Re: [TSCM-L] Sticky Fingers

From: <d..._at_geer.org>
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 23:46:04 -0500

In off-the-record discussions with the banks where I
am known, I've come to the conclusion that as the very
roughest of rough numbers, 1-in-1000 laptops go missing
per annum. Clearly, the press does not find 1/1000th
of the total laptop fleet for any enterprise so the
"problem," such as it is, can be taken two ways: Either
the press is the paragon of truth and corporations are
somehow hiding the extent of this hemorrhage of data,
or the corporate enterprise doesn't much lose data that
matters. Even if corporate assets are no more and no
less than the sum of all the data they own expressed as
dollars, then 1/1000 of the data lost per year is 10 basis
points, which does not matter in the economic scheme of
things except when you are calculating yield on fixed-
income instruments.

Here's a truism from the economic side of the house:

   The economically optimal number of data loss events
   is greater than zero.

If it were zero, then the corporate enterprise would be
over-spending on protection.

--dan
Received on Sat Mar 02 2024 - 00:57:28 CST