Re: [ISN] Security just got tighter

From: mea culpa (jerichoat_private)
Date: Fri Feb 12 1999 - 16:11:29 PST

  • Next message: mea culpa: "[ISN] Information Warfare and Security by: Dorothy Denning"

    Reply From: "Jay D. Dyson" <jdysonat_private>
    
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    > While in a waiting area in the Los Angeles airport, a local executive
    > felt the need to powder his nose. So he got up and headed off for the
    > restroom -- leaving his laptop computer open and running on the
    > waiting-area seat.  When he returned, the laptop -- and all of its
    > confidential, unprotected files -- were gone. 
    
    	A few things need to be said about such an incident:
    
    	1.	I believe this "incident" is fiction.  Leaving a
    		several-thousand-dollar piece of equipment unattended
    		requires a caliber of stupidity that even the most 
    		Dilbertesque executives are incapable of possessing.
    		Would anyone leave a wallet containing $3000 lying on an
    		airport waiting-area seat?  No?  Then what makes this
    		alleged "incident" so credible?
    
    	2.	Unattended items are *routinely* confiscated by law
    		enforcement officials in airports.  As I do a fair amount 
    		of air travel, I know for a fact that unattended luggage
    		is considered suspect and subject to immediate impound.
    		No ifs, ands or buts.  Ask any law officer at any given
    		airline terminal.  And hey, I'm just a worker-bee who
    		travels on a fairly regular basis.  Surely an "executive"
    		who travels far more frequently knows this simple truth.
    
    	3.	Speaking from experience, one's laptop is MUCH more likely
    		to be stolen not while one is "powdering one's nose" and
    		stupidly leaving a laptop out on a chair.  Your laptop
    		runs the greatest risk of being stolen RIGHT AFTER IT IS
    		X-RAYED BY AIRPORT SECURITY.  Several advisories have
    		already been issued on the scam that has occurred across
    		countless international airports. 
    
    		In such a scam, the mark sets his laptop on the conveyor
    		belt and then the thief and his accomplice move in.  The
    		thief snags the laptop while the accomplice, who is in
    		line immediately ahead of the mark, slows the mark's
    		progress through the metal-detector gate by repeated
    		tripping the sensors.  Of course, the mark can't go
    		through until the person ahead of him passes the gate
    		test.  By that time, the mark's laptop and the thief are
    		long gone. 
    
    	So please, if we're going to cite risks, let's at least make them
    REAL risks.  The situation in my third point is far more likely than the
    unfathomably stupid actions as recounted in the opening paragraph of this
    article. 
    
    - -Jay
    
       (                                                             ______
       ))   .-- "There's always time for a good cup of coffee." --.   >===<--.
     C|~~| (>-- Jay D. Dyson -- jdysonat_private --<) |   = |-'
      `--'  `-- As a matter of fact, I *am* a rocket scientist. --'  `-----'
    
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    -o-
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