Originally published February 26 2006
Small gadgets can cause big problems, columnist warns
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
As electronic devices become smaller and the amount of important information they can hold increases, it becomes especially important to keep track of your portable devices, columnist warns.
Some years ago, I left my laptop computer on a train from Washington to New York.
Replacing the computer was expensive, but at the time I was more worried about the data.
Of course I had good backups, but now a copy of all my e-mail, client files, personal writings and book manuscripts were ...
Probably the drive would be erased by the computer's new owner, but maybe my personal and professional life would end up in places I didn't want them to be.
Security Matters columnist Bruce Schneier Security Matters If anything, this problem has gotten worse.
It could easily contain every e-mail I've sent and received over the past 12 years, an enormous amount of work-related documents, and my personal everything.
I have several USB thumb drives, including a 2-gig drive that serves as my primary backup.
It holds not only my frequently called phone numbers, but my entire address book -- including any personal notes I've made -- my calendar for the past six years, hundreds of e-mails, all my SMS messages, and a log of every phone call I've made and received.
The most recent one he lost contained not only his full music library, but his address book and calendar as well.
And the press regularly reports stories about lost and stolen laptops with sensitive corporate documents or personal information of hundreds of thousands of individuals.
Hard-disk encryption programs like PGP Disk allow you to encrypt individual files, folders or entire disk partitions.
If you give an employee a BlackBerry for business use, you want to be able to wipe the device's memory if he loses it.
Delete old e-mails from your BlackBerry, SMSs from your cell phone and old data from your address books -- regularly.
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