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The personal data of every citizen of a small country consisting of SSN or ID number as well as passport reference, name, address, date of birth, phone, email, credit card and bank account numbers, utility and driving license details and a dozen other items of information require less than the storage capacity available on a single DVD-ROM disk. With the data listed here one can impersonate a person, send out mail shots (electronic, telephonic and paper), use credit cards to effect purchases or perform demographic analysis on the data. Most of the information listed above can be sold to hackers and spammers for good money if one knows where to go. While a DVD-ROM disk is a medium familiar to many, it is not the most compact. Eight times the storage capacity of a DVD-ROM can now be stashed on a USB pen drive having an area of less than 4 square centimeters. And such pen drives are not lab animals; you can go and buy one today. Electronic data has no weight and takes up no space. A USB pen drive which is empty looks identical to one which is packed solid. Transferring all the data from its original repository to a USB pen drive takes a few minutes, is silent and, above all, leaves the original copy unaltered.

Compare this to a situation in which someone wants to take the same information stored on paper. If one takes the originals then these will probably be missed sooner or later. On the other hand, if one decides to photocopy the originals, the repeated visits to a copy bureau will cause suspicion. This actually happened when McLaren were caught red handed copying Ferrari documents. If one owns the photocopiers, toner, paper and the time necessary to duplicate a million or so paper documents, transporting copying and eventually analyzing them is a huge challenge necessitating both man and machine.

In large organizations, access to the computer area should be restricted to authorized personnel only and the best in mechanisms that deter as well as clamp down any attempts at illegal access to the systems should be implemented. While it is understood that many small and medium sized operations as well as "normal" computer users do not have the resources to implement the security described above, computer data should, at least, be afforded the same level of care and security given to other items of high value within the boundaries of a house or office. And because, unlike practically every other object, data can be replicated with such ease, additional protective

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