Fragile Technology

UK prisoner data lost - password attached to USB key

Banks take great care in telling customers how you should never record your PIN number on or near your ATM card. It's a message government staff in the UK should listen and heed. A health worker has lost a USB key containing the records of thousands of inmates from Preston Prison. The data was encrypted, but in an act of complete lunacy, the password was apparently 'attached' to the key as well.

The information was encrypted but a password to get around the security was also attached to the device.

The password was written on a note and attached to the key.

The staff member was from Central Lancashire Primary Care Trust, and has been suspended. The data included prisoner names, health information, cell location and prison number.

The prison service says there's no compromise to prison security, but predicatably the opposition party doesn't agree:

Shadow justice secretary Nick Herbert said: "It appears that the message about keeping data securely still hasn't sunk in within government. Those who recklessly lose data must be held accountable."

Computer glitch leaves drunk on the road - kills teenager

Human error is being blamed for a mistake at the DMV in Connecticut, USA, resulted in a life suspension for a driver not being implemented. The man, with a long history of driver while drunk, then ran down and killed a teenager.

David Weaving had no less than five convictions for DUI, he's been convicted of second degree manslaughter and is facing 10 years in prison. The DMV computer should have recorded a life time suspension of Weaving's licence, but instead it was restored after the most previous suspension ended.

"A computer system error on our records prevented a denotation on the records that he should have a lifetime suspension of the driver's license in 1999," Seymour said. "When the restoration occurred in 2004, the person doing the restoration didn't follow the procedure completely for reviewing the history that was in front of him."

Officials are hoping that a new $40million computer system planned for 2009 will avoid future such errors.

FBI needs a bigger web server

You would have thought that if you are a major US government agency, and launch a major recruitment drive and encourage online applications, you'd ensure that your infrastructure was up to the task. Apparently not at the FBI.

anyone going to the FBI's online jobs page - www.fbijobs.gov - and clicking on an application today got this message: "Thank you for your interest in the FBI positions. We are expanding the capacity of our servers and expect them to be available soon. Please check back after 3 p.m."

Dangerous drivers keep their licences due to computer error

There are enough bad drivers on the road with computer errors leaving a bunch of drivers behind the wheel who should have had their licences suspended. But that's what's happened in Dakota County, Minnesota. The Country has transfered its licencing onto a new system - the Minnesota Court Information System. Due to computer and human error, some 200 people who should not be driving, are still licenced.

At least half the snafus were due to data entry mistakes and other human errors. A table of offense codes on the MNCIS system differed from that of the county's previous computer set-up, causing mix-ups as clerks went through and made manual corrections.

Matters were made worse by a computer patch for another problem, which caused other reporting problems.

Court staff are now manually entering the data, working their way through more than 20,000 cases. And all 87 Minnesota counties apparently have been asked to double check their records to ensure no more bad drivers have won an unintentional reprieve.

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