Today I finished up at class and I went to the computer labs to do some printing. Every now and then, left-behinds are found on, in and around the workstations. Rarely are they as interesting as the one I found today. A 1G USB flash disk the size of half of my thumb was snuggly wedged into the usb port. I always have a peek around these things to be good and try and find the owner’s email address or some contact method.
I found a whole lot more than I bargained for. Photos, videos, personal information – CV (including comprehensive information on schooling, employment and family details), financial information, insurance details and car information. To make matters worse, there is a collection of “portable” applications, such as FirefoxPortable, and MirandaPortable. Not only does Firefox contain a comprehensive history, but it might also have stored passwords (I didn’t check, and I don’t care). The multi client messenger, Miranda, contains a list of all as well as stored passwords for AIM, Yahoo! and MSN Messenger.
I detract, however. This post has nothing to do with my ethical/moral standings (everyone knows that morals boundaries are stretched in direct proportion to humour, anyway). The point is, that you should never put such a concentrated quantity of personal information in one place. Especially not if you are going to lose it. Is facebook the same? Maybe, but at least I don’t put my finances up for scrutiny.
I’ll just secretly anonymously post the USB stick back to the listed address. Maybe I’ll include an anonymous letter with all personals listed just to hope for the priceless reaction.
Anyway, don’t be stupid like this person.
4 Comments
Ouch!
Ha, I have found flash drives with stuff like this on before!
People treat them like mini-brief cases with little idea on security. Personally I don’t like to make to big a deal of the seriousness of this data because I always feel that its inviting something bad to happen to them and you taking the blame.
They are just lucky someone who is nice enough to return it found it!
Yes, I won’t be dumb like this person. I won’t lose my USB stick.
Sorry but it is way more practical (and secure) to use firefox portable to check your email on a public computer than to use the computer’s internet explorer.
If I lose the stick I’ll just rush to change the password, but that won’t happen.
I’m fairly certain you can encrypt USB keys. I’ve never had to do it myself, since I don’t use it for personal info, but it would certainly be useful in those cases.