Fragrant tech thief stalks Whitehall Civil servants at the Department for Communities and Local Government are living in fear of a sweet smelling mobile technology thief who carries a ladies' purse. That is the inescapable conclusion after a minister in the department detailed the terrifying catalogue of thefts within the department in a commons answer. Pete …
werent spending public money though.
Perhaps they spent a grand because they could, and bought high spec models, for no apparent reason?
Its why the public sector is in such shit now, and panicking like crazy.
And 20quid for a USB stick is fine, this will buy you a high speed 8GB model or maybe a 4GB encrypted one.
Laptops are provided by an outsourced IT company (Steria) so they'll get tucked up on price to make sure that money is made on the contract. USB sticks in central government can only be used if they are encrypted (as another of our outsourcing chums managed to lose one which contained sensitive data a while back) so they tend to be on the expensive side rather than staff being able to use the sort that you get free with a packet of cornflakes.
How much "classified date" do you think the Department of Communities & Local Government actually has?
I'm sure there was sensitive data on the machines - contracts, names & addresses - loads of that. But classified? Who in their right mind would let the department in charge of local government near anything vaguely secret?
It all points to one culprit...
Who had access when the last government was in power and now, holding a grudge against the new government, might need to seek a source of extra money?
Who is known for their love of perfume and handbags?
Who could it possibly be, but...
Peter Mandelson!
(Joke joke joke, please don't sue me, joke)
Oh boy, you work for the government, and your phone turns up missing. What, oh what, can you do?
(a) tell the truth that you got drunk last night and lost it, and then you're out of pocket to replace it
(b) call out the national guard and claim that SOMEONE STOLE MY PHONE, and while everyone is distracted chasing around, you go score the latest model and either charge it to insurance or to your work.
Yeah. I'd be surprised if anyone chose option (a). Actually I am a little surprised that more stuff was not "stolen"!
Grief mate: have you ever come across an Office of any size that stuff doesn't occassionally walk from? There are cleaners, there are contractors, there's that guy/girl on the desk across the way who's desperate to pay off a big credit card bill... Unless everyone without exception is body searched on leaving the office then of course things go missing...
"stolen" involves police reports (to get a crime number), along with the possibility that it might be investigated (especially if the same person has multiple incidents of things going awol).
Now consider the risk to an MP's reputation should the police be seen to be investigating them on suspicion of fraud.
I suspect the bulk of the "stolen" items are first incidents, whereas the "lost" items are subsequent offences, so the rozzers don't get involved.
And I'm sure there's some lawyer somewhere in westminster making money out of "advising" their clients as to which method to claim when something has gone awol.
"Oh wait all those Nigerian cleaners with fake visas got caught."
I'm too knackered to work out whether or not that was a serious comment, but virtually every office I've worked in has had its resident kleptomaniac. The cleaners are often the first to be blamed, but in every occurrence, thefts have tended to occur well before their shifts started. Even when there are keycard-controlled booths or turnstiles people will still try the "someone must've just wandered in off the street" because they don't want to accept that one of their colleagues is a tealeaf.
It can happen. I know of one case when some of a batch of computers being delivered to an office building went missing.
The deliverymen thought that the "someone" was office staff. The office staff thought he was one of the deliverymen. It was only when the CCTV recording was checked and one man couldn't be identified., that the truth dawned.
Is this a subtle hint as to your unsubstantiable suspicions as to the culprit's identity, El Reg? This adjective used to be under the sole ownership of a certain MP/minister/lord/convict's long-suffering wife, I recall. I'd have thought her Palace of Westminster hall-pass was a bit out of date by now, but perhaps I'm wrong ... aren't hubby's novels paying so well lately?
Icon: not directed at your organ, just the closest available to "showing my age with that one" icon...
Protectively Marked Material isnt a classification in its own right, its just the framework.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_information_in_the_United_Kingdom
shame so many El'Reg posters don not apply the engineering concpet of "Measure Twice, Cut Once" to thier thoughts before posting...
As others point out, in any big office there's always stuff going 'missing'. At a big publishers where I've been working recently I was told of a time when one of the cleaners brought in a relative to help with some extra cleaning. This chap was caught leaving the building with a bin liner in which he'd hidden a couple of laptops at the bottom. The security guard, bless him, became suspicious at the the way the chap was carrying what was supposed to be a bag of rubbish....
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