Techie wipes out $38 billion fund

Everyone has heard the dumb computer user jokes. I’ve told several of them myself. But it’s time for one really good Techie screw up.

JUNEAU, Alaska -

Imagine wiping out a disk drive (computer hardware that holds information) containing a business account worth $38 billion. That’s what happened to a computer technician reformatting a disk drive at the Alaska Department of Revenue. Can you just imagine his/her face when the s/he realized the problem? I don’t think “oh shit” would cover it.

While the tech was doing routine maintenance work, the technician accidentally deleted information for an oil-funded account which just happened to be one of Alaska residents’ biggest perks …but it gets better. The Tech also mistakenly reformatted the backup drive, as well. Any good knowledgeable and prepared company IT Team wouldn’t worry too much because hey! “we still have the back up tapes that we did last month.”

No, the department discovered its third line of defense, backup tapes, were unreadable.

“Nobody panicked, said Permanent Fund Dividend Division Director Amy Skow.

I call Bullshit!

“ we instantly went into planning for the worst-case scenario,” said Amy Skow.

Over the next few days, as the department, the division and consultants from Microsoft Corp. and Dell Inc. labored to retrieve the data, it became obvious the worst-case scenario was at hand.

Nine months worth of information concerning the yearly payout from the Alaska Permanent Fund was gone: some 800,000 electronic images that had been painstakingly scanned into the system months earlier, the 2006 paper applications that people had either mailed in or filed over the counter, and supporting documentation such as birth certificates and proof of residence.

And the only backup was the paperwork itself — stored in more than 300 cardboard boxes.

The computer foul-up ended up costing the department more than $200,000.