June 6, 2006
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Rare News Comments
I rarely comment about news on here. Just because I’ve always believed that blogs were a lousy source of getting your news. I’ll just comment on something recent real quick.
Around May 2nd, a laptop was swiped with about 26 million SSNs from folks in the US Department of Veterans Affairs systems (C|Net Link).
The news wasn’t announced until around May 22nd. Due to where and with
whom and what I work, this is something that I gotta be concerned with
as well (it could’ve been anyone in that situation, after all,
including myself). But it’s not the theft itself I’m concerned with.
But the fact that the FBI did something quite smart: they waited 2-3
weeks before notifying the public of the stolen computer.I know
the FBI bugs my calls, so they know how rarely I actually praise them
for stuff. But yeah, they made the right choice by not caving in to PR
concerns.Many of y’all know that my own laptop was stolen over a year ago. When that happened, I ended up finding a lot about what happens when a computer gets lifted…
Thieves
ain’t concerned with prying into your personal life. Identity theft is
a targeted thing, a thief won’t go after a computer to jack someone’s
identity because there’s such a lousy risk-to-reward ratio (which is
why they’ll go after credit card records instead). They go after a
computer for money. A thief’s main concern is wiping it clean,
scratching off the serial number, and re-selling it ASAP. (Don’t
believe me? Try searching for stolen merchandise at a seedy pawn shop,
that’ll prove my point.)Now, likely knowing this, the FBI kept the lid on this information until it was reasonable to assume that the thief of this
laptop did what any other thief would do: wipe it and liquidate the
computer. Coming out right after would’ve been extremely idiotic; every
thief who stole a laptop on May 2nd in Arlington (which can’t be many)
would then know they’re sitting on a gold mine.I’m sure whatever
poor guy they got monitoring me at the FBI now has a lot of footnotes
to add to my file. So I’ll leave this at that. KF
