Samsung division CEO bans company use of 8GB SGH-B570

We've heard stories about companies banning the use of certain kinds of products, such as cameraphones or digital audio players, since they could potentially be used to snap pics of or download classified info. But in what must be a first-of-its-kind case, Samsung has actually banned employees from using one of the company's own products out of industrial espionage fears. Ki-Tae Lee, CEO of  Samsung Electronics Telecommunications Network, has apparently warned employees not to pick up the company's SGH-B570 cellphones, because the music-playing phone's 8GB capacity "is more than enough to steal all confidential data about our company." No word yet as to whether Lee is also banning Samsung's various thumbdrives, USB hard drives and audio players, which can also be used to slurp company data. Also, we have to admit to being just a little disappointed that all of the company's confidential data can fit on a single 8GB cellphone. What does that say about Samsung's R&D capabilities?

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[paris @ May 25th 2006 12:08PM]

"What does that say about Samsung's R&D capabilities?"

That they've developed a super compression technique?

[js @ May 25th 2006 12:08PM]

How about banning computers altogther? They have huge hard drives and capable of accessing the internet.

[Brian from Texas @ May 25th 2006 12:12PM]

Nokia, Motorola, etc. are probably wiping their brow with a great sigh of relief as there is nothing to fear from Samsung.

[Jeff @ May 25th 2006 12:23PM]

I dunno. Smells like little more than a marketing campaign to me. "Our phones are so awesome, they're actually TOO awesome". They probably should've paid off a different company to invoke this policy though.

[Sascha Kunze @ May 25th 2006 12:33PM]

They probably mean incriminating data and not just confidential information. Maybe some espionage to hide on their own side?

[James Thoenes @ May 25th 2006 12:41PM]

It sounds like a marketing ploy. 8GB is not that much, unless Samsung is getting into the music business too.
Not like someone working there would not be able to make several attempts with a smaller amount of memory anyway.

[StevenA @ May 25th 2006 12:45PM]

Two words: data encryption

[diulei @ May 25th 2006 1:09PM]

Aren't most personal devices these days (thumb drives, PDAs, phones, DAPs) capable of the same thing?

[Brian @ May 25th 2006 1:27PM]

Cluelessness abounds.

[Poopmaster @ May 25th 2006 1:28PM]

I think Samsung should leave the PR theatrics to a company who knows what they're doing. Banning your product from your employees comes off as cheap *and* dumb. Hey, we treat our employees like thieves, so buy our stuff! Right.

[LindsayS @ May 25th 2006 1:30PM]

Okay, whats the point of banning a phone? The only way to prevent an employee from copying the data, is to not give them anything at all! Data encryption would really make sense here...

[Ad @ May 25th 2006 1:48PM]

Publicity stunt

[Fuzz @ May 25th 2006 2:10PM]

But it's still ok to get a 4 GB model and steal stuff over 2 days, right?

[Hannah @ May 25th 2006 2:21PM]

I could see this being a misguided publicity stunt, but I'm more inclined to think this is a case of Samsung's managers/executives not understanding how their own products work (or, as #6 suggested, how data encryption works). I wouldn't be at all surprised if this all happened because some higher-up misunderstood something one of the engineers said.

[JohnnySax @ May 25th 2006 5:36PM]

Not that the management at Samsung is not full of clueless butt nuggets, but if an employee had access to classified text files, they could copy in excess of 2 million pages of text (assuming that a 10 page text document is ~30 KB). I know, who uses text files anyway, but 8 GB is more than enough memory to copy lots of classified info depending on how it's formatted.

[Fuzzbuzz @ May 25th 2006 9:10PM]

Many corporates in Korea DO ban thumbdrives, USB hard drives and audio players for security reasons. Probably not the best material for PR but it's not a stunt.

[True @ May 26th 2006 4:52AM]

It's been a while since Samsung mointoring entire data exchange in and out of the company.......

Some people will say "no way"..."just use data encryption"....etc.....

But it is true.

Working @ Samsung means..."I am watching you 24/7"

On top of the Data Encryption...Office/Cellphone,USB devices and DVD writers, e-mail contents, fax & copy machines,intranet&internet access, notebook usage, ..to name a few...

[Brian M @ May 26th 2006 7:45AM]

So what the CEO is saying, is we do not trust our employees to have access to the data we gave them access to, so we are going to try and ban them from using devices that they could store the data on. So as am employee who has the intention of stealing the data, do I:
A. Store all of the data up on my MSN, Yahoo, and Google email accounts where it is transported in encrypted fashion to the internet so that the company does not monitor it?
B. Use my company provided laptop?
C. Not tell them I have the "Illecit Device" and also not tell them that "I plan on stealing all of the companies secrets"

[Lionel @ May 26th 2006 11:18PM]

If my calculations are correct, 8 GB is enough to hold well over a million pages of text. Sounds like Samsung is continuing to be one innovative monster. But I agree that they did probably do this to promote their phone, very smart.