On Thu, 30 Oct 1997, Dan Matei wrote: > Eight Pentium personal computers - more than a third of the computers of the > institution - the newest and most powerful, the Internet server of CIMEC > included, together with a telefax Minolta, other electronic equipment - were > stolen from six rooms. The local and exterior data networks were savagely > destroyed and the cables dismantled. The paper archive and the furniture > were vandalised. 50 CD-ROMs with original programmes were taken away. The > restoration of what remained from the computer network, the recovering of > the destroyed applications and programmes, the Web pages and databases will > take many weeks of hard work. The issue of protection of the informatics infrastructure of an organization is an old one, and in businesses that have a long tradition with the use of "computer centers", many "EDP auditing" and security protocols are well-understood and usually practiced. Since the advent of the proliferation of personal (and departmental and desktop business) computing, however, the attention given by the many newcomers to computing _operations_ to system and resource integrity, and to protection from failures, accidents, vandalism, industrial espionage, etc., has been mostly lacking, I believe. Ask any number of installations what their "backup/recovery" and "security" and "archiving" and other such operational protocols are, and if they are being diligently practiced, and you'll usually be appalled. This is a cost of doing business in e-world that is seldom being adequatedly budgetted for, and sooner or later, many will be stung by the false economy. I have no idea what the particular situation was/is with respect to CIMEC, and do not wish to imply _anything_ wrt their operations. I only make the above observations as an attempt to alert every installation/business that _their_ operations very possibly require some serious auditing to determine how "safe" their information equity is. The equipment is easily replaceable (with some funds). The information lost can be irreplaceable, and will often have a value of hundreds or thousands or more times the physical installation replacement cost. Where are your backup tapes/cartridges/disks stored (Off-site? No!? Uh oh). When did you last capture an image of your business's information wealth (last night? No!? tsch, tschh). Peter