Interlude - Index of

Vision | 171
they can’t access their data for more than ten minutes, then
the beer must stop flowing: a real incentive to keep data safe
and available.
My favorite answer came in Israel. In Israel it’s easy to tell
when you are meeting with military people, because they are
carrying guns. The ones in blue uniforms carry small sidearms
that they keep in their holsters during the meeting. The
ones in green uniforms carry machine guns that they lay on
the table in front of them. If the greens and blues alternate at
the table, the guns all fit fine, but if two greens sit next to each
other, one of them has to balance his machine gun precariously
against the side of his chair.
I asked a blue-uniformed man, “What bad things happen
if you can’t access your data?” He looked back at me across the
table, his hand resting on his holstered gun, and replied, “People
die.” It didn’t occur to me until later to wonder whether he
meant his own people, or whoever sold him the equipment.
Bottom line: No data means no beer and people die.
Data about people has become so pervasive that it will take
decades for our legal system to figure it out. You might imagine
we could handle digital data with the same laws as paper,
but consider this. One disk drive that fits in the palm of your
hand can hold the name, address, government ID, and credit
card number of everyone on the planet. If you printed all the
data on a one-terabyte disk, it would take 20 million pounds of
paper. Imagine trying to protect that much paper. You might
hire guards, or build a locked warehouse, but you certainly
wouldn’t worry about somebody sneaking it into their pocket.
The legal system hasn’t caught up.
To be sure, there are many laws already. Banks must keep
financial records for seven years. Digital medical records must