effectively police themselves and the government having to step in. Free Enterprise would work like a dream if companies took responsibility for their actions - then governments wouldn't have any place to step in.

Re:deliberate reckless? bs

[innocent_white_lamb]

Do you personally escort you backup tapes to wherever you store them offsite?

If it is a business requirement, it WILL be done.

Have you ever lost or misplaced, even temporarily, a backup tape?

Does WalMart lose or misplace bags of cash on the way to the bank? I believe that large retailers use armoured car services and armed guards to accompany their deposits. Why is it such a leap to look at a business's confidential data in the same way as the cash in the till?

Are you willing to go to jail for misplacing a backup tape or having your laptop stolen when you when to freshen your latte and not reporting it to the entire world?

If you go to "freshen your latte" and the bundle of the company's cash on your desk is stolen while you're not looking, then whose fault is that? Do you expect everyone to say, "Oh well, it was only a half-million dollars anyway", shrug, and carry on with business as usual without reporting the loss?

Start Packing...

[cowgoesmoo2004]

You're fired!

Believe

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

"Every reason to believe" == "No evidence to the contrary"

;-P

Re:How much longer until personal data gets protec

[tompaulco]

Dear Black Pot,
HIPAA doesn't have Special Agents. However, if you bring a complaint to the Department of Health and Human Services, I'm sure you will see some action. Nice strawman, though.
Paul

Damn you, Stuart!

[macmastery]

I guess Stuart, the orange-haired slacker punk has changed departments?

Re:Tape? For backups yes

[ihaddsl]

What you are quoting are the rules for archival storage of information (that is the rule that requires orginasations to store for 6 years data relating to their transactions for compliance purposes.) This does not apply to all information retained by brokers (but to specific transactional related data), and it most certainly does not apply to regular backup procedures

Move from Ameritrade to ????

[olddotter]

I have been an Ameritrade customer since they ought Datek. I'd like to move somewhere where they will help a little more with Tax preperation. Are there on-line brokerages services that keep track of cost basis and report it to you? To me that would be the single biggest thing to bring me away from Ameritrade. So give me a place to go to, and I'll start closing the 4 accounts we have with them.

Re:Move from Ameritrade to ????

[kylector]

Please post if you get any email replies or find somewhere else. I'd love to switch as well. I've been thinking about it ever since I did my taxes and had to calculate cost basis. Now this.

Thank you.

Re:Move from Ameritrade to ????

[kid_wonder]

I too got shoved to Ameritrade from Datek. Here are some alternatives:

E-Trade: In their FAQ they say that they support both FIFO and specific shares cost basis accounting. I do not have an investment account with them, so I'm not sure how this gets reported-to or modified-by you. Something to look into. They are more expensive than Ameritrade, but they pretty much offer every financial service around.

Fidilty: I don't particularly care for them, but looks like the provide cost basis info downloading.

Schwab probably offers this service as well, but couldn't find anything on their site

Most discount online brokerages will not offer this service, so you'll end up paying higher commissions or fees.

Re:Move from Ameritrade to ????

[Anonymous Coward]

Me too, me too...I want my datek back!
I tried Harris Direct and didn't like it. Schwab is expensive if you trade more than a couple of times a month. Move from Ameritrade to ????

Re:This story is Boring and Offtopic

[geekoid]

never underestimate the amount of data that can be lost in the back of a truck.

Hey

[geekoid]

there is a difference between backing up you data, and creating a permenant record.

two obvious things...

[Anonymous Coward]

one: the data on the tape should be encrypted, and the key should be shipped seperately, of course. There's no reason at all to send personal data unencoded like that. It's irresponsible for a financial company to do that.

two: there should be more than one copy of the data -- especially if it's being shipped somewhere! This is very valuable information to the company. They should have multiple copies in case someone can't find a tape, or the tape simply can't be read.

Ameritrade? What about the IRS?

[Panaphonix]

Auditors find IRS employees vulnerable to hackers (3/17/05)

More than one-third of Internal Revenue Service employees and managers who were contacted by Treasury Department inspectors posing as computer technicians provided their computer login and changed their password, a government report said Wednesday... That was a 50% improvement when compared with a similar test in 2001, when 71 [of 100] employees cooperated and changed their passwords.

IRS Flaws Expose Taxpayers to Snooping, Study Finds (4/18/05)

In all, 7,500 IRS employees, law enforcers and outside contractors can access and modify tax returns and financial-crime reports, the GAO found. A master list of passwords and user names is also widely available, the report said. "Increased risk exists that unauthorized users could ... claim a user identity and then use that identity to gain access to sensitive taxpayer or Bank Secrecy Act data," the report said.

--
My Aunt sells identity theft insurance. Email me and I can put you in touch with her.

Re:Tape? For backups yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh... strike 5e2000 for slashdot moderators huh...
Slashdot...helping to 'uninform' the public.

Re:This story is Boring and Offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

For Slashdot topics, see the Slashdot FAQ.

Faggotry

When we find a cure for it through the means of science and technology, we'll let you know, faggot.

Shipper reliability

[Anonymous Coward]

While most of you probably think that FedEx or Ups and the like are reliable, you are wrong. My company ships over a thousand packages a month and there are regularly 1-2 packages lost. Just gone, no record, no trace, nothing. The shippers don't seem to think this is unusual, there are systems in place to deal with the unhappy customers. A cost of doing business.
I think it's interesting to say OK, so if FedEx is losing .1% of it's packages, multiply that by the number of packages they ship every day and that's a lot of shipments lost. What happens to them? Is there a lost package department? Do they just trash the leftover stuff?

In fact no shipper is reliable. Things can and will get lost. Just the way things are. Doesn't mean some one stole it, or if someone stole it that they would know what to do with a backup tape. It would certainly be better if the data was encrypted, but there's very little chance (impossibly small even) this fell into the wrong hands. It's probably sitting in a pile in a warehouse somewhere or crushed along side a road.

Re:Shipper reliability

[tweek]

The tapes probably should not have been shipped with UPS or FedEx.

Use Iron Mountain or one of the dozens of other data protection companies. Then you can go after them for a problem like this.

Iron Mountain allows us to have tapes delivered to alternate addresses with the proper authorization as part of a DR scenario.

Re:Shipper reliability

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked for FedEx and doubt they have 0.1% packages lost. They were shipping 2 million/day last I heard. That would be 2000 packages/day missing. I'm sure there were more than that late, but not missing.

I worked in one of their hubs and occcationally saw packages hidden in the corner of containers, but 2000/day would be excessive. I did once find an overnight letter that had fallen behind a cabinet that was 5 years old. We put it back in the package stream. I always wondered if they delivered it or went ahead and "disposed" of it.

There was occational internal theft but nothing big that I knew of. The worst I saw was when someone would destroy a package by running over it with some equiptment. I wouldn't be surprised if someone drive over this backup tape with a forklift, saw it was busted, and then disposed of it in the trash so they wouldn't get in trouble.

lost data

[Anonymous Coward]

You would think that a large brokerage house would just make a copy ... or make several copies...For all we know it got shipped to some red necks house in spokane...

USPS

[Anonymous Coward]

You know they shipped it USPS.

Re:Why do so many sites collect personal informati

[Zed2K]

Even HIPPA has serious flaws. As soon as you restrict access to only doctors who need it there will be a life threatening situation where a doctor needs access but can't because of HIPPA rules.

Security like this has NO easy and NO perfect solution.

Easy to restore

[Dun Malg]

Even if they don't have backups it should be easy to get most of the info. Just send an email to their customers:

Dear valued Ameritrade customer:
Due to computers errors, we may have lost some of your informations. Please go to the following web site and verify your informations. Please do so as soon as possible or your account may be suspended. Thank you.

http:/256.123.321.201/Ameritrade.html

Data collection is NOT likely, Sloppy security...

[crovira]

The so called problems of collecting the data aren't problems at all.

While we were napping while watching the Gummint for Big Brother tendencies, private companies (ChoicePoint, the 3 credit reporting bureaus et alia,) have taken over the duties of collecting the data.

The thousands of databases are for sale in an amalgamation of unregulated, internet-enabled market place. At an unprecedented pace and in unexpected ways every little detail of your lives is open to scruteny. (For more details read "No Place To Hide", by Robert O'Harrow, Jr., Publisher: Free Press, (2005), ISBN: 0-7432-5480-5 )

And what's more, these companies KNOW that their data is unreliable and has errors but they sell it anyway under the principle of "its close enough for Gummint work".

And its all legal because the private sector is NOT subject to the constraints that we put Gummint through.

It also frees the Gummint from Freedom of Information rules since they are merely 'using and then tossing away the files'. The Gumming is NOT keeping tabs on you, the database aggregators are.

This means that you can get caught up in a cascade of errors which start of with some fool dumpster diving behind a store and end up with you facing prison for something that was done without your knowledge. Along the way, your credit history has been wrecked, your security clearances may have been revoked, you may have been fired and people may have been hurt of killed by somebody using your name.

Because they aren't liable and because our criminal agencies are still tied up into jurisdictions, unlike the data aggregators, identity thieves are taking full advantage of the wealth of the gullible.

To be fair, you are only gullible if you thing that it can't happen to you. Otherwise, you are playing roulete like the rest of us. Or you may have discovered that a generalized and unfocused paranioa is the one of the legacies of the Internet.

It CAN happen to anyone. The mechanism is an untargeted attack on information, yours and everyone elses' out there.

It may have already happened to you and, because of the legal to aggregator jurisdictional assymetries, you may well be and truly screwed.

The details are leaking because the aggregators aren't water tight about data coming out (identity theft en masse) any more that they are about data coming in (identity theft being committed one datum at a time by one thief.)

Repeat the second scenario X million times and you begin to see the scale of the data aggregator's problems. They suffer one theft of thousands of records. And a million people suffer the loss of one record, their own.

The assymetry means that potentially, you're getting screwed over by someone you're unlikely to ever meet but you'll be paying for the fine vacation he had, the new stereo he bought, all the things you would have wished that you could have afforded but now never will because of some psychopath with your ID and an easy scam to pull.

These people are probably great targets

[nasor]

This data would be especially great for identity thieves because since they're all Ameritade customers, they're all guaranteed to be reasonably wealthy. In most of the other high-profile data loss stories that we've seen recently, the data was presumably from a relatively wide cross-section of the population. In this case, however, a potential thief is guaranteed that most everyone he has data on will have a good credit rating and significant financial assets. The last time I looked into Ameritrade, you needed at least $5000 to open a basic account. People who can afford to blow that sort of money playing around with day-trading are probably the sorts of people whose identity you would want to steal.

Re:These people are probably great targets

[GeneralCern]

I have an ameritrade account and I am neither reasonably wealthy nor do I have over $5000 in my "basic account".

Re:These people are probably great targets

[Anonymous Coward]

The OP probably regards people with $5000 all at one time to be "wealthy".

I'm one of the lucky ones...

[greylingrover]

...that just got a little love letter from Ameritrade.

"Dear Valued Client..."

They don't mention anything about the data on the missing tape, 1 of 4 that hasn't been recovered, being encrypted OR compressed.

They advised that I put a security alert on my credit agency accounts - what fun!

Outsourcing

[Anonymous Coward]

It is things like these that indicate the problems with outsourcing..

Oh wait..

Simple

[JFMulder]

There's no word yet on how they arrived at this conclusion
It's simple, two words : Wishful thinking.

Special hardware != encrypted

[Daedala]

"Special hardware" does not mean "encrypted." Kryptonite locks require special hardware to open, too (a ballpoint pen). My floppy disk requires special hardware to read (a floppy drive). Compression algorithms are not encryption algorithms; they are meant to allow you to read the data, not prevent it.

Proper disaster recovery means keeping offsite backups. Stuff happens with physical transit. You know that, I know that, everyone knows that. It's precisely because it is a known risk that it needs to be mitigated. The mitigation is, in this case, encryption: so that the data cannot be read by anyone, even if lost. "Every reasonable precaution" must include encryption. Of course, changing your whole backup system is a pain when you're backing up that much every day.

You're probably right that it was just lost in transit. You're definitely right that it's not a big risk to you, because to be perfectly blunt your information was probably long gone anyway. That doesn't mean that Ameritrade didn't screw up badly. "It's the shipping company's fault" is not an acceptable excuse in this case.

Re:Why do so many sites collect personal informati

[SunFan]

as if I am trying to hide something.

They are covering up the fact they were never trained (or forgot) how to not put SSNs into the system. I've come out of stores with famous names and random phone numbers on my receipts, because the clerk didn't know how to bypass their telemarketing system.

That's because of the way credit cards are handled

[Solandri]

work with eCommerce for a living. Credit card processing requires the CC#, Exp date, CVV2 code (the digits on the back of the card) and the billing Zipcode.

Why then must we supply name, address, phone number, email, and other personal information just to make a purchase? (obvious answer is for customer profiling and contacting post-sale.)

No, it's because the credit card companies set things up to absolve themselves of all liability if a credit card is used fraudulently. Say your credit card gets stolen and the thief buys stuff. You call the credit card company, they cancel the card and reimburse your account. Problem solved, right?

Nope. The credit card company then refuses to pay the merchant for the fraudulent purchase. The merchant loses the item and he loses the money. (Meanwhile the credit card companies charge exorbitant interest rates to supposedly "offset the cost of fraud." In reality they're laughing all the way to the bank.)

So to cover their ass, most merchants also run the optional security checks the credit card companies offer to prevent fraud: verifying your name, address, and phone number with the billing information on file with the credit card company.

Mom was right

[chud67]

Well this is just great. I just had a conversation with my mother, who is leary of online trading companies to begin with (and a technophobe to boot), and spent an hour trying to convince her that Ameritrade was a perfectly safe and reputable broker to use; and now this happens.
Thanks for proving me wrong Ameritrade.

Backup Procedure -- What about the Master Records?

[tonsofpcs]

If you are shipping a backup tape, you should still have a Master record set, if you need to remove the masters from the live machine, you make a Master tape as well. The idea of backup is so that if anything happens to the Master, you have a second place to look. Since this is obviously the only copy, it is the MASTER and no longer a backup, and should have been copied immediately for a backup. -- My 2 shillings.

As a californian

[Anonymous Coward]

I can tell ya that their aren't many issues that will get the collective hippy minds a buz and focused but security and data loss will. We started few stoned hippies and a small operating system and that lead to security to the and a realy parandoid one and aparently even have a www.420.org and what we do alot>

Shipper?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the fault was mainly of the shipper, as Ameritrade's story goes, they sure are being nice by not mentioning the name of the shipper. If I wanted to deflect blame away from myself, I'd probably be more likely to point to the specific responsible party ("It was our shipper, ___"), instead of saying, "It was our shipper."

DHL, UPS, FedEx must have some really good relations with Ameritrade ...

Re:Shipper?

[Reignking]

Maybe. OTOH, I doubt that Ameritrade wants to tell everyone where they store their data offsite...

There is nothing to worry about.

[Hohlraum]

A financial company would never ship a backup of customers financial data without encrypting it .................. right? :\

Safely Destroyed

[stinkydog]

Ameritrade "has every reason to believe" that the tape has either been destroyed or is being held by the shipper.

The have surely been destroyed by UPS.

SD

Good News

[giminy]

The up side of this is that at this rate, everyone in the US will have all their personal data made private. Maybe we'll switch to biometrics for verification of credit cards or something that can't be stolen.

This reeks of Microsoft Tactics...

[Tavor]

Always blaming it on "Third Party Vendors." Really, does Ameritrade expect anyone to *really* believe that?

Re:Backup Procedure -- What about the Master Recor

[wk633]

What makes you think this was the only copy?

Re:Backup Procedure -- What about the Master Recor

[tonsofpcs]

Title: "Customer Data Lost" -- not "backup of data lost", but "data lost"

Re:How much longer until personal data gets protec

[AK Marc]

However, if you bring a complaint to the Department of Health and Human Services, I'm sure you will see some action.

So, HIPAA is enforced only by the consumers, and only then after a violation. As was stated before, it is unenforced. There is no oversight. There is no monitoring. There are no proactive reviews. Considering most of HIPAA is behind the scenes work, how do you expect someone to lodge a complaint because the server is not secured to HIPAA standards? Aside from a disgruntaled employee, most of HIPAA is unenforceable.

I'll say it again, in case you missed it. HIPAA is effectively unenforced. I've secured systems according to HIPAA. I've secured networks according to HIPAA. HIPAA is a joke. Most of the people working on it don't even know what it requires, including the DHHS and such "enforcing" it. I can't count the number of times that someone has told me that HIPAA requires encryption (when it specifically states that it does not require encryption).

No, it is not well followed, and it is unenforced. It was another good idea that was screwed up by the legislators and others in the implimentation.

Re:Backup Procedure -- What about the Master Recor

[wk633]

It also says: "The online discount broker admitted that a backup tape of customer account data from 2000 to 2003 has been misplaced."

The focus of the article is really that customer data was 'leaked'. Probably a better verb. I highly doubt if the only copy is 'gone'.

What happens now?

[houghi]

Ok. Calefornia has this nice law where companies have to report dataloss. What happens after that? Do they get a fine per adress lost? A slap on the wrist not to let it happen again?

Are they forced to inform their customers, because that would at least be a nice incentive not to let it happen again.

I also think most people think nothing of it, because they do not understand what crosslinking of databases is capable of. They think. So what if they send me advertisement in the snailmail? I just trow it out.

this can be traced

[Anonymous Coward]

something tells me this can be traced backed to India somehow..

Re:How much longer until personal data gets protec

[tompaulco]

I can't count the number of times that someone has told me that HIPAA requires encryption (when it specifically states that it does not require encryption).
Well, I can show you 164.312 Technical safeguards. A covered entity must, in accordance with 164.306: ... (iv) Encryption and decryption (Addressable). Implement a mechanism to encrypt and decrypt electronic protected health information. in the OCR/HIPAA Privacy/Security/Enforcement Regulation Text. That's the unofficial version. Maybe the official version retracts that. I don't have a copy of the official version.

More details: tape NOT encrypted, package NOT lost

[menscher]

No, the tape was NOT encrypted. From another news story:

"Information on the tapes was compressed, so viewing it would require special equipment, Kush said. It was not encrypted, she added."

It's worth noting that all tape drives are considered "special equipment", and compression isn't anything unusual. About the best thing they have going for them is that there's no label on the tape, so it's not obvious what goodies are on it.

For those saying the package was "lost", they're only partly correct. Actually, there were several tapes in a shipping box, which was damaged and had tapes fall out. Three of the four tapes that had fallen out have been recovered. The last one tape was lost, and we can only hope it was lost in a way that ensured its destruction.

MOD PARENT DOWN

[Anonymous Coward]

Offtopic and redundant. Enough already!

As an Ameritrade customer...

[anthony_dipierro]

I can honestly say I don't give a shit.

Re:FrOsMt pist

[Anonymous Coward]

You could actually pronounce "first post" if you took your head out of his ass!

CYA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Iron Mountain was also very quick to recommend data excryption...this press release from the same day as the Ameritrade release...

Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE:IRM) is advising its customers that current, commonly used disaster recovery processes do not address increased requirements for protecting personal information from inadvertent disclosure. In recent months, several companies have disclosed incidents that may have compromised personal information. While most of these cases involved malicious, online identity theft, some of the events were due to the accidental loss of computer backup tapes.