No Need to Have Data at Home

One thing that has been overlooked in the recent controversy over telework and security is that there is very little reason to have large amounts of valuable data on a home computer or laptop's disk drive.   However, this Washington Post column does make the point that VPNs and other network technologies allow workers to log-in into networks remotely and then work on data from there, never having to download any of it to their machines.  Chuck Wilsker of the Telework Coalition sums things up pretty well:

Obviously, these happenings are not the best news for proponents of teleworking, said Chuck Wilsker, president and chief executive of the Telework Coalition.

But on the upside, he thinks this is going to be the "big wake-up that they really can't do things they aren't supposed to do, and violate security issues." The technologies exist, he pointed out, that allow workers to access a server from anywhere in the world. And then when they disconnect, everything they did stays on the server. "There is no reason to physically take things away to work on remotely," he said.

It is quite obvious to anyone who has not lived under a rock for the last 10 years that Mr. Wilsker is right.  Unfortunately,  when it comes to working from home many managers at large corporations and the federal bureaucracy have been living under a rock for the past 10 years.  They are still trying to figure out Web 1.0, much less Web 2.0. 

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