Cindy

Droog

Read Cindy's bio and previous columns

June 2, 2008

$13 Million or Stinky Diapers? Choose Your Security Protocol

This past week at work, we learned just how serious breaches of security are. Government agencies are involved, as, most likely, are some of the region’s top computer investigators. Well, the ones who aren’t working on slightly more important things, like say, our national defense. 

Until something like this happens to you, it’s one of those things you think about in conceptual terms – like how I dream of my life as a yoga instructor. Always at peace. Making my schedule. Oh yeah, and doing that move where I’m bent into the shape of a table and my husband can balance his Jack and Coke on my rock hard abs.

But I digress.

I heard that my company spends $13 million on security every year, yet somehow, someone has managed to circumvent our walls of safety. It made me realize that the safeguards I formally thought would work against someone stealing my identity may not be as effective as I thought.

For one thing, there’s the sheer number of dirty diapers in our trash. Surely the stench would sway any criminal from digging deep enough in there to find a credit card bill, or some other piece of mail containing identifying information.

Heck, I have to plug my own nose to open our trash can after just one day, much less seven. I plug it, remind myself that potty training starts soon, and just go for it. But again, just for a few seconds. Not for minutes.

Still, they do make some pretty thick masks, not to mention that plastic snorkeling equipment that you can get pretty cheap. So much for stinkiness as protection.

Then, there’s the fact that my husband is the master of the shredder. The little home office shredder with the tiny garbage can attached to it? That doesn’t fly at our house. We have to set that thing in a 30-gallon garbage bag when hubby turns his focus to shredding. I’m pretty sure he’s even stuck the extra buttons that go with my blouses in there. They come in little envelopes after all, and envelopes must be killed.

So, if someone were determined enough, owned enough glue, and were very talented at putting together thousand-piece puzzles, I see that even the tiny fragments that made up last month’s electric bill won’t prevent a violation.

There’s also the nosy neighbor factor.

Ours across the street seem to know everything about us. It used to bug us when they’d mention the names of the restaurants we ordered from. Or bring up which guests were over last night. One time, I had a cold and the man of the house came over to offer me a remedy from his homeland.

How he knew I had a cold, we had no idea. I don’t sneeze that loudly, so either they saw the pile of tissues on the floor through a telescope, or they were lurking behind me at the local drug store when I bought the Nyquil, Dayquil and throat lozenges.

We’ve chalked it up to their being from another country, which they are, and which we assume is one where people care so much for their neighbors that they feel responsible for them. That said, should someone attempt to get in our garbage, I’d imagine they’d have to deal with the couple across the street beating them with a large optical instrument.

Still, I’ve seen people on Cops get hit by a car and manage to get up and run away holding their beers, so I imagine an identity thief, bruised as he might be, could still run away with my tossed JC Penney’s annual sale postcard.

Looks like my husband and I are in the same boat as my company: we’ll both have to find armor that’s a little more reliable. Of course, their budget is only slightly – about $12.9999999 million – bigger than ours. So I hope they have a little better luck.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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