There’s no such thing as secure data. Until now.
I was talking to a friend today, who’s still trapped in Higher Education Hell at my alma mater, Temple University. We were discussing Temple’s increasingly bizarre and ridiculous “security” initiatives in which they make it next to impossible to access their secure site AND actually do what you need to do there. Between ridiculously fast log out time (“whoops, you were idle for twelve seconds. We logged you out for your protection.”), and their mandatory password changes, in which you must think up – and somehow remember – increasingly complex passwords using characters most people have never seen before (next year, apparently, they’ll be requiring Russian alphabet characters), it’s almost impossible to successfully log in on the first try, if at all.
In discussing this, I started imagining where Temple’s privacy efforts will eventually wind up:
“In an effort to secure our students’ personal information and secure their privacy, we are no longer allowing users to log in. We have determined that with phishing, viruses and social engineering tactics, it is no longer advisable to permit users to access our website.
With numerous reports of disgruntled employees exploiting their access to sensitive data, we have determined that your information is not safe with us, either. We have made it impossible for any employees to access your personal information, and removed the tongues of those who had ever seen personal information.
Given the increase in hardware malfunctions and viruses infecting hardware – even potentially off-site servers, we realize that it is imperative that we prevent all data from being online in the first place. As such, we have printed out all records, erased the data several times, and set everything on fire.
After our web developers removed all of the files and our office employees burned the physical copies, we had them silenced forever and their bodies disposed of in an undisclosed location.
Once we have published this message, we will all be taking cyanide pills to ensure that any data we might know dies with us. No one will ever find your data. Ever.
Temple University. A brighter, safer future.”
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