Data theft victim court-marshalled
A JUNIOR Royal Navy officer will face a court martial after a laptop containing the personal details of 600,000 people connected with, or interested in, the military was nicked from his car.
In another embarrassing government data leak, the thieves made off with bank account and passport details, national insurance and NHS numbers, and home addresses.
According to the Times the laptop was stolen from the car parked in Birmingham overnight on January 9. Under military law a laptop is only allowed to venture out of an office or base if it has been signed out. Since laptops lack opposable thumbs there is some question as to how the laptop could sign itself out so that it could park up over night in Birmingham.
In the modern navy, leaving a laptop containing such sensitive material inside a car is a serious offence. In the good old days you could be given a taste of the cat, but now it is illegal and almost certainly immoral.
It is not clear if the laptop was password protected either, or whether or not the laptop that is the problem, but a CD-ROM packed with interesting data which might have been left inside.
Meanwhile, security experts have rushed to point at the government and go 'ner'.
Tom de Jongh of Safeboot, a data encryption and mobile security specialist, said that it is a another embarrassment for the Government, which faced enormous data security scrutiny over the past months and now can't walk for the scrutes.
He said it looks like winning back public trust seems somewhat of 'a pipe dream'. Still anything is possible with some pipes.
Jongh is fairly certain that what the government needs is a straight-forward security policy including mandatory data encryption. ยต
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Apparently, I feel that nothing short of a few public hangings (not an allegory here) will ever do anything meaningful.
There have been way too many people put at risk to accept anything more from the government at face value. They should be made to crawl over hot coals before any declaration. If they are willing to take the pain, then maybe it's worth listening to.
A government's main job is to PROTECT its citizens, NOT put them at risk. If it takes a few shootings to re-establish that fact, so be it.
@Pascal Monett,
I have seen several of you postings here on the Inq, and of them all this is the 1st comment that you have actually said that is getting to the point without de-facing my beloved nation.

And thanks for that.

Also to impress upon what Pascal Monett stated above, those responsible for such sensitive data are/should be responsible for 100% reparation to all victims affected by that data theft.

Lets look at a wonderful thing called "Security Taxonomy".

8. Mobile Device Security 
(Don't have them)
7. Encryption
(On everything even non-mobile devices)
6. Security Mgt.
(Someone that can actually thump their noggins and figure something out)
5. Internal Security
(Should be a role model for #6)
4. ID & Access Mgt.
(Make things harder yet manageable by the user to access)
3. Perimeter Security
(Its a military base, enough said?)
2. Storage Security
(#7 again, and no hidden shares etc.)
1. Physical Security
(Don't let the stuff leave the base...)

Cheers!