[privacy] privacy Digest, Vol 10, Issue 22

[Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu]

On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 06:11:34 CST, Randall M said:
> Has this always gone on and we never heard of it? Or is it really becoming
> so prevalent now?

It's been going on for a while - corporations and government agencies have
*always* been losing laptops since laptops were invented.  The only thing
that has changed is that it gets admitted to more often now.  Before, if
a laptop with sensitive data got swiped by a crackhead who fenced it to
supply their drug habit, it was just ignored because the chances of the data
actually getting found/used was low.  Now that the fences are getting
smarter and potentially shopping any found data around, the threat model
is different....

(Of course, I'm handwaving - does anybody have hard data showing that the
fences *are* getting smarter, or that the crackheads are actually targeting
laptops with potentially interesting data (which requires identifying a
particular person with a laptop)?
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