Big brother

I had my security hat on this afternoon and was researching some of the most recent stories out there when I stumbled upon a story on Silicon which claimed that officials made more than 500,000 requests to snoop on private phone and internet information in the UK last year.

More than 1,400 requests per day were made to spy on phone call records and web traffic last year, up on the average of less than 350,000 per year over the previous two years.

Quite interesting reading and again makes you think about the big brother nature of all communication devices.  Although, surely it is human nature to be a little nosey and isn’t the success of Facebook based upon the fact that you get to know what people are up to without them knowing who specifically is reading their entries?

This leads me to another story I read about Facebook’s plans to broaden its reach online and predictions for the market.  I have spent a fair bit of time over the past few weeks looking at social networks and was intrigued to read about his predictions that there would soon be a wave of social web sites built on top of the information users give to social networks.

One of the features being launched is Facebook Connect, a way that other sites can integrate parts of Facebook’s service. Web sites can ask users for their Facebook user name and password, instead of creating an identity verification system themselves, and offer their users the ability to import their list of friends from Facebook.  The interesting part of Facebook Connect is it is a two-way highway — information about a user’s activity on those other Web sites also travels back and appears on the “news feed” on Facebook, where it is seen by that person’s friends on the service.

Saying that it is not just the internet people should worry about.  I actually borrowed a laptop this evening to do some writing at home which had been owned by an ex colleague.  I have to say it was quite eye opening to see what said colleague had been searching for – nothing sinister just plain stupid I am afraid and rather embarrassing if I am honest.

Is nothing we do actually private anymore?

You are the weakest link goodbye

One of my colleagues Emma has secured the chance to be a contestant on what I think is quite easily the worst TV game show around – the Weakest Link.  According to Emma the best the winner can hope to win is £10k which don’t get me wrong I would be over the moon to recieve but only the winner has a chance of recieving this. 

During lunch today we were all sat around the table helping her practice by reading questions from The Weekest Link book.  I was struck by how rubbish my general knowledge was and there was a concensus that I was infact the weekest link.  Charming.

Any way, agent Emma has been set the task of trying to sneak in our company name of one of our clients during the filming – not an easy ask as they are quite strict over at the Beeb!  Good luck Emma – can’t wait to see you on the show even if I do hate it.  What a hero.

Fact or fiction

It appears from reading El Reg today that Wikipedia is now being targeted by Google with its latest launch – Knol.  Unlike Wikipedia Knol asks that you put your name on what ever you write with the key being authorship. 

According to the story others can edit your Knol but not without your approval.  Readers can make a suggested edit to a Knol but ultimately the author has to choose whether to accept of decline.
This all kind of makes sense but I have to say I am a little disappointed.  I like the fact that a lot of entries on Wikipedia are bollocks and the fact that people can hide behind the anonymity that it provides.  Surely part of the fun of Wikipedia is trying to guess if what you are reading is true or an elaborate hoax.