Protecting Data

This is a first, the accounting seminar yesterday was actually pretty interesting. It was about how to protect your data and your clients' data from hackers, a crash, natural disasters and other untold things. One question, in the average year how many cell phones are left behind in cabs in the City of Chicago? I will put that number at the end of the Who Am I and you can tell me how close your guess was. I will give you a hint, I didn't know that many survived cab rides there.

Did you know that 93% of businesses that lost their computer network for more than ten days due to a disaster filed bankruptcy within year? Half the companies filed bankruptcy almost immediately.

Do you have a digital photocopier? Did you know they have hard drives on them? A copy of any document that you copy is placed on that hard drive? When you replaced the photocopier with a new product did you go to the trouble of deleting everything on the copier's hard drive? If not you sent a lot of personal data out to the masses. Maybe you don't have one but does the bank you frequent, the doctor's office you go to, the accountant's office where your tax return is prepared or other places where you take you business have one? Do they delete the information before they upgrade to a new product? Check out the following article:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/19/eveningnews/main6412439.shtml

What do you do to protect yourself? There really is no fail safe way, however, you can reduce your risks:

Verify all your bank accounts and data frequently.

Even though most security software, like Symantac, sends definition updates every five minutes you still should do manual updates and scans weekly at a minimum.

Don't leave your computer signed on to the Internet when you aren't at your computer.

Before you ditch your copy machine call the manufacturer and ask them if your model has a hard drive on it and then have them instruct you how to delete the information on that hard drive.

Encrypt your information. Encryption basically turns your data into gobblegook that is unreadable to anyone that tries to steal your information. Windows 7, the Ultimate version, has a program on called Bitblocker that you can use to encrypt your data.

Comments are appreciated? How close you was you answer to the cell phone question?
Who Am I?

You know the name that made me famous but do you know my real name? Born 1848 in 1848in Missouri and I was shot to death in Oklahoma in 1889. At a female academy I excelled in reading, spelling, grammar, arithmetic, deportment, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and music, learning to play the piano. My father was a wealthy innkeeper and my mother was descended from one of two famous bickering families. My home town was burned to the ground by Confederate guerillas during the Civil War. My older brother who fought for the Confederacy with William C. Quantrill's guerillas, was killed by Union troops. During the Old West, the law of the whole nation had yet to tame that frontier which was spottily settled. This resulted in lawlessness seen in the personage of those known as outlaws-lawbreakers whose notorious reputations often exceeded their very person to mythical proportions. I was one such outlaw. From my association with outlaws such as Jesse James and the Younger brothers I reached a level of fantastic notoriety that today leaves the facts of my life not always distinguishable from the fiction. As a teenager during the Civil War I reported the positions of Union troops to Confederacy. One of my childhood friends in Missouri was Cole Younger, who served in Quantrill's guerillas with Jesse and Frank James. After the war these men turned to outlawry, primarily that of robbery of banks, trains, stagecoaches, and people. In their flights from lawmen they would sometimes hide out at my family's farm. I married in 1866. We had one daughter. My husband tried farming but shot in cold blood the man who accidentally shot his brother in a quarrel. Wanted by the law, he fled to California with Me. Two years later my husband again ran afoul of the law for passing counterfeit money and we fled with our two children to Texas. There I wore buckskins and moccasins or tight black jackets, black velvet skirts, high-topped boots, a man's Stetson hat with an ostrich plume, and twin holstered pistols. I spent much time in saloons, drinking and gambling at dice, cards, and roulette. At times I would ride my horse through the streets shooting off my pistols. This wild behavior was among the things that gave rise to my exaggerated image as a pistol-wielding outlaw. My husband was shot in Paris, Texas. As the young widow of an outlaw I left Texas, putting my children in the care of relatives. I immersed myself in outlawry: organizing, planning and fencing for the rustlers, horse thieves and bootleggers, as well as harboring them from the law. These enterprises proved lucrative enough for me to employ bribery to free my cohorts from the law whenever they were caught. When I was unable to buy off the lawmen I seduced them into looking the other way. The Hanging Judge became obsessed with bringing me to justice. I eluded him at every turn. Finally caught the judge sentenced my then husband and I to jail in Detroit. I was a model prisoner and won the respect of the prison matron. I was released but not reformed and said "I am a friend to any brave and gallant outlaw." I continued to be arrested for charges of robbery but often the hanging judge was forced to release me for lack of evidence. In 1889 while riding from the general store to my ranch I was killed by a shotgun blast to the back. My murderer was never identified. I was buried on my ranch with a marble headstone on which was engraved a bell, her horse, a star and the epitaph written by my daughter which reads:

"Shed not for her the bitter tear,
Nor give the heart to vain regret;
'Tis but the casket that lies here,
The gem that filled it sparkles yet."

Who Am I? Extra respect for the name I was born with.

800,000.