I was on twitter last night when one of my friends @kakroo complained that someone was stealing his food from the fridge. That’s just one of the joys of living in shared accommodation. Initially I was tempted to reply with a comment on how he should look at the positives and that the lack of food will help lose some weight and it won’t feel like dieting.

It dawned on me that his predicament is no different than companies trying to secure information. The food in the fridge is the asset that he wants to protect and doesn’t appreciate the fat guy in the house eating it all. So naturally the first question would be to ask whether he can move all his food out of the kitchen and put it in his room. Of course this will involve investing in a new fridge for his room and will take up a lot of space. It’s similar to the type of suggestion some consultants give when they blandly state all data should be stored in a highly secure data centre. Impractical and too expensive.

So lets go through this problem in a somewhat methodological manner:

1. Write the security policy

To some it seems like common sense. But put up the ‘rules’ or policy in a visible place in the kitchen. “Though shall not take others food without permission”. That way you have set a baseline etiquette that everyone can agree upon.

2. User awareness

A lot of companies underestimate the power of good user awareness training. When all the housemates are together watching the latest episode of heroes, jump up in front of them and remind them that taking something from someone without permission is stealing and its very wrong.

3. Preventative controls

Food theft is hard to prevent. Although some controls to consider are maybe putting a label on all your food stating that you’ve added some secret body fluid to the ingredients. It will hopefully put off any petty thief. Of course don’t really do it. Unless its food that you’re really not going to eat yourself. In which case it’s probably not worth putting on the warning label. At least you’ll know that someone’s ingested something they really shouldn’t have.

4. Detective controls

A CCTV recording all fridge activity should be able to detect any malicious activity. Or maybe a motion sensor that sets off an alarm any time your box of cereal is moved.

5. Corrective controls

If all else fails you should deploy corrective controls. I don’t just mean going to the shop and restocking. But try lacing your food with a bit of cyanide. The attacker will soon be pronounced dead and no-one will dare touch your food again. Of course you may end up going to jail for it and spend the rest of your days sharing a prison cell with a big guy with tatoo’s who likes to blow kisses at you. It’s the equivalent of hacking someone who’s trying to hack your systems… you’ll never do it, but the temptation is just too great some days.