Colleges Wrestle With Thumb Drives

Lucas123 writes "IT managers at colleges and universities are grappling with the problem of finding ways to better secure removable storage media in an environment that encourages information sharing. Draconian security mandates 'may be common in the corporate world, but "we don't have the flexibility to simply say all inbound traffic is locked down," said Jason Pufahl, information security team lead for IT services at the University of Connecticut.'"

Comments

Loss of SSN should not be a serious issue.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Why losing a drive containing SSN of some 199 old students become a serious issue? In this day and age of information storage, it is high time we view SSN as public information. The number of strangers who have legal access to my name, address and social security number is staggering. Doctor's office staff, university offices, payroll department of employers ...

Why should I be held responsible if someone recites my name, rank and serial number correctly and obtains a loan based on that very simple trivial fact? The problem is in the credit industry that wants to lend money at a moments notice to people before their impulse to borrow fades away.

All we need is a very simple change of law about default reporting. Let the companies lend without checks if they want to, it is after all their money. But they should not be able to report a loan as overdue or unpaid or in default without going through due diligence to verify that the person they are accusing of being a deadbeat is really the correct person.

Let us change the burden of proof. Currently the victims of ID theft have to prove that ID theft occurred. Let us change it so that, it is the lender who should prove that ID theft did not take place.

Then it wont matter if some department loses a hard disk containing million SSNs. Will it?