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Intern says he's scapegoat in data-tape theft


v6grandprixgt98

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"Intern involved in the State of Ohio data breach. The state intern who was fired after a computer backup tape was stolen from his car says he is being made a scapegoat for simply doing what he was told."

 

Digg nerds please digg this article for us.

http://digg.com/security/Intern_says_he_s_scapegoat_in_data_tape_theft

 

Story from dispatch.com

 

http://www.dispatch.com/dispatch/content/local_news/stories/2007/07/25/ilovar.html

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Jared was in my last semester class at Devry, and has been in multiple classes with me in the past two years. I don't see why he's being pushed to resign, the policy of having one person take home back up tapes is FUCKING STUPID. It was the states policy, not the policy of the contractor handling the action. It doesn't matter if it was an intern or the director of his department, that's one dumb ass policy. When your dealing with sensitive data like that who's to say that data wont be destroyed, corrupted, etc. when it goes off site in the hands of someone. The individuals who designed that policy need to resign, the director who handed that responsibility to a freakin intern needs to resign (if they haven't already been axed).

 

He is an idiot for leaving a company laptop in his car though. I learned the hard way a long time ago and you better believe that if I have my laptop with me and stop somewhere on the way home it goes in with me.

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Jared was in my last semester class at Devry, and has been in multiple classes with me in the past two years. I don't see why he's being pushed to resign, the policy of having one person take home back up tapes is FUCKING STUPID. It was the states policy, not the policy of the contractor handling the action. It doesn't matter if it was an intern or the director of his department, that's one dumb ass policy. When your dealing with sensitive data like that who's to say that data wont be destroyed, corrupted, etc. when it goes off site in the hands of someone. The individuals who designed that policy need to resign, the director who handed that responsibility to a freakin intern needs to resign (if they haven't already been axed).

 

He is an idiot for leaving a company laptop in his car though. I learned the hard way a long time ago and you better believe that if I have my laptop with me and stop somewhere on the way home it goes in with me.

it wasn't a laptop, it was a tape disk not something that looks so desirable to steal.

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thats pretty fucked up he has to resign.... the head of IT shouldve had policy down... not the damn intern.. i am an intern right now(same job... oh snap) and if i had this happen to me id be pretty salty about it...

 

but i wouldnt leave a damn tape(pretty sad there still using tape n e ways.. and having employees take them home is a NO NO n e ways.. fireproof safe? anybody? 129.99 at wall mart?...) or laptop in the car....especially if its company property.

 

 

this is why the people in the field of IT who are knowledgeable are hard to come by. that intern didnt have his shit togther if he never questioned the "take the tape home with thousands of people SSN number on it.. and bring it back in the morning" sorry. that was his fuck up. .... and he should have read policy before he did it.

 

its IT .... company policy runs rules and over rides anything anybody says... if it has to happen... and its against policy.. then change the damn policy.

 

or you end up like this kid and loose your job.

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Umm, the point of taking the backup tape home is to keep it off site. It is part of a contingency plan that all government agencies use. If the building is destroyed, a fireproof safe isn't going to help them keep running the very next day. It isn't the intern's fault for what happened beyond leaving it in his car, but at the same time, it is a shit job for someone to do, and it is always low man on the totem pole that takes the tapes home at night because they are forced to be first there and last to leave.

 

Although, I will say that whenever I bring my laptop home, it goes in my safe when I am not using it. SSN are nothing more than covered by the privacy act. The stuff I have is U.S. Gov't Secret.

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orginally he wasn't going to be let go since it was assumed it was a one time mistake. But after telling the police the he took the take in with him about 80% of the time is when strickland changed his mind and asked for his res. As for the scapegoat I don't by it he was told to take it home with him and he for got it in his car the tape was his responsablity to take care of and he didn't.
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I believe the scapegoat story. Its not our job to question company policy. Its simply our job to shut up and do it. You can always have suggestions assuming your company has an open door policy for things like suggestions/comments. I also agree that this is very normal to take backup tapes home. Sure the kid could have done something different, but in reality if the data was that critical they should have had a brink truck or some other off site data security company handle it like other companies do.

 

Also didn't anyone else hear that the interns supervisor or what ever position the guy had was also forced to resign? It was on WOSU 820 all day the other day. Also notice how at first is was only 25,000 ohioans then it was a few hundred thousand and now its a freaking huge number. Kinda cool ain't it now that memory is starting to fade from the original story. Oh well guess this is something for us guys in the IT fields to learn from.

 

Evan

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That sounds like an OSU type of policy. The guy made a pretty big mistake, but the stupid policy heavily contributed to that, this is the type of bullshit that goes on everyday at OSU and my dad was a victim of this theft as well as his info was stolen.
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You can always have suggestions assuming your company has an open door policy for things like suggestions/comments.

Evan

 

 

you find a company with this attitude... and either ill see that your full of shit... or ill kill people for that job..

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you find a company with this attitude... and either ill see that your full of shit... or ill kill people for that job..

 

 

Come work where I work then.

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you find a company with this attitude... and either ill see that your full of shit... or ill kill people for that job..

 

Well normally I'd agree with you, but I got one of those jobs now and love it. Best company I've ever worked for. The 2nd best I've worked for also had a very workable policy like that. Both family owned/operated and both at the top of there respective industries.

 

Evan

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I totally agree on the student being a scape goat

 

* The backup policy was incomplete and not fully implemented nor proper

* Business Intelligence/functions relied on a 20(ish) year old intern

* They asked him to resign rather than a director or staff member; so someone can say "the problem is gone"

* Data is now being backed up off site using an encrypted transport; so someone can say "the problem is solved"

 

Yeah, the kid made his first adult career mistake; but the problem is not rooted in this single person.

 

@MyAutoX ... agree 100%

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