Loose Laptops Cause Flops

Perhaps encryption isn’t so easy after all, and some people could use a little primer. This is how I protect my laptop….

Wired – “How Does Bruce Schneier Protect His Laptop Data? With His Fists — and PGP“

After a discussion among academics about the perils of crossing the U.S. border with your laptop full of research data, I began to wonder how diligent law firms are in ensuring that nothing leaves the office on a laptop that is unsecured. The shocking incident in which Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs lost a couple of disks containing private data on nearly half the population of the U.K. has only served to sharpen my curiosity.

It’s unlikely (I hope) that Schnier’s article will contain information that’s new to the IT people in larger firms, but it may help non-techies understand the right questions to ask; and it may give some guidance to firms too small to have permanent IT staff.