Recession Pushes More Workers To Steal Data

An anonymous reader writes to share the findings of a recent transatlantic survey which suggests that the recession is pushing workers to be a little bit more accommodating when it comes to sharing, viewing, or stealing sensitive information from the company they work(ed) for. "Pilfering data has become endemic in our culture as 85% of people admit they know it's illegal to download corporate information from their employer but almost half couldn't stop themselves taking it with them with the majority admitting it could be useful in the future! [...] The survey entitled 'the global recession and its effect on work ethics,' carried out for a second year by Cyber-Ark – found that almost half of the respondents 48% admit that if they were fired tomorrow they would take company information with them and 39% of people would download company/competitive information if they got wind that their job was at risk. Additionally a quarter of workers said that the recession has meant that they feel less loyal towards their employer."

Comments

Information just wants to be free

[WillAffleckUW]

You can't steal what's free.

Open source ftw!

Re:You can't steal *published* data

[Kratisto]

Downloading music off the interwebs doesn't deprive someone the ability to sell something. If I steal a car, the person from whom I stole that car can no longer sell the car. He no longer has it, so selling it would be tricky. On the other hand, if I design a machine that makes instant copies of cars, then use it to copy a car from a dealership, the dealership can still sell the car I copied, because they still possess it. Now, you might say, "But they can't sell it to you! You already have that car!" Which is correct: copyright infringement theoretically lowers demand. But then, what if I wasn't going to buy that car anyway, and so my demand was already zero? In fact, maybe driving that car has made me desire a car from the same manufacturer! Maybe I like it so much, I'll pay for the next car I obtain from them. And perhaps if I designed this wondrous machine, it would not be so morally outrageous if I used it to copy cars that the dealership no longer had any prospect of selling in large numbers.

Of course, I'm not just speculating. Research shows that people who download music illegally also spend more on music purchases.