Commerce Dept: More than 1,100 laptops missing since 2001

Anybody who has ever had a laptop that was provided by your employer know how paranoid the IT and corporate security departments are with regards to the how's, where's, and what's of your PC. I mean you will have the desktop support and help desk people reminding you that you need to secure the laptop in it's dock or in a locked drawer if you are not taking it with you during the day. Corporate security will be harping on you to make sure that your passwords, are secure as well as making sure that any data on the hard drive is encrypted and protected against "theft". On top of that if you happen to lose the laptop for some reason or another you are all but branded a traitor.

So with all of this why does this headline Commerce Dept: More than 1,100 laptops missing since 2001 scare the living hell out of me. Well there are several reasons, first the financial reasons just simply look at the cost of 1100 laptops. Since most laptops run at least $1000 and in most cases when corporations buy large quantities they will usually upgrade them even more, so let's just be conservative and say $1200 per laptop. That means the Commerce Department has had lost or stolen over 1.3 MILLION Dollars in equipment in less than 5 years. That comes to about $300,000 per year in lost equipment. That figure does not included the time that it takes to replace the laptop, nor does it include any lost productivity of the person that lost the laptop, oh what am I saying these are government employees, they have no productivity.

What really gets me are the following comments from the article

The Census Bureau, the main collector of information about Americans, lost 672 computers. Of those, 246 contained some personal data, the department said in a statement. However, no personal information from any of the missing computers has been known to have been improperly used, the department said.

Ok, so there is a chance that my personal census information may be floating around in some criminal's hand?

"All of the equipment that was lost or stolen contained protections to prevent a breach of personal information," said Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez. "The amount of missing computers is high, but fortunately, the vulnerability for data misuse is low."

Is Mr. Gutierrez an IT professional? Does he do this for a living? Who is telling him this?

The truth be told if the equipment was set up correctly he is right about the risk of information getting into the wrong hands, however mistakes can be made, and there are people out there who could crack the encryption software if they got their hands on the laptops. Still it is disgusting that one portion of the federal government seems to take the point of view that it is no big deal that they have had to replace almost $300,000 of equipment that should not have been needing replacement. This is the sort of waste that is forcing our federal government to record spending levels and it has to stop.