Brit Breach Fallout; China’s Internet Addicts: Other News

noted * The fallout continues from the British governments data breach. Earlier this week, the U.K government announced it had lost computer disks containing personal data on nearly half of its population. Now, British papers are writing stories on the impact of the loss. A few things we learned: 1) Sixty percent of data breaches are the result of bad organizational practices as opposed to a hacker; 2) The average person in the developed world has personal information in approximately 700 databases, mainly because organizations share data with one another; 3) Credit card numbers arent worth that much on the black market because theyre canceled as soon as fraudulent purchases are detected. A complete identity name, address, social-security number, and date of birth can be worth 50 times as much, because these are difficult or impossible to change. If the identity comes with a bank account number, as many of the 25 million identities lost in the U.K. do, the value can rise by a factor of eight.

* Is China becoming a nation of Internet addicts? According to a survey out today, 42% of 16 to 24 year olds in China consider themselves Web addicts, compared to just 18% in the U.S., according to Reuters. About 25% of the Chinese surveyed said that they couldnt go a day without going online, slightly more than double the percentage in the U.S. Similarly, 77% of Chinese said that the Internet helped them make friends, while less than a third of Americans said that the Internet contributed to their social lives. One possible reason why the Internet is so important to Chinese youths: Nearly three quarters of them said that they could say things online that they couldnt say in the real world.

* Finally, most business leaders have learned to broaden the mediums through which they communicate. But not the managers at Tile It All, an Edinburgh, Scotland tile seller. A sales clerk at the store was fired for sending a text message to his boss saying he was sick and needed to miss work, rather than calling as the stores policy requires, according to East Lothian Courier. The employee took his case to an arbiter and was awarded about $14,000 in compensation for being unfairly dismissed. A modicum of common sense could have straightened all this out,” the arbiter said.