Jewels that Blip
The words have a nasty metallic ring, as if to suggest helmeted policemen with black jackets and billy clubs. Watch out: the “data security” troopers are at the front door.
But a small business on the East Coast nowadays wishes it had enjoyed more “data security.”
A fire melted its computer disks into plastic globs. The firm just missed bankruptcy after losing several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of information—everything from accounts receivable to tax records. Scrambling to recover, salesmen leaned on customers for copies of old bills.
Arson? Maybe. A disgruntled worker may have short-circuited some tangled wiring. Proof never came.
Either way, however, the incident was a powerful argument for “data security”—the right kind.
It’s nothing more than trying to make sure that your computer and its information are safe. This isn’t to advocate overkill. Don’t overprotect nonsecrets or facts that you can easily duplicate; for instance, instead of buying costly fireproof cabinets, you might simply keep backup disks at another location—perhaps a more secure approach, anyway.
Why, however, do I say “trying” to make your computer and its information “safe”? An ex-hacker, Ian (“Captain Zap”) Murphy, now a computer security consultant, wisely observes: “You’re safe from average crooks—they don’t envision a nice, mild-mannered human being working at anything more than a souped-up typewriter. But you can never, never be able to 100 percent secure a computer system. Even the most trusted user could say, ‘F— the damn payroll,’ and destroy your records.”
But in the best of all worlds, your electronic files are safe, accurate, and if need be, tamperproof and confidential. The equipment is sound. And so are you and others working with it. You’ve shown good judgment. You’re ideally safe not only from crooks but also your own blunders. You know you often can’t keep paper copies of all your electronic jewels, your treasured business files, at least not without giving up the conveniences of computerization. You have faith, then, that your green screen, at your command, will display the right blips. I’m stretching the meaning of the word “blips” to emphasize the transitory nature of what you see on the screen. Without your stashing it away on a disk or otherwise—and without your making an electronic backup—it may be lost forever.
The unlucky owner of the East Coast company will never see his blips again because he violated a major precept of data security. He stored his original disks and his copies in the same room—the one with the fire.