Before saddling yourself with fancy electronic precautions, do see if a security service, a good, heavy safe, a locked room, or a burglar alarm would work instead. And what about simply carrying home some duplicates of your most important floppies? That possibility will become increasingly attractive as the disks’ storage capacity increases. This isn’t to say, however, that you should store Exxon’s major corporate secrets in a dirty unlocked drawer next to old underwear. But a small businessman might consider taking his backup disks home.
If you buy a safe for your office’s disks or tapes, think about fire protection. Check with your fire department. What makes of safes could be in the middle of the flames without the disks suffering temperatures of more than 115 degrees Fahrenheit?
Investigating locks and burglar alarms, you’ll learn that your computer may be able to protect itself. How? Some gadgets can let only card-carrying employees—your people with magnetic cards—enter a room. And they can tie into the computer to save you money. The same applies to burglar alarms. Of course, you might want nothing fancier than a strong lock bolting your computer to a heavy table. Don’t spend more than the data are worth to replace.
You might also consider a guard service. The problem is that salaries add up even for quick nighttime checks.
After a few months or a year, you may be well on your way to having shelled out the cost of an elaborate electronic security system. Guards normally would be more appropriate for users of large minis and mainframes than for desktop types.
One advantage of physical security—most any kind—is that it can protect the computer equipment itself, not just your electronic files.
You’ve undoubtedly read of theft of computer chips from Silicon Valley firms. Now be prepared for reports of widespread computer theft, eventually, as the market grows for both legally bought and fenced merchandise. With computers shrinking in size, they may well be an even hotter item for fences than stolen Selectrics. Even Apples several years ago were too intimidating to a burglar, like the one who stole the silverware of an acquaintance of mine but passed over his computer. Be assured, though, that crooks are increasingly computer literate. There’s even talk of the mob moving into computer crime, raiding government files, and, presumably, engaging in less challenging illegalities, like setting up computer-fencing rings.
With computer crooks in the future being smarter and more organized, you should think hard before depending on simply passwords or codes to protect you.
First, assume that at least some people may try to unravel your puzzles. A whole generation of prodigies right now is practicing by copying the supposedly uncopyable computer games on disks. In effect, notes Churbuck, the New Hampshire lawyer, each disk provides two puzzles. One is the original game. The other is the puzzle of figuring out how to make illicit copies. And at the University of Western Ontario, Prof. John Carroll surveyed students in two advanced computer courses and found that one-third had sought free, illegal computer time. It’s been pointed out that the very best, the very brightest, students have too many legitimate opportunities—on large systems—to worry about pillaging small computers. And that may be true. But by the late 1980s or early 1990s, some journeyman criminals may develop among the second-raters.
Second, don’t shrug off a warning from R. E. (Bob) Kukrall, author of the handbook Computer Auditing, Security and Controls: “Cracking a computer system’s defenses may be about as difficult as doing a hard Sunday crossword puzzle.” He says that thieves managed in minutes to call up computer files that were protected by a five-digit code number. They just programmed the computer itself to try each of 100,000 combinations.