The Million Dollar Home Page

Okay, get this.

A kid comes up with the following idea: sell pixels on a website at $1 each. If there are a million pixels, he’ll make a million bucks, and, promise to keep the pixel’s online for five years.

The kid made his million bucks plus more, funding his way for college (according to Wired, June 2006). Here’s his Million Dollar Home Page: http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/

Think the dot-com era is dead? With news like this, think again. Entreprenuerism can flourish, even in the new media market. An extraordinary story… complete with a blackmail intregue from a hacker group that tried to exploit him; it’s even just interesting to see where a few of these things link off to!

R
www.micklerandassociates.com

26 Million Records for Veterans Lost

Extraordinary: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12916803/

A Veteran’s Affairs Analyst had a disk of greater than 26 million PPI (Personal Private Information) records for veterans stollen from their own home. This kind of problem demonstrates the lack of attention paid to basic Administrative, Technical, and Physical (ATP) controls that technology strategists use to guarantee the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the information system. Indeed, it really reflects a lack of Administrative control placed over the movement of data.

Yet, almost certainly, there will be no prosecution of a negligence case either against the government agency or the individual who took the unauthorized information home with them.

Simply extraordinary. A pat on the wrist and “an abundance of caution” warning to veterans, and a slap on the wrist. Amazing this isn’t being prosecuted under HIPAA given the data came from medical records.

R
www.micklerandassociates.com