The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) confirmed Wednesday that it was missing an external hard drive containing personal information for staffers of former President Bill Clinton and visitors to the Executive Office of the President.
According to Channel Web, the National Archives said in a nine-point, question-and-answer briefing posted to its web site and dated May 20 that it would offer a $50,000 reward for safe return of the hard drive.
"We do not know whether the drive was stolen, lost, or otherwise misplaced," the NARA briefing reads.
The data, according to NARA, includes social security numbers and briefings on Secret Service and White House operating procedure. A report in United Press International quoted congressional aides who said the hard drive contained more than 100,000 social security numbers, including for one of former Vice President Al Gore's daughters, along with manuals on Secret Service and White House operating procedures.
It does raise an interesting question, how secure is information?
If not designed properly, the storage unit can be hacked into, physically removed or erased. NARA said in its question-and-answer that the drive was last seen at its headquarters in College Park, Md., in October 2008 and is said to have been first reported missing on March 24, 2009. National Archives staff discovered the drive was lost thanks to an analysis project the National Archives began in March to figure out how to make data analysis more efficient.
This builds a great case for off site storage where information is not kept on a hard drive, tape or disk. If this were stored in a a large storage facility, it may not have had the opportunity to get "misplaced".
Technology is far too advanced these days to let something like this happen. This is the equivalent of being frustrated that the walkman was lost so we could not access the information to put it on the iPod.
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