I just read about the theft in Mexico of a laptop computer that contained the psychological screenings of 441 applicants for law enforcement jobs in California. The computer was owned by a psychologist doing contract work for the state. The notebook was stashed in knapsack stored in the trunk of a car.

And that incident has inspired me to make a confession — right here on blogBytes within earshot of everybody in those other cubicles around me.

It wasn’t so long ago that I maintained data of a private nature on my own working laptop that could easily have been ripped off in a similar fashion. No, I’m not talking about some salacious collection of Tony Bennett photos or my one-of-a-kind compilation of Alberta Hunter tracks.

I’m talking unencrypted social security numbers, banking data for accounts that weren’t mine, kids’ names and birthdays – the kind of stuff that the wrong kind of thief could cause a great deal of grief with.

This in spite of the fact that I’ve often reported on the loss of private data that happened because of the general idiocy of the user.

Sure, I thought I had good reason to keep this data. Mostly it belonged to people I have worked with through the years, where I’ve needed to access their SSN information or bank account data to make payment or put invoices into accounting, or family details for idle conversations.

But I finally discovered the errors of my ways. It wasn’t that long ago that I went through the contents of my hard drive — a time-consuming process — and removed anything that could be misused by another. I’m still not encrypting everything; but progress comes slowly in these quarters.

So here’s my brilliant idea: I think it’s time for some creative and totally honest programmer to come up with a simple application that will run through the contents of a hard drive and generate a report detailing the confidential information it contains — so that the user knows what needs to be wiped away or encrypted.

There you have it. The idea belongs to the world. When you have what I need, let me know and I’ll report on it.

In the meantime, I gotta go wrack my brain to remember what the name of my editor’s oldest kid is, so I can ask how high school is working out for her…

Posted on January 31st, 2008 by dian