Wikileaks and Trustability

Wikileaks and Trustability: "

There were two different enablers involved in the current Wikileaks scandal.

First, we have a reckless and destructive enlisted man in the military, one PFC Bradley Manning, who downloaded hundreds of thousands of classified documents in an overt and malicious effort to 'out' what he unilaterally decided was pernicious behavior on the part of the US government. Lesson Number One: Manning is the ultimate disengaged employee. Actively disengaged employees like Manning can be even more destructive in today's always-connected society than was possible just a few years ago.

But second, you have the ever-incompetent US government. Why oh why oh why would any 'secure' information retrieval system allow ANYONE to download hundreds of thousands of documents in one sitting? Or even in one month? Lesson Number Two: Incompetence is always most evident in hindsight.

So here's the question we should all be asking ourselves: If our own organization had a PFC Manning in it, would our own systems allow him to betray the trust of our customers or investors, or to destroy the reputation of our business, using our own materials?

It's one thing to have rogue employees filming disgusting actions with pizzas and posting them on YouTube, but at least in that situation a company's own systems aren't aiding and abetting the destruction of its reputation. But the question everyone reading this post ought to ask of their own company or organization is whether a disengaged employee could do more damage than this, by using your own information systems?

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