Media: Interoffice memo
Targets: Employees with a sense of humor; anyone passing by the posted memos.
Goal: To elicit some laughter, and to shed light on just how ridiculous things have gotten with our IT at work.
Success rating: Medium
Things at my work have become comical of late, also infuriating. Everyone understands the need for data security, but the security people (the actual people, not the rental security "guards" who are even more out of shape than me) are trying to get some security accreditation from our parent company.
No one outside of security is aware of just what it will take to get this accreditation. If I see virgin sheep being sacrificed under a full moon, I will likely attribute it to this process. It's like that. The thing is, again, we all understand that some security measures are good, but they are implemented at the last minute, with no discussion on how to do it or whether this is a good idea or not.
The last straw was the "laptop" initiative. Without warning, on a Thursday, the security VP said that all laptops that were not secured as per the new procedure on Monday night would be confiscated by security. In this new procedure, cable locks were NOT to be used. Cable locks, we were told, were weak. The laptops had to be clamped down with these expensive clamps.
The reasoning, such that it is, is that a laptop thief can just pull hard enough and dislodge the cable lock, but if the laptop is clamped down, it becomes impossible. We were told guards would walk through the building, and any laptops not locked up in drawers and not clamped down would be removed. Sadly, this meant security considered that the drawer locks were more secure than cable locks. We routinely leave the keys in the drawer locks.
Our management, to their credit, screamed bloody murder. Security taking away our laptops? We have many labs, some of which have experiments being datalogged by laptops that must be out and running.
Anyway, Monday came and the VP backed off. Cable locks were OK. The expensive clamps were not necessary. The new, miracle cure was this:
No shit. They said that we should Velcro our laptops to their stands/desks/tables. That this was going to prevent someone (at least someone who's never used a crowbar) from removing the laptop.
Well, that was enough for this monkey. It was time to call IT out.
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