[geeks] Now for something completely geek

[Dan Duncan]

On Mon, 21 Aug 2006, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> Emergency services and police are bound by law to protect your
> information.  Wether they actually do or not is a different matter.

Until one of them takes home a laptop or a disk with everyone's
information in an unencrypted Excel spreadsheet and loses it.  I was
really hoping the VA laptop would give Congress a kick in the ass about
punishing this sort of stupidity given the number of veterans in Congress
but I don't think it's going to happen.  I have serious doubts the hard
drive was actually found because it was announced right after the huge
price tag for credit protection for millions of people was.

Don't get me started on Congress' blunder with the new daylight savings
time rule.  Grrrrr.

> Also worth noting: your friend could have been found by the lawyers
> asking for a personnel list of that Jiffy Lube location.  That's
> perfectly legal and is part of our legal system.  It can suck of course,
> but then so does jury duty much of the time.

He didn't work there.  He was a customer, which is probably why the
plaintiff wanted him as a witness.  They might have tracked him down
along with anyone else who had a car there around that time, but
they wouldn't have had any certainty it was him.  If prompted on the
phone with "Did you happen to see..." he might not have admitted
anything.  He was a bit paranoid most of the time.  He probably only
gave his name because of all the excitement.

-DanD

-- 
#  Dan Duncan (kd4igw)  dand at pcisys.net  http://pcisys.net/~dand
# Birth, Copulation, and Death. That's all the facts when you come
# to brass tacks.		-T. S. Elliot