This shouldnt be 'NEWS'; so...

I'm putting it here.

Why? Because it just shows how well government agencies operate.

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=3&aid=72908

After the IRS debacle... and a similar brou-haha in Ohio, where a back-up tape, containing list of Ohio Employee financial records was stolen from a car*... you would think that NO IT director would allow this sort of thing to be possible.

It's NOT as if these things dont get talked about in the IT and FInancial services communities.

* The Ohio case is really stupid. There has always been a records safe-keeping method where the secondary backup is taken home by an employee on the premise that it's just as good as putting it in a vault... but it was always a key employee that did it. The Ohio case involved an intern traineee.

This case was probably like the IRS thing. A consultant is doing work on the program itself and the software needs a database to work with.

It would take about 2 days to hash a database into a test db so that the records are usable for testing but none of the info is valid.

Of course they would then have to ensure the test db didnt get loaded into the working system somehow.. not exactly rocket science.

Yes... I want the guvmint to run MORE stuff!