Some stories beggar belief, but at the same time are not remotely surprising. Proving the truth of this contradiction is freelance investigator Rob Cockerham, who decided to see how protective a US credit-card provider might be of his identity.

He took a pre-approved credit card application form – of the kind that shower most letter-boxes these days – and ripped it into 16 pieces, to simulate a normal, sane reaction to the junk mail. He then gathered together the bits and taped the whole thing back together again – rather inexpertly, it has to be said. He then crossed out his address and substituted an alternative, provided a mobile phone number rather than a fixed line number, and then posted off the decidedly dodgy application. And waited.

Was there ever any doubt that the fully approved card would turn up? “I used my cell phone to activate the card. It was incredibly convenient for me to get a card without having to actually be in my house!” Cockerham reports. “I'm off now to buy some fur coats and Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners! It's like free money!”

March 30, 2006 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (2)

Where should IT staff sit? This apparently simple topic - raised by Stephen Agar-Hutty, chief executive of managed services firm Preferred International - has triggered much discussion in Sneak’s broom-cupboard-sized basement beneath the IT Week office. Agar-Hutty thinks IT staff should be distributed throughout the organisation.

The idea is that IT personnel will sit close to the point of need, and will enable the IT function to become more fully integrated into the organisation, becoming part of every team and not just “those annoying/helpful/useless/talented people/angels/idiots/wasters from the IT department”.

It’s a nice idea in theory, but Sneak worries that “embedded” staff may go native, lose perspective, and perhaps become afflicted by Stockholm syndrome. That is, they may begin to see the users’ cause as their own cause, and start to perceive the company’s PCs as belonging to each user: no longer serious business tools but toys fit only to be stuffed with MP3 libraries, downloadable detritus and kitten screen-savers.

No, keep your IT staff where you can see them, Sneak says.

March 28, 2006 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1)

Toby Douglass, a contributor to the online Risks forum, uncovered this shining example of Tesco’s leadership in customer relationship management, in its guise as a mobile phone provider. “Buried deep, deep in the small print is a brief sentence that says if the customer wishes not to be involved in "market research" [read advertising SMS messages] they need to phone customer services and opt out,” Douglass relates. He duly called, and was asked for his Tesco Clubcard details. When he said he didn’t have a Clubcard, he was told he couldn’t opt out without one. “Tesco can add you to their advertising SMS list without a Clubcard, but they cannot remove you without one,” he says. Fortunately for Douglass, customers services has devised a suitably high-tech workaround: “A shift manager visits a store, picks up a blank card, registers it to the customer and unsubscribes them.”

March 22, 2006 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to earnest science journal Nature, the US Department of Homeland Security has a problem. The 2,400 radiation monitors it is installing at entry points to the US, designed to spot the incoming ingredients of a dirty bomb, can’t tell the difference between weapons-grade fissile material and a bag of cat litter.

“The clay in cat litter gives off enough gamma-rays to trigger a detector,” Nature reports. “The [type of] detectors used at the borders often confuse it with highly enriched uranium.” And this is before the cat has crapped in it.

Researchers at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have come up with an experimental detector that can finally separate the two types of material.

This does lead Sneak to wonder, however, whether a cat’s feet are typically radioactive. And also to worry: surely this means that terrorists seeking radioactive material for their dirty bombs don’t need to go very far to get it? They need look no further than under the puckered bottoms of unwary cats across the nation...

March 20, 2006 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (5)

Sneak is not one of those bed-wetting liberals who wrap themselves in tin foil before they go outside, to stop the RFID tags in their incontinence pads giving their position away to the government. In fact, Sneak reckons using RFID to monitor certain commodities is a wise move – for example high-value products or toxic waste.

However, even Sneak was a trifle concerned to learn that inconspicuous RFID tags are now being embedded in delegate badges at conferences, including the recent CA World and Intel Developer Forum events.

Corporate flaks bleat that the spy-chipped badges allow organisers to track which seminars went down well and which went down like rat poop in your Coco Pops, but Sneak is not convinced - unless the tags can measure boredom levels or detect snoring.

No, Sneak suspects something else is up. It’s just not clear whether the organisers think Sneak is extremely valuable or a piece of toxic waste.

March 14, 2006 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1)

The latest research from scientists in Holland: Half of all malfunctioning products returned to stores by consumers are in full working order, but customers can't figure out how to operate the devices

March 7, 2006 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak needed a new passport today and, naturally, had left it to the last minute. Queuing with the harassed execs and progeny-laden mums for a pre-arranged “appointment” with the Passport Service, Sneak was quite amazed at how far the agency went to explain that UK passports will henceforth contain biometric identity chips. Yes, that's right, nothing at all was said about the facial recognition system that will underpin the new “ePassports”.

A further complication resulted from Sneak’s naive assumption that getting a passport would not involve airline-style X-ray scans of coats and bags, and a metal-detection gate to step through. So the handcuffs probably should have stayed at home.

We should relish the relative privacy of these measures while we can. A California company called SafeView has developed a security scanner that uses millimetre radar to detect objects hidden under clothing.

Apparently the resulting images leave nothing to the imagination, so SafeView provides options to blur or blank out those things most people expect to stay hidden under clothing. Obviously such options are just a sop; clearly even private parts will be rendered in pin-sharp detail if the system is used in anger, or those up to no good will simply stash their contraband in their shorts.

People who mock privacy activists, saying the innocent shouldn’t worry if they have nothing to hide, may want to think again. Everyone has something to hide - barring those who are happy to stroll through the departure lounge with it all hanging out.

March 6, 2006 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1)