Recently in Tech Category

The debate about the demise of capitalism banking crisis now plays out partly online, as one would expect, given the scale of the problems. The $700bn US bailout plan may unravel, and the Wall St Journal claims 'Wall Street' no longer exists (fancy a namechange then?). As Joe Stiglitz put it to the Today programme earlier this week, "they've now found a sucker, the American taxpayer, to take [these debts] off their balance sheet". The Lloyds TSB acquisition of HBOS may now face opposition too, although the scandal is less obvious and the opposition more muted. 

The Independent reports today that the firm which lost personal data for 84,000 convicted criminals is also lined up to work on the ID cards. This scheme is destined to fail or be scrapped, so the £33m they've been paid will be wasted no matter what, but if I had my way every company that ever fails on personal security should be blocked from any future Government IT contracts.

Each time Americans go round their protracted electoral cycle, it gets a little more internet. It doesn't seem to happen here in the same way - perhaps we're not quite at critical mass yet, or maybe we're slow learners. 

Uber-crypto-geek Bruce Schneier has today posted some advice to the next US President on how to get online security right. Some of it could usefully be applied here by the Scottish and UK Governments, even though we've got less leverage and smaller economies of scale. But given some of the recent data loss incidents, Ministers shouldn't rule it out. 

Oh, and if you're geeky enough to appreciate the image to the left (click to enlarge), you can buy it on a t-shirt. No, I'm not on commission.

The young Greens seem to have converged on Twitter like bees, but I'm resisting it. As one of them put it to me, it's like Facebook boiled down to status updates. 

John McCain doesn't get on with technology. Anything more recent than the A-4 Skyhawk he got shot down in over Vietnam seems to be a problem.

The latest newfangled technologery to confuse him is the humble teleprompter, a vital part of any Republican campaign's arsenal since Reagan first gave a press conference during a nap.

As for computers, McCain admits to being "an illiterate who has to rely on my wife for all the assistance I can get". As Frank Rich put it in the New York Times (article, bypass registration here), "Getting shot down over Vietnam may not be a qualification for president in 2008, but surely a rudimentary facility with a laptop is". Quite.

I wonder if he's as IT-incompetent as Tony Blair, who, the story goes, used to leave tippex on the screen when trying to correct typos. Heaven help us if so, and if he gets elected.

The Register picked up some interesting spam today, in which someone claiming to be Patricia Hewitt claimed to have squirrelled away £6.3m of public money, and that it is now being made available on the usual terms.

This is of course our old pal the "419 scam", albeit a bit closer to home than the usual I AM MRS MARIAM ABACHA.

And of course, transparently absurd. Hewitt would never have done something so criminal.

No, instead she and the New Labour government wasted £1bn, more than 150 times as much money, on management consultants for the NHS. Odd, perhaps, given that she herself worked for Andersen Consulting until New Labour took power.

Countless billions more were put into PFI schemes, often benefiting the same consultants in other ways. Don't get them confused with medical consultants, who actually do something useful.

Another £14.2bn was wasted on an ill-conceived and ill-implemented IT system.

But that's all perfectly legal, so why should we worry about it? Here's one thought, though. We'd all be almost incalculably better off if she'd just nicked £6.3m and given it away through random spam instead.

Postscript: it's perhaps not surprising that she's taken a well-paid second job with BT, who she's helped out in the past.

Apparently I'm not well, so says the American Journal of Psychiatry (quoted in the P&J). I send what might be regarded as excessive texts and emails. I do feel withdrawal when I can't get online. I do also upgrade to newer computers from time to time.

But wait, isn't this called Living In The Modern World? (image from here)