I ran across this most interesting article in the Washington Times today.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/business/20051005-093645-5695r.htm
In a brilliant PR move, the executives of the major credit card companies have recruited Mr.Giuliani to save them from all that bad press they've gotten recently about their poor security practices.
"Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani told financial industry executives yesterday they should protect consumers from identity theft in ways similar to cities preparing for terrorist attacks.
"If you anticipate everything you can, you will be ready for the unanticipated," Mr. Giuliani said.'"
Sorry, Rudy...you got an uphill battle, Dude.
I know of that which I speak. TWO MONTHS before the coast to coast headlines regarding the credit-card hacking debacle in June, I thought I would do the right thing and let our government know just how bad security was at these 3rd-party credit card processors. You see, I was the database administrator in charge of security at one of the largest credit card processors in the country, I had control of literally billions of YOUR credit card numbers, social security #'s, commerical bank info etc. And, as this company is a subsidiary of a major bank, their Swiss cheese security holes put them in violation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (corporate accounting fraud). So (having Wonder Woman-like delusions) I filed whistleblower charges against said company, knowing, just KNOWING that our government would immediately step in to keep IGOR of Chechnya's hands off YOUR personal financial information.
What a joke!! OSHA (which handles these whistleblower complaints) threw my complaint out for lack of merit within a month of the break-in at Cardsystems - they couldn't or wouldn't make the connection (duh!!). In fact, I was pretty much given the "bum's rush" by OSHA. Man, this complaint got buried so deep it took a golden shovel to get it out (i.e. digging into my pockets to pay a really good attorney for an appeal!).
I've sent the details to the SEC, House, Senate, FBI - I have received nothing but a stone-wall, (strangely Republican-like) silence.
Somehow - I just get the feeling that floating around the Dept. of Labor is a memo to OSHA investigators that says something to the effect of "No one will hole it again' you if you just cain't get the time to investigate these silly-ole Sarbanes-Oxley complaints. After all, we don't want the people WHO REALLY MATTER in this country to suffer because of some little accountin' irreglarrities or other stuff. KennyBoy (Lay) gettin' locked up really hurt the ol' cash flow, ya know. Ya'll doin' a great job."
My noodle really got baked the day I realized that when we got hacked - I WOULD BE THE PRIME SUSPECT. Our corporate executives would just as soon handed me over to the FBI/Secret Service as to tee up for another round of golf. I walked out that day didn't look back (2 hired to replace me have done the same thing).