My name is Jeff Jones the International Director of John Robert Powers Modeling & Acting (not this sights Jeff Jnes) we were one of the first Modeling and Acting Academys that put computers in the office place. All the other compettitors thought that they would get hacked. We spent a lot of time with developers, net security specialist, programmers, and network techs. Only to find out this very topic is true. We are now getting staff bringing in their laptops to connect to our internet. This is very dangerous because at one of our locations we had a whole work station curropt. It took a few days to repair the damage as well as the employee of five years lost her job because of the measures she went throught to do a little shopping. Checking work e-mails on the laptop connected to ou r net work via internet left a ghost trail that was routed to so many locations of corruptions that it took a specialist to come in and shut our entire system down at a national level for a day. You've heard buyer beware? Well staff beware! I'm sure your bosses will fire you too!

This story is something I see spun every year and with the same alarmist mentality. Most of us and including the millennium age group have been shopping online for sometime and without issue. To suggest a company is at more risk because employees are shopping online is outdated thinking. Most of us have already developed relationships with our favorite online merchants. This does not increase risk any more than being connected to the Internet in the first place.

Secondly, the author describes productivity loss from online shopping as a security risk. Productivity loss is not a security risk. It's a management issue that needs to be addressed by management rather than hiding behind IT risk subjections.

Steve