the sign

The upcoming Core-wide lecture, Evil to the Core, will take place next week (read: class on Friday). Unfortunately, the one poster put up in Hamilton to advertise the event was stolen. Irony? Evil incarnate? An excuse to miss the lecture? We report; you decide.

Information on the sign’s whereabouts should be sent to tips@bwog.com.

Gather round Columbia, we heard a harrowing tale from SSN breach survivor John Davisson. It seems the free credit monitoring service that your administration has provided is giving identity thieves one more shot to steal your personal information if they were busy from February 2007 to May 2008.

“I called Identity Guard to activate my Columbia-bought-and-paid-for “CREDITPROTECTX®” service. After I gave the operator some basic info, she said she’d transfer me to their ‘Identity Verification Unit.’ I waited on hold for a couple of minutes, until I was suddenly patched through to two or three simultaneous conversations between other customers and operators. All but one dropped out quickly, allowing me to overhear the voice of another CREDITPROTECTX® prospect. I couldn’t make out what the operator was telling her, but within a few seconds, the caller rattled off her full name, phone number, home address, email address, and social security number. Then the line when dead.

Through the grapevine, Bwog has been hearing rumors that in attempts to safeguard against theft, Public Safety has plans to begin taking unattended laptops in Butler. Oddly enough, this is one rumor that turned out to be kind of true, in a vague, quasi-benevolent way.

Ricky Morales, Crimes Prevention Manager at Public Safety clarified: “It’s not just that we go over there and we take it. It’s a whole educational process.” According to Morales, Public Safety has been meeting with members of the University Senate and library security to design a process of reminders and education/awareness about property theft that culminates with a possible meta-theft. Explains Morales, Public Safety is “not taking [unattended property], but safeguarding it from people.” In other words: thieving the property to protect it from thieves. 

- JNW