On 3/27/07, Roach, Bill <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> >>But this is another case of Why is it a customer should feel the need
> to do this, when they signed a contract with a vendor to provide a
> service?<<
>
> Perhaps because it is a prudent business practice?


Can't necessarily agree here... if it's a backup tape and the data on it
doesn't warrant or require encryption, then it ISN'T a prudent business
practice, it's simply extra work.  Another reason is not all systems have
the ability to "encrypt and decrypt" on the fly, so you need to either move
the information to a secondary system to encrypt it before writing it to
tape, and do the same thing to decrypt it, or you need to use some other
additional intermediary step.

I kind of liken it to having a date wear TWO BAGS over her head so none of
my wife's friends see me with her, just in case the first bag gets damaged
and comes off =)

Or a legal requirement?


 You bet!  If there's a legal requirement, no question... you do it.  But
that DEFINITELY wasn't the case here, and hasn't been the case in the well
publicized incidents we've heard about.  The data didn't require encryption,
and if it did, then it was the customer's own fault for failing to do it.
But irrespective of that, the response from the "service provider" has
always been ENCRYPT YOUR DATA in case we screw up.

Or because you don't like your name in the headlines?


Yeah, this is the one that bugs me the most. Whose name is always in the
headlines? The poor schmuck who chose a crappy vendor and paid them big
bucks to provide service in accordance with a contractual obligation, NOT
the (lack of) service provider who lost them.  Their name only appeared once
or twice, but the customer got drubbed in the press for weeks and sometimes,
it STILL comes up.

More to the point, who has to pay the fines (if there are any), suffer the
consequences of bad press,  and penalties for providing credit checks for a
year, when it happens?  Not the organization WHO LOST THE TAPES, but the
organization WHOSE TAPES WERE LOST by the "service provider" who identifies
themselves as a global leader in information management.

  Or because the best laid plans of...


There's that two-bag deal again =)

C'mon Bill... I know you fish... now tell me, do you put bait on a lure to
make sure you get a bite?  Do you spool up a second spool of line to your
primary reel when you cast out in case the line breaks?

And I know you hunt, so do you fire both barrels of a double barrel shotgun
to make the pattern wide enough to make sure you knock down a bird in
flight?

Larry

-- 
Larry Medina
Danville, CA
RIM Professional since 1972

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