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Ego-surfing: frustrated by German hotel

Ever been stalked? Quite fun, really, if it's the BBC that's doing the stalking. - we were trying to find out if it's feasible to get someone's mobile phone to rat on them. And the first showing of this footage went out Thursday night. On BBC World. And I was counting on being able to see it - only, it turns out I was wrong.

To see BBC World, you have to be overseas; I was. The trouble was, it was a hotel in Garmisch, Germany, which carried CNN, but not BBC World. Snookered! Never mind; you can see it this afternoon on BBC News 24 at 4.30, on "Click".

The story first broke in the UK daily newspaper, the Guardian, February 2nd. "How I stalked my girlfriend" was a description by Ben Goldacre who borrowed his girlfriend's phone, and registered it with a tracker service.

As he describes it, he pinched her phone and then logged on to the tracker website, spending five pounds. "Almost immediately, my girlfriend's phone vibrated with a new text message, he reported.

It read: "Ben Goldacre has requested to add you to their Buddy List! To accept, simply reply to this message with 'LOCATE'". Goldacre promptly sent the requested reply.

"The phone vibrated again. A second text arrived: 'WARNING: [this service] allows other people to know where you are. For your own safety make sure that you know who is locating you.' I deleted both these text messages."

So the Click team decided to prove that it really worked, on camera. "Lend us your phone a moment, Guy," said Spencer Kelly.

Shooting it was fun. Of course, the timescale of any film isn't sequential. You shoot all the scenes, and then put the clips together - but the order the clips are glued into, isn't usually the order in which they unreel on the screen.

Nobody is going to persuade me this is a serious problem. There are a hundred and one ways to track someone if you are really determined, and if you can actually steal their phone long enough to sign it up for the tracking service, and delete the message warning the owner that they are being tracked, you're already getting closer to them than would be possible for a stranger. So the chance that some random nutter in New York could grab your data seems, right now, discountable.

What Kelly wanted to know was: should there be laws about it?

I don't think so, frankly.If this does become a problem, then it's perfectly simple to expose the abuses. The tracker services aren't behaving as sensibly as they should and this particular service, operated by World Tracker in the Isle of Man, has been exposed, and has had to admit it needs to tighten up. It should send regular texts reminding the tracked person that they are being monitored, and it didn't.

Frankly, what worries me more, is the realisation that this information is available at all. How "voluntary" is it if the tracked person is an employee? "We're going to keep tabs on your - accept this, or lose your job" isn't exactly the way someone volunteers.

And even more worrying is the realisation that a Government can get it. In some countries, you may well feel that your own particular Government is likely to use this only to track villains - but history and politics show that this is the exception, rather than a rule.

What's rather worrying, is the possibility that people will set up fake stalking.

For a woman who has broken up with a violent man, it would be very, very scary to get a text saying "YOUR BOYFRIEND can track this phone at any time..." and it would not be hard for that boyfriend to borrow another phone every now and then to send "reminder" texts.

If you got such a text, would you feel certain it was fake?

  Tags: mobile, stalking

the i-Kew in REALLY hot water? Not at all.

Covering the NetEvents European Summit, we are in snowy Garmisch, Germany. The organisers have been bitterly disappointed: they've had to book the Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl for the delegates - the Castle Hotel carelessly burned down. And (more local colour) we have been sliding around on horse-drawn sleds and drinking Glüwein  and listening to Alpenhorn music.

And drinking unspeakably bad tea.

Your correspondent may not be invited again. Last seen standing in front of an impatient queue of coffee drinkers, he was pouring the contents of the "hot water" jug over his fingers into an icy tea-cup, and explaining the basics of tea making to the baffled hotel staff.

The thing is, they just don't like tea here... if they did, why would they put UHT milk in it?

Anyway, there is good news: a Charity Auction was held last night, at which a total of £32,095 was raised for Cancer Research. So it was all worth while. Can I go home, now?

Tags: NetEvents

Not nice enough to be a ThinkPad?

I could cope with the idea of buying my ThinkPad from Lenovo. Why not? I've done that since about four years ago. It said "IBM" on the front, but it was that reassuringly matt grey and ThinkPad appearance which we'd learned to trust.

Now, suddenly, we have this silver thing.

The news that people will pick up on is maybe not true - that Lenovo is dropping ThinkPad - but that's what it's going to look like. Also, it's going to look like they're going down-market -  the Lenovo 3000 C Series notebooks start at $599.

Why, if you have a ThinkPad brand, would you dilute it? What's wrong with the new machines, that means they don't warrant the ThinkPad look and feel? Is it really clever to make your loyal customers ask these questions?

The good news is that even more of the Lenovo range will be non-Intel based. Is that enough?

Another day flying, another search for painkillers

This "tech reporter" business involves too much air time. I'm here in Garmisch, on the Southern borders of Bavaria, surrounded by beautiful snowy scenery - and you'd think I'd be grateful. If you have to attend a seminar and work like a demon, what better place that beautiful countryside, a Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl to pander to your whims, and no home chores?

But the fact is that nothing can make up for having to get out of bed two hours too early. Well, possibly, the fact that it wasn't three hours too early can sort of make up for some of it! - but essentially, it's crap. And, inevitably, it generates a headache. And of course, I've left the painkillers at home. With my business cards.

The occasion: the NetEvents European Press Summit. The assignment: the "inflection point in the network world" - including things like IMS and MSF and LTE and convergence.

Things I'm specially looking forward to: the MultiService Forum plans for the future, the "intelligent spectrum expert" analyser from startup, Cognio, a progress report from Hatteras Networks and even infrastructure stuff, which normally seems less exciting, from people like Infoblox.

And of course, a chance to catch up with Mesh networking from Strix and even 3Com.

Finally, a chance to improve my German [see picture above, right]. Or something...

Tags: hotspots, NetEvents, LTE, IMS and Berlitz!

I need a gas maintainer. Not HomeCare.

An open letter to Energywatch. It's an open letter, because they don't respond to personal emails to the Press Office.

It is cold, in London in Winter. Accordingly, I take precautions, and have a HomeCare maintenance contract with British Gas.

As a result, it is cold in my house. It shouldn't be. I have it serviced every year, and I have HomeCare 300  which is supposed to cover "central heating, plumbing and drains" - and ah, yes; talking of plumbing, I can't open the tap in the loo, either, or turn off the tap in the bath.

Are these maintenance contracts meant to keep the system working efficiently? Or are they just a way of getting a salesman to call? Because it seems, increasingly, to be the latter.

Two weeks ago, I had the gasman out. He said: "Oooh" and he sucked his teeth. "Your water is all gungy," he said. He sucked his teeth, and nodded his head sadly. Then he tapped all the radiator valves, and broke one. Diagnosis: "You'll have to drain the whole system, flush it out with a chemical costing about a hundred quid, put another chemical in to inhibit rust. Course, if we'd installed the boiler, the system would have a rust inhibitor in it..."

And anyway, it was going to cost us. "You'll have to have a Power Flush," he said ominously. "We send a couple of guys around, with a big pump and lots of pipes. They isolate each radiator in turn, and pump high pressure water through. Then they drain the system, and fill it up with the rust inhibitor. But we didn't install it, so that's not covered. It will be at least 650 quid, that's the minimum, and take around two days, maybe more. Course, you don't have to use our services..."

But over the next two weeks, the "freed up" valves turned out not to be freed up. Which was puzzling, because when he broke one of the valves, the water came out pretty freely. It covered the floor, flooded the cellar, and destroyed quite a lot of paperwork in range. And yet... we did have hot water, so obviously it was working, right?

Wrong. I got back from 3GSM and found that the heating was stone cold. I repeated his trick of "freeing up" the valves; nothing. So I went and had a look at the boiler.

Turns out the hot water was being generated by an electric immersion heater. The pipes coming out of the gas boiler were cold. The pump was working, circulating cold water around the system.

Well, not entirely cold, because it was going through the hot water tank! - and every time it went through that, it warmed up a bit. And then, it made the radiators a bit warmer. And that was it! - the boiler wasn't heating the water.

The mystery of how a regularly maintained boiler can fail to produce hot water is matched by the mystery of how an engineer can fail to see whether the water is actually hot. I should have suspected it wasn't hot when he broke the valve. He managed to keep his hand on the open valve, and even, to put it back together. Not what you'd expect with hot water... but I was downstairs at the time.

And why was I downstairs? I was trying to turn off the main stopcock, at his instructions! I failed, because the main stopcock is jammed. And that's the amusing bit. Remember the "central heating, plumbing and drains" claim? Why do you suppose the stopcock isn't working, if Homecare is maintaining it?

It's easily explained (they say). After we'd been paying the extra fee for extending it to include plumbing and drains for about five years, we found that the spare wash basin in the loo downstairs was not offering hot water. The hot tap wouldn't turn. It was duff. So I called HomeCare.

"Oh, we don't do taps! We can't get the parts!" said the friendly HomeCare call centre. "Sorry!"

So I need a new gas maintenance company.

By the way, check out the terms and conditions as advertised. "HomeCare 300 cares for your whole central heating system as well as your plumbing and drains. It includes:

• Parts and labour costs
• Unlimited call outs
• Yearly Safety and Maintenance Inspection for your whole central heating system
• Maintenance Inspection of your plumbing system every two years
• Over 5,500 qualified and CORGI registered engineers
• 24-hour, 365-day manned helpline

Notice anything about "no taps"? and "oh, we have to install the water, or it's not covered"? or "ah, we maintain the system, but if it goes wrong, you have to pay 650 quid to have us flush it out"?

Thought not.

Tags: central heating, energy policy, maintenance and British Gas

Just look at the styrofoam! Of COURSE you want the computer!

Quote of the week: "Figure 3: The Styrofoam inside the case has a cool circular cutout pattern. "

The blogosphere's reputation for obsessing about absurd trivia is safe, as long as people are happy to welcome a new Apple by showing a picture of the styrofoam packaging, I reckon. Who cares about the dilemma of a Russian based web site which publishes ways to hack Mac OS? Let's get down and dirty with the wrapper. Oooh!

The picture was taken by one Jason O'Grady, as he unpacked his new MacBook Pro.

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, Maxxuss has been busily patching a copyright-free (illegal?) version of the Intel X86 version of Mac OS. Since Maxxuss is based in Russia, Apple can do no more about it than the RIAA can do about AllofMP3 - and so instead, Steve Jobs closes down legitimate web sites which mention Maxxuss, until they agree to delete the references. (That's really going to sort those Russians out! Right?)

So, issues about freedom of speech, the rule of law, and actual technology can be ignored; we have pictures of the Styrofoam! Exclusive!

Tags: Maxxuss, MacOS, and OSx86 Project

Nibbles at Nibb'lous

I depend, for much of my income, on the expertise of Horus Web Engineering - web site builders, who seem to amuse themselves between designing high power web sites for corporates, by designing proof-of-concept or wacky sites.

Their latest is dear to my heart. It's recipes.

It's nostalgia. When I first started writing about "microcomputers" as we used to call them, people were very insistent on pointing out how useless a personal computer would be. "What on earth would you use it for?" they mocked. I used to say: "Word processing, of course!" which caused hilarity.

"What, you think businessmen (men, you notice?) are going to learn to type, and make themselves look like typistes?" Ha ha ha.

"Well," we pioneers would say, "one thing you could do is to keep a list of all your recipes. Then, when you had a strange group of stuff in the fridge, you could enter what ingredients you had, and match them against the recipes."

So Nibb'lous, "something which may be nibbled" is full circle. You'll have noticed that almost nobody uses a PC for recipes. The Web, yes. And that's what this site is for; you dump your own favourites in, and search for those of others; and refer to URLs where you find good ones.

This particular site is an example of what they can do with aobut half an hour's work - and this is what it looks like after that half an hour! I'd expect loads of new features in a week or so, as visitors offer comments and feedback.

  Tags: recipes, website building, and Horus Web Engineering,

Suddenly, I feel good about Spam...

How could I not feel part of something great? It turns out that all those popups and popunders have helped a bright athlete to win a gold medal!

And, it turns out, it's cool to spam-post to Digg - in the sense that Nathan Weinberg has confessed to it. And he is asking for help installing Pligg in case it does what Digg has failed to do for him! (He has a Sense of Humour). Also, he appears to be short of dosh, because a Pligger called Manatee will do it: "If anyone doesn't want the hassle of trying to install Pligg themselves, let me know and I can do it for you for a reasonable fee. Email me at manateemedia at gmail.com" he writes.

Next week: after the downhill skiing champion claims to have funded his training with spyware, an uphill gardener boasts of getting to the bottom of sponsorship with a rent-boy business? Who can tell what seven days of Olympic fever can bring!

Meanwile, if you can stand Flash, try Yankidank... - it's "buggy" but inspiring! And if you can find a tutorial on how to market fake Viagara so as to fund my next asymmetric dinghy...

  Tags: spam, sexual scandal, or spyware

Clean money? Web Money laundering gets it whiter!

You can't use PayPal to pay your bills at AllOfMP3.com as was noted earlier. But you can use PayPal to pay your XRost bill (reports reader Loei).

And XRost says it is entirely anonymous.

Which may, or may not be true, of course; and to be quite frank, I can't see how I can establish the truth of it, or otherwise, without invoking Interpol and various national security and spy agencies, not to mentio a team of undercover auditors.

But in a world where money can be transferred around the Web like this, I do think our money laundering laws are a bit of a joke.

Recently, my niece achieved an age - she's 13 - where the money we've paid into a trust fund for her becomes available. So we asked the bank to make her a signatory to the account.

No can do, they assured us.

But, it's her money, we said. We've paid 100 quid into that account three or four times a year for a decade! There's around two thousand quid, and she needs it for college!

"OK, here's what we need. We need her to come in with a signature verified by two forms of ID, including a utility bill in her name showing her address," said the bank.

Since my niece lives in Spain, and is only 13, she can't just pop in. And she honestly doesn't pay the water, or the phone or the gas bill, nor the family rates.

"Then we can't help you," said the bank. "More than my job's worth," said the "manager" across the table. "Sorry!"

So we closed the account, and sent the money overseas by buying Euros at a local Bureau de Change, and putting it in an envelope, and insuring it. Thus, we didn't break the law and guess what! - the money got there faster than if we'd used BACS to transfer it. And thus a dangerous international money fraud was averted, right?

  Tags: money laundering, Xrost and PayPal