Great story in last weeks copy of Computer Weekly about a complete IT idiot dictating his companies log-ons and passwords to someone in his office over a mobile phone on a crowed train! See full article here.
It reminded me of an incident during a flight I was on a few years ago on a business trip to Italy. A fellow passenger sat down next to me and after the meal service opened his laptop and preceded to finish off a Power Point presentation he was obviously going to be giving to a sales prospect sometime during his own business trip.
Imagine my surprise when the title page of his presentation came up with the name of the company that I was going to visit! Over the next hour I had a grandstand seat viewing the strategy that his company was going to use to push out the competition and win that order!
It has always amazed me how cavalier people can be with sensitive company information, over the years I seen financial information dissected on zoomed spread sheets, forecasted sales-revenue figures boldly styled and software development plans revised and reviewed in full view at 30,000ft. Surely all these people can’t be laying false trails just for me!
The same could be said for paper information reviewed in such a crowded environment, though this is always easier to keep to yourself whilst your reading it. But I wonder how many laptop users really think before they make that last minute change to that important presentation!
The guy sat next to me! Well, I could have introduced myself, but declined to do so and went on to my meetings, never to see him again and yes the deal went our way, but without any need to use his free laptop info!
Beasley's Place 