It has been my long-held belief that the high end agencies keep all records on "offshore" computers that cannot be accessed.  Is this correct, a bunch of malarkey or incomplete?  Anyone have more insight?

it depends where they are kept. Im not sure i would be comfortable with my credit card number being stored on a server in the former Soviet Bloc for example.
The safest course of action is to not use agencies, they are inherently less secure since they all keep records which can be accessed (they have to accessible to be of any use to the agency in question.) (Then there is the question of backup protocols, for example are the backups stored in this country and for how long are they kept etc. ) The only agency i know make the claim to offshore servers is TLC for what its worth....
There is risk in anything you do hence i would reccommend that you stick with the indies at least then you know exactly who you are dealing with.....mostly

LOL, it seems to me that the only time when security is an important issue with anyone, other than TLC, is when we have the events of the past couple weeks.  I can't tell you how many times I been at industry parties telling clients how important security is . . . and usually the response I get is "ah, so what".  With TLC, the data we keep on clients is physically stored out of this country & it's not in the former Soviet Union.  And the data itself is encrytped with 1028 bit encryption keys.  In layman's terms, that means even if someone is listening in to the transmission or hacks into our server, the data they get back will be gobbledy gook.  And yes, "gobbledy gook" is the official IT term.  

As far as security with indies, consider this, most indies have address books, cell phones, etc. with your name, number, etc. all written down in there.  It would be so much easier to seize and examine something like that as opposed to a sophisticated Information System, like the one we use.  So in certain circumstances, I would make the argument that an Agency can be more secure than Independents.  It all just depends on the indie and the agency.  Choose carefully!  These days it's a must.

Lynn
TLC IT Guru

I will happily admit 1028 bit encryption is the state of the art is indeed state of the art. Ill say at first blush your system is very secure and leave it at that.
As for agencies versus indies we have had this argument many times so theres no need to beat the dead horse into filet mignon!

I dont know any indies who have address books..As far as indies go the information is tossed.Hell if this was true then refrences would be alot easier from the indies who just go by memory or need details to jog their memory of the session.