Now THAT'S security

Several years ago, I was an engineering manager in a place that handled classified information. Being very security-conscious, we had security guards that would walk through our offices to look for any security violations. This could be classified information left out, or it could be other controlled items left out. Floppy disks and other magnetic media were controlled items because they might contain classified information, so leaving a floppy disk out would get you a security violation just like leaving out classified information would.

As the engineering manager, every time the guards found a security violation, I had to do annoying paperwork that explained how the violation happened and what steps we were going to take to make sure that it didn't happen again.

One day I came in to work and this very type found paperwork waiting for me because someone had left "unattended magnetic media" on his desk. When I went to the nearby security office to retrieve the offending media, I was surprised to find that it was just an empty jewel case for a CD. This reminded me of the following exchange from the TV show Red Dwarf:

Cat: "Hey, I got it! We laser our way through!"

Kryten: "An excellent suggestion, sir, with just two minor drawbacks. One, we don't have a power source for the lasers, and two, we don't have any lasers."

I was tempted to try a Kryten-inspired comment like this:

Me: "There are only two problems with this violation. One, a jewel case isn't really magnetic, and two, a jewel case isn't quite what most people think of as being 'media.' Sure, you can write on one with a Sharpie, but that as long as we don't write anything classified that should be OK."

Instead, I just filled out the paperwork and got back the empty jewel case. It probably wasted less time than trying to convince the security people that an empty jewel case really didn't need to considered a controlled item.