Some clever boffins at Warwick University have invented a new device called a PED Cradle that could help retailers prevent 'shoulder surfers' – crims who linger with intent behind innocent customers and watch as they type in their PIN number – by distorting the view of anyone not looking directly at the keypad.

Well, it sounds very impressive, but the thing was actually invented to help partially sighted consumers to use chip and PIN, so it's actually just a glorified magnifying glass. I'm not even sure how many cases there are of shoulder surfing anyway… you'd have to get up pretty close and personal to the shopper in front of you to spy their PIN, and then work out how to nick their card afterwards.

For the merchant too it's hardly going to make much difference because the banks will pick up the bill for any card fraud resulting if the shop has had chip and PIN installed. It's yet to be seen how many stores will fork out 70-odd quid for a large piece of magnifying glass to ward off those pesky PIN peekers, but Boots seems to think it's onto a winner.

The problem with security is that the more secure you make something, the more likely the user will take chances with it. It's our wont as humans to live dangerously – seat belts? Nah, I'll take my chances; I'm only going round the corner. So it might be that new anti-fraud measures like this persuade shoppers to be more blasé about guarding their pin or choosing a hard-to-remember number. And just think, if we make card fraud virtually impossible, the criminal fraternity will go back to basics: a large blunt instrument and the element of surprise. Dunno about you but I'd rather have my PIN nicked.

May 26, 2006 in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've had a rethink about hating Bluetooth because of the hand-waving buffoons its tends to attract, most of whom seem to sit next to me on the bus home. I realised it would be wrong to shoot the messenger, so to speak. It's not the technology, it's the people who use it.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of sitting next to Essex Man – a diamond geeza apparently on his way 'ome after an 'ard day selling jellied eels – who proceeded to shout into his state-of-the-art 3G phone with built-in 3-megapixel camera and digital music player, all the way to Elephant & Castle. On the way I had the pleasure of hearing, even though I turned up my iPod until my ears were bleeding, about his mother's urinary tract infection – the doctas don't nah nuffink – and his sister's brush wiv an 'appy slapper. I would usually have moved, but the postcard-sized piece of seat that he had graciously afforded me to perch on was just too comfortable. I think Dagenham Dave was on a mission to single-handedly reimburse Vodafone for the billions it over-hastily splashed out on a 3G licence. Well, somebody's got to.

May 25, 2006 in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

World Cup fever has descended on the IT Week office. Well, not really… we put up a fixtures list and draped the St George's Cross over one of the pot plants is about all. But take a walk around VNU’s palatial Central London offices (palatial in a Baghdad-palace kinda way) and you'll detect a certain something in the air. Is it the buzz of anticipation at the imminent arrival of the world's greatest sporting event? No, more like an air of desperation as the cream of the editorial staff focus all their efforts on persuading an IT vendor to take them over to Deutschland to see a game: "You're right, I don't normally cover network attached storage, but as you’re a World Cup sponsor I'd love to hear more about your product portfolio. Pleeeeeeease."

Top marks for best bit of sponsorship probably goes to Lenovo for hiring Ronaldinho to plug its products... unless the buck-toothed genius gets his knee-cap rearranged by a Croatian defender in the first game, that is. The Barca superstar has been snapped up for an eye-watering sum to be the firm's worldwide brand ambassador, apparently. Whether that means we can look forward to seeing TV adverts of twinkle-toes playing keepy-up with a Lenovo notebook remains to be seen.

Gaming companies aside, footy players and IT brands always seem to be a bit of an incongruous partnership, probably because technology exudes the impression that you have to be intelligent to operate it. I'm trying but I really can't see Wayne Rooney configuring his firewall settings or David Beckham immersed in a spreadsheet. It would make for a pretty interesting advert though, doomed to appear on one of those “hilarious” round-up shows that go out on a Tuesday night presented by a minor TV celebrity. Alright, I've obviously thought this through far too much.

May 24, 2006 in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Little did I know when I penned my previous missive on the inadequacies of Bluetooth, that these ubiquitous metal earplugs could actually be used for evil. Well, I have to report some sinister developments. If you don't want to end up as a seven-foot-tall humourless metal android with a tinny voice and ostensibly no hole to relieve yourself from, I suggest you bin the things.

Actually, even if being made out of metal and having no emotions appeals to you (maybe you're an Immigration Officer, for example) I'd just chuck them anyway. Don't believe me? Then take a look at the Cybus Corporation web site....

May 23, 2006 in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some people think we’ve got a problem with celebrity in this country, making nobodies into superstars overnight just because they can’t keep their underwear on, or are unbelievably stupid, or are blonde... or all three come to think of it. We seem intent on filling our newspapers, TV screens and web sites with ‘dalendless shids’, as Alan Partridge would have it.

In a way, blogging is the perfect extension to this phenomena – it’s a level playing field where anyone can become famous, or infamous. Forget the faceless execs droning on about the business benefits of their wonderful products, toeing the corporate line, there are now hundreds of blog awards for the cream of the crop, with the prospect of fame and fortune for us nobodies a real possibility.

But when you think it’s gone as far as it can, Japan cranks it up another notch. It is of course a country where celebrities aren’t so much loved as worshipped, adored with religious fervour, but also one in which you could become a celebrity by walking down the street in slightly unusual clothes, as I once discovered.

The new rising star in the Far East is one Nakagawa Shoko, or Shoko-tan to her adoring fans, a young lassie whose blog notched up a whopping 100 million visits last month, and has seen as many as 600,000 in one day. Now Shoko-tan is not actually a nobody, oh no… She’s an ex-bikini model to be precise, which may have given her something of a running start, and now the money-making machine has picked her up and launched her on what could be the start of a glittering career in pop.

I’d like to see the analytics of her site, but I’d be prepared to wager a few yen that a fair proportion are otakus: single, socially inept men who live with their mothers and usually have a fondness for computers, staying in their bedrooms most of the day and, well, blogging. And judging from the content of Shoko-tan’s blog – pictures of her cats, assorted pastries and, mostly, her own impossibly manga-beautiful face – they are after one thing only. And it ain't snaps of her pussy-cat.

But good luck to her. In many ways blogging is the perfect technology for Japanese to exploit because – without wanting to cast any stereotypes, but aware that I’m about to do just that – it’s anonymous, socially cohesive and can allow for hero worship on a grand scale.

But while Shoko-tan may get carried away with her newly found fame, I hope someone is feeding her words of caution, because the attrition rate for celebrities in the land of the rising sun is brutal. There are not enough second-rate satellite channels on the planet to house all the former men and women of the moment who have been chewed up and spat out by Japanese media.

May 19, 2006 in Television | Permalink | Comments (1)

Consultancy Deloitte has just released a report into the way we'll live in 2010, which sounds very futuristic but it's actually only 4 years away, which is a bit scary. Anyway, according to the Touchers, our cars will become "an extension of the living room" including a range of on-board entertainment features – TVs, DVD and MP3 players, and internet connectivity will all be integrated into many new vehicles. Sadly no mention here of the multitude of remote control devices that will get lost about two weeks after you buy them, the dodgy table with one leg shorter than the others, and a slightly stained sofa, which would make the predictions chime a lot better with my own personal vision of the living room.

For the business worker, meanwhile, spending most of your brain-power trying not to kill yourself and everyone else on the road, or even worse, ending up on Police, Camera, Action to be tutted at by Alastair Stewart, will soon be no excuse not to get some work done too. The car of the future is likely to feature technology to read out incoming emails to the driver, allow the driver to dictate responses with speech recognition, or set up meetings and write memos, according to Deloitte. And the car itself will be able to assist with giving directions, controlling headlamps and wipers, and slamming on the brakes if the poor driver forgets to.

"But this may not necessarily mean that road travel will be safer," the report helpfully adds. I should think not. Call me cynical but these innovations could prove to be ever so slightly distracting for the driver. (BTW, I was going to include a few disparaging remarks about all the crap cars I’ve driven over the past 10 years, but having read the livid responses to Sneak’s light-hearted poke at Land Rover owners, I think I'd probably better leave it this time.)

May 18, 2006 in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Far from wanting to publicise my boss's blog, I must however agree with his point that most television news at the moment is a bit rubbish. In fact, to that you could add most news full stop, including newspapers online and in print. Now I'm no George Orwell but the reason is pretty obvious to me – there's a lot of dodgy journalism knocking about. Some of it you need a degree in journalism to spot, but most of it you blatantly don't.

I'd like to think that Guy Kewney's recent brush with ignominy has discouraged media whores everywhere from setting foot near a reporter, but actually if that happened our papers would be blank and our 24-hour rolling TV coverage devoid of, well, coverage. Given the often impossible time pressures, resource constraints, and frankly, the lack of motivation to do otherwise, a ready supply of folk who give good quotes can be a godsend for those on daily publications.

Of course, there are other methods – a mate of mine (not working at IT Week, I hasten to add) sprinkles made-up quotes liberally into his stories, which is only slightly less ethical than deliberately seeking out a reliable source to round out a story.

By the way, that dull rattling sound you can hear is Mr Orwell slowly revolving in his grave.

May 17, 2006 in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

What did you do last weekend? Dig the garden? Spot of DIY? Take the kids to the park? Not me. I saw the beating heart of the internet, walked among its entrails and felt its power reverberate through my bones. Alright, I got confused with The Matrix a bit there, but it felt like that in the cavernous datacentre of web hosting firm Strato.

Sometimes writing about technology it’s easy to become detached from the hard reality – the nuts and bolts, servers and wires, chips and switches. And sometimes you forget the awe-inspiring technological achievements we have made in recent decades. Strato is one of the largest hosts in Europe, with about 15,000 servers and growing at its Berlin base. Quite a sight, and quite a site – although its location is a strict secret so if I told you, I'd have to kill you (both).

Opening the door and stepping into the darkness, surrounded by a constellation of flashing green lights; the heavy whirr of power supplies and the drone of the servers ringing in my ears, I could almost understand why CTOs get so excited about their kit... almost. Trip a wire and half of Germany's web sites could be taken offline: whoops, there goes Munich.

Returning to The Matrix, there’s a point in the second film where the wise councillor is talking to our wooden hero - you know, one of the pretentious bits of cod philosophising that punctuate the general, gratuitous violence throughout the trilogy. Anyway, the point is that we all take machines for granted - we don’t care how they work as long as they do their job and keep us warm, wake us up in the morning, get us to work, give us drinkable water, and so on. Well, that’s perhaps nowhere more true than in our attitude towards the internet. Who knows or cares about the vast server farms dotted around the world that enable us to book our summer holidays, watch that TV programme we missed, or read our favourite news site for IT managers? Yet these systems are paddling furiously under the surface to keep us happy, and to keep firms online and visible 24x7.

May 16, 2006 in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

There are many misconceptions people have about this noble profession, this fourth estate. We are a hard-drinking, hard-partying bunch of cynical blaggers, out for everything we can cadge as some form of recompense for the pittance of a crust we earn, apparently. Well, that’s pretty much on the money actually. But what folk often assume is that just because my colleagues and I are frequently summoned to all corners of Europe, North America, and sometimes beyond on business, that we are therefore enjoying some kind of glamorous playboy lifestyle of jet-setting, gorgeous people and wild parties.

Well, I penned this entry from a 40cm-wide American Airlines cattle-class seat, which was slightly less comfortable than sitting on a toilet for 10 hours with your legs tied together. After purchasing a beer from the trolley (yes buying... on a long-haul flight, no less) at prices normally reserved for the type of club I never get into, I was treated to a movie that I can only assume went straight to DVD. I say assume, because I could neither hear (headphones broken), nor see it (many heads, only one central cinema-style screen). My attempts at sleep were interrupted by two charming Mexican children who seemed to have left their manners behind in London,but not, sadly, their capacity to repeatedly kick the back of my seat, and by the amply proportioned stewardess who grazed my head with her hips every time she passed by.

I arrived in Dallas, one of the fattest cities in the fattest country in the world, where I spent three days in a conference centre listening to a lot of very rich, middle-aged men talk about roadmaps and revolutionising the way businesses do something or other. I awoke at 3am, and from then on at hourly intervals, every night. Never once was I able to bask under the glorious, cloudless spring skies, relax in the spa, or see where a very famous bloke was shot in the 60s. Now, don't get me wrong, three days out of the office is three days out of the office... but just to set the record straight: it’s business, not pleasure.

May 9, 2006 in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (2)

Bluetooth has a lot to answer for in my book. Not the 10th Century Danish king Harold Bluetooth, with whom I personally have no quarrel (although the tentativeness of the link between his moniker and that of the now-ubiquitous short-range wireless connection standard does cause mild irritation). No, it is what said technology has done to my perception of my fellow man that is causing me problems.

Back in the day, if you were travelling on public transport late at night, and the person sitting next to you suddenly began speaking loudly, apparently to anyone within a 10-yard radius, rattling off non-sequiturs like the denouement of a Harold Pinter play, you would immediately think about changing seats. Turning sideways, the full horror of the adjacent passenger would be revealed – huge grizzled beard, missing teeth, the stench of stale super-strength lager...  you get the picture.

These days, I've lost count of the times I have needlessly given up my seat on a crowded bus only to look back and find a well-dressed white-collar worker babbling away to his line manager on a wireless headset. The hands-free capability allows these people to gesticulate wildly in the air, you see, while the modern, ergonomically designed headsets are a marginally more stylish fashion accessory than sticking a fag behind your ear.

Apart from making the user look like an extra in a made-for-TV sci-fi movie, these earpieces are virtually impossible to don speedily, as Stephen Merchant effectively demonstrated in the recent series of TV comedy Extras. They’re also not very comfortable.

Well, I've learned my lesson now. My rage and sense of cultural dislocation has dissipated slightly, but I'd still like to see the damn things sent back to 10th century Denmark, or wherever they came from.

May 5, 2006 in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

The launch of the Institute of Information Security Professionals (IISP) at the end of February was attended by the great and good of the IT security profession. Well, actually, it’s not really a profession is it? That’s what the IISP is hoping to achieve. Anyway, there is always an element of the self-congratulatory at this sort of event, but the aims of the new organisation certainly seem laudable. The mutual back-slapping was kept to a minimum, and there appears to be a pressing need for a central body to galvanise IT security practitioners, to encourage more high-flyers to take up the role and to drive up standards.

It’s the journalist’s prerogative be cynical, so I’ve got to say it’s still a case of wait and see on this one – the ISSP may well struggle to make an impression in an already overcrowded throng of self-appointed IT bodies, unless it begins to add real value for its members.

A few weeks later I sat around a table with representatives from the IISP, the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (ISC2), IT recruitment agencies and, most interestingly, some MSc infosecurity students. Some of these bright young things had obviously not been to diplomacy school, but delivered some harsh lessons that I hope all the many, many IT organisations and associations will take to heart. One said he’d chucked in his British Computer Society membership because he expects more than a quarterly magazine for his fee. Another suggested that the large number of certifications currently on offer makes it very confusing for the IT security worker trying to decide which qualifications he or she needs for a particular job. Keep up the good work lads.

Something that hasn't been widely reported, though, is the potential benefits that the ISSP could bring in law enforcement. Tony Neate of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) made a convincing case for the ISSP, highlighting that every other profession, including law, accountancy and medicine, has an official body to which the police can turn when they need independent expert witnesses or help with ongoing investigations.

Neate’s point is no doubt very true, but the number of successful prosecutions for IT-related crime is much more likely to be raised by proposed changes in the Computer Misuse Act (CMA) and stronger international co-operation.

May 4, 2006 in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

The dark Machiavellian underbelly of domain name administration was exposed the other week, or it was if you believe Bob Parsons, CEO of hilariously-titled registrar GoDaddy.com. Mr Parsons is not, as I first thought, a retired Radio 2 DJ, but he is claiming that failings in the registrar application process established by .eu registry Eurid has enabled over 20 separate groups to create hundreds of “phantom” registrars to do their bidding. This conjures up images of shadowy figures in Armani suits puffing on fat Montecristos and slapping each other on the back to hearty guffaws, but this image may, sadly, be false. Eurid has vigorously denied the allegations.
While Parsons’ view makes a great story, it’s hard not to suspect that the whole thing is just a case of sour grapes. According to German ISP Strato, which is one of the largest .eu registrars, GoDaddy’s success rate in obtaining its customers their requested names is around the 30 percent mark, while Strato’s own hit rate has peaked at around 70 percent. More to the point, though, as Strato chief executive Damian Schmidt pointed out to me, registrars are in the business to make money, and there will always be some who choose to make as much as possible by auctioning off the most sought-after names in their possession to the highest bidder. And if you don’t like them onions, better find a new career. (My addition.)

May 3, 2006 in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1)