MSNBC – Bank of America loses customer data — 1.2 million records stolen by baggage handlers.
“The investigation to date has found no evidence to suggest the tapes or their content have been accessed or misused, and the tapes are now presumed lost,” the bank said in a news release.
Trower said the company would not comment on the format of the data on the tapes — and wouldn’t say if the data was encrypted — but she said it would be “virtually impossible” for anyone who found the tapes to access the data.
Oh, yes. So impossible. In fact nobody has ever done it! It can’t be done. Nothing is more reliable and secure than old mag tapes. If this is so impossible, then why the concern?
I’m getting fake checks in my junk mail from some nitwits and the real banks aren’t sending people back their real cancelled checks. What is this, some sort of joke or something? The banks claim, you don’t need your cancelled checks anymore, they got everything backed up on their verified computers. If the goal is to ruin the nations banking system with software, I think it is working.
Jim, it’s keeping my wife employed.
Seriously, between appropriate imaging and recording systems, multiple data warehouses [for security], you don’t need the paper checks back in the mail. It’s how small-town banks compete and stay in business against the monsters like BofA.
The bank my honey works for makes it easy to view and print a copy of both sides of your checks. That’s also handy — because that back view lets you see when something was posted and where.
Her bank will send you a CD, once a year [for personal accounts — more often, for a business account] — you can look at your cancelled checks to your heart’s content.
But, if you’re using online banking + a debit card, you should almost never need to write a paper check. I average about 2 a year.
I guess sending a half a dozen checks with a bank statement leaves less room for the bank to stuff the envelope full of junk mail and offers for pocket calculators. A digital document on a CD is worth about as much as the free AOL CDs they keep mailing out. You can’t replace a vault with a server and have an equal level of security. You can’t replace paper with plastic and expect good results with ink. What are they keeping in the bank vaults? I guess they aren’t being used to store the data tapes. Maybe they should lock some of these people in their own bank vaults. You can’t build enough jail cells to keep them under control. Maybe Fort Knox will be full of plastic discs some day. You have currency and undercurrency. Welcome to the cashless, checkless society. You can wipe your rear end with magnetic data tape after these morons get rid of paper for your own benefit, if you can find the tape. Some nitwits tried selling the FBI some paperless virtual file system and the FBI decided you really can’t beat paper and ballpoint pens. This all cost millions of dollars, created hearings, more paperwork and a political storm. Some paper is better than other paper. It all depends on the color of the ink. Software can create a demand for red ink. You can’t beat green ink on real paper. In God We Trust. We’ll have to take some people to the bank, the blood bank. They’ll be seeing red.
Even empty ink cartridges appear to have more value than AOL CD’s. http://www.kashforkids.com/ Is anybody paying anything for junkmail CD’s? I have a whole bunch of them and they keep mailing them. Maybe the FBI can send the kids all of their empty ink cartridges. It doesn’t seem like too much to ask for. Money talks and God listens. Can you hear me now John?
Some people are better off unemployed or self employed. Banks without paper, what a joke. You have these goofy check cashing store pests all over the place, some godless programmers selling digital snake oil and some other mob of injustice selling data to fake companies and real companies are losing real data. They are screwed, nailed and glued, seriously they are. These people want to rewrite banking laws like Enron wanted to rewrite history. Look what everybody got for the money. You still have your signature, so keep your pen close and keep your paper closer. These people are dealing from the bottom of a virtual deck of cards. They’re so corrupt they have dealt themselves a dead mans hand. Die another day. Maybe they’ll try rewriting the Ten Commandments next. Some people are better off dead.
Bank of America will settle a lawsuit over WorldCom Inc. investors when it helped the long-distance company sell billions of dollars of bonds. With banks like this, not only is data lost, investments are crashing too. You can’t beat community banking. This corporate banking isn’t good for your health. Of course, Bank of America will issue a press release saying they didn’t know anything or do anything wrong. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Here’s a tip, bank locally and stay away from the Bank of America. As far away as possible. There must be a brain drain at Bank of America. This could cause a big run on the bank. The most important asset a bank has is trust. If you want to trust Bank of America, that’s your business. Trust but verify.
This incident in light of the Citicorp fiasco a few weeks ago, demonstrates how vulnerable our personal information is. If the government openly collected as much information about us as businesses and banks do, then made money off of that information – then I suspect that there would be a large public outcry. Yet, people make money off of our personal information everyday. Why is this? If anyone knows of links where I could learn more about how the business of personal information works, please post. Also, privacy advocates. Thank you.
Ray, Here’s a link.
http://www.cdt.org/privacy/pubrecs/pubrec.html
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