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Laptop stolen, student data compromised
By Geof Wollerman
gwollerm@mscd.edu

A laptop computer containing the names and Social Security numbers of 988 former Metro students was stolen from a faculty member’s office, according to a notice sent out by Metro President Stephen Jordan.

The incident happened less than two weeks after Metro administrators approved new safeguard policies regarding students’ personal information. According to the notice there is no evidence that personal information from the laptop had been retrieved or misused.

Shortly after 2 p.m. Feb. 28, psychology professor Pamela Ansburg notified the Auraria police that a laptop had been stolen from her office where it was left in its docking station unattended, according to the police report. The door to her office may have been propped open during the incident, Ansburg told police. An officer from the Denver Police Department crime lab was unable to obtain any evidence at the scene.

“Right now we don’t have any information as far as a suspect goes,” said John Egan, deputy chief of the Auraria police.

Ansburg offered no additional comments when contacted about the theft.

The theft comes almost exactly a year after an admissions staff member’s laptop containing the personal information of 93,000 students was stolen from his home. Since then, Metro has been pursuing policies aimed at preventing information theft.

As of last spring Metro mandated that all access to private student information should be approved by the president’s office, said campus spokeswoman Cathy Lucas. According to Jordan’s notice, Metro is looking into why personal student information was on Ansburg’s laptop, and the investigation may lead to disciplinary action.

“I think it’s very critical that all employees respect the privacy of student information. We all have the responsibility to do that as faculty and staff,” Lucas said.

“We’re currently in the process of completing a project that was implemented after last spring to have college-owned laptops turned over to the Department of Information Technology for review of the data contained on their hard drives,” Lucas said.

Ansburg’s laptop did not make it through this review, she said.

Until further developments in the case, the incident is considered only a theft. To be considered identity theft, a person whose identity was stolen would have to file a separate report detailing the misuse of their identity, Egan said.

If the laptop were part of an identity crime there would be a better possibility of tracing it back to a suspect, he said.

Criminals who traffic in identity information are typically much smarter than other criminals, said Ralph Rojas, a criminal justice professor who recently gave a presentation on identity theft.

“Someone who is very good at computer forensics can retrieve information from a computer that has been deleted,” Rojas said.

No information is safe, and there are mechanisms that can be used to retrieve any data that has ever been on a computer, he said.

“The only thing that is safe is if you have the programs that are one step ahead of everybody else,” Rojas said.

The new security measures Metro uses are pretty good because they force users to choose a complicated password that has to be changed every six months, Rojas said.

However, the real issue is not information security. What the college should focus on is securing the hardware that the information is stored on, Rojas said.

“I think that a solution to preventing this from happening again … is to hold people responsible,” Rojas said. He mentioned the example of a gun owner who can be held liable for a shooting involving their gun even if it was taken from their house without their knowledge.

“The person who received the laptop needs to be responsible for it,” Rojas said.

Egan said the theft is ultimately Metro’s responsibility.

“It’s their equipment, their responsibility. Why all this information was on a laptop, I don’t know,” he said.

According to the Auraria police crime logs, a total of at least 17 laptop and desktop computers have been reported stolen on campus since the laptop theft last spring.

“Years ago it used to be typewriters. Now it’s laptops because they’re easy. Everybody has one,” Egan said.

Office doors are often left open around campus, and thieves who work the area take advantage of the open nature of the campus, he said.

“If they can see anything of value, they’re going to go ahead and take it,” Egan said.

It may be easy for a student to have access to an office, but it is just as easy for a thief off the street to wander around campus looking for opportunities to steal, he said.

“With so many students and so many different people down here, what’s suspicious and what isn’t? A thief could come in dressed as a student … and basically get away with it,” Egan said.

The main thing to remember is keep your belongings locked up or keep them with you, he said.

"Laptops are a problem. Maybe next year it’ll be Blackberries … whatever the next new thing is that’s easy to steal and people leave laying around,” Egan said.