IRS continues to lose machines - and they're not alone

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Assumptions, assupmptions: Your story assumes that the equipment the IRS lost is the same as stolen. Not necessarily true.

I work for a Federal Agency, and I've seen the same thing.

Usually, when an Agency "loses" a piece of equipment, it means one of three things:

1. It's been surplused, and somebody forgot to do, or lost, the paperwork.
2. It's been reassigned, and somebody forgot to do, or lost, the paperwork.
3. It's been mislaid in storage somewhere, and they really don't know where it is. (But it's probably still under lock & key - they just don't know where.

Face it, most Federal Agencies are pretty big places, with many different physical locations where things can get lost. That doesn't mean that they really ARE lost, as in stolen, it just means they can't find it when it's time to do the inventory.

That said, MY Agency has a policy that only the IT department can buy PCs or laptops. And when we do, ALL machines that are slated to leave the physical confines of an Agency location are encrypted. No exceptions, even the Commissioner has to have it done. Even desktops. And laptops ALWAYS get the encryption.

Also, there is no need for data to be stored on a physical drive on a laptop. We use a VPN solution that is about as secure as such things can get, especially so that our employees can easily get to their network resources. ALL data is encouraged to be stored online, so if someone loses a laptop, not only is the entire HD encrypted, but there shouldn't be any data there to lose anyway - we mostly encrypt the HDs to keep network information, such as server names, from getting distributed.

These reports are based upon inventory records gathered by the Agencies themselves, and is what gets reported to Congress. The news media gets a hold of this, and it becomes "DATA LOSS". But in reality, most of us in the know realize what it really means. (And that is that they get raked over the coals by Congress, but nothing was ever really actually released to the public.)

Granted, their procedures seem sloppy, and those CAN result in data loss (read that = released to the public) as happened to the VA. Such procedures are not defensible, as my Agency proves by easily doing it the right way.

I would note in ending, however, that in at least some defense of the IRS, they are a large Agency with a LOT of employees, and a LOT of equipment. Tracking that stuff isn't easy, nor is it the kind of job that gets you kudos in front of the bosses.

You never get the "ataboys" when you don't lose equipment, but let some get misplaced, and they lower the boom!; Posted by: rwahrens1952 Posted on: 04/06/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use