Ok Kids, here's the poop. I work as a County Veterans Serivce Officer now, and am in daily contact with the Dept of Vet Affairs.
The guy that took the info home was a data analyst. (well paid). so, he probably wasn't trying to sell the data, he was probably trying trying to find a way to smooth up the way the VA does business and polls the data, and since the VA won't pay over-time, why not take the job home so he at least gets some time with the family while he's working. (that keeps the old lady happy AND the boss happy. good deal both ways eh? oops.....)
Then we get mutiple break-ins in his neighborhood, (drug driven most likely according to the police report on those) and he's one of those that gets hit. Loses his laptop. So he reports it to his boss the next day. His boss, (smarter than the average schmutz) says" lets be quiet about this, and see if it shows right up at the local u-pawn-it shop like the rest of the stuff, and nobody will know that the data is missing until we have it back, and then all that data won't be a hot commodity, we can fire you for trying too hard, and the vets don't get hurt. (Nobody goes after what they don't know is there...)
Enter the liberal-left-wing-pointy-headed-fuzz-butt press... who gets word of it, and tells the whole freakin' world that the data is out there for the finding. (NOW WE HAVE A PROBLEM, HOUSTON) So, now there is a major migration of data miners on it's toes looking for the data. Congress is working on passing a law that lets ALL vets have unlimited access to their credit info free of charge, at the expense of the credit bureaus, (which makes sense, since they are the one's who have single handedly made data mining and identity theft so profitable anyway, and it doesn't cost them anything to make the data available, it just keep them from making yet more proft on the heels of someones misfortune...), and that legislation should roll out in the next few days.
The up side of this is that now the Vets,(yes, that's me too...) who statistically are less inclined to check on that type of stuff will now be a bit more proactive about it, and the problem may actaully abate somewhat due to the percieved data compromise. The down side is that the VA is already reassigning people over to the phone banks and records units to answer the flood of stupid questions, which is slowing down the claims process, yet again....
BTW, this is just my opinion from an informed perspective, so feel free to flame. I still think I'm invincible!
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Topic: VETERANS DATA STOLEN ! (Read 2459 times)