Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes:

The bad news is that the Commerce Department has lost 1,137 laptops. The good news is that these losses took place in the five-year span between now and 2001. More good news is that it believes no information has been used from any of these laptops. Of these losses, 672 were lost by the Census Bureau, and 325 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 246 of the computers lost by the Census Bureau contained personal data, but only three of the NOAA computers did.

“All of the equipment that was lost or stolen contained protections to prevent a breach of personal information,” Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez said in a statement. “The amount of missing computers is high, but fortunately, the vulnerability for data misuse is low.” [Source: Yahoo! News]

We Say: More good news: If you just look at the number of computers lost that had personal information, and just the two largest losses, there were only 249 lost with personal data. That means, over five years, only 50 were lost per year with any data that could be misused. Plus the data was protected (whatever that means, since the Commerce Department was vague). Don’t you feel better now?

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