Ministry of Defence | Defence News | MOD confirms loss of recruitment data

[Ian Batten]

On 21 Jan 08, at 0703, Peter Tomlinson wrote:

> Ian Batten wrote:
>> And that, to quote George Smiley, is my _thesis_: that we get  
>> these problems because clever civil servants can get around the  
>> Labour ministers.  And they couldn't the tory ones.
>>
>> ian
>>
> So why are the civil servants not working out how to do the job  
> properly?

Define `properly'.  I think in most environments outside spooky ones  
which live and die by compartmentalisation, and perhaps even in  
those, security is seen as the stuff that gets in the way of doing  
your job.  I've got a 27001 surveillance audit today, and I tend to  
use issues raised in those as sticks to beat other parts of the  
businesses, because everyone wants to believe that all staff are  
honest, all visitors are legitimate and all access is authorised.

ian