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A combination of work, travel and laziness has meant I’ve not been doing much online for the past couple of weeks. To this end, at this point I have about 600 blog posts and 239 emails (mostly Identity Gang) to read. Frankly, that’s appalling, but I have read a couple of interesting books (and not the sort of thing I’d normally read either)…

Luckily, with the Christmas break almost upon us, I should be able to catch up with things, but I’ll be making a start over the next 24 hours!

I’ve also, partly due to my increased workload, been somewhat re-invigorated and should actually have some interesting thoughts…

The Technology Liberation Front: Taking the Irritation Out of Commercials
Sky and Google link up
Tim Lee’s piece on the TLF was written before the announcement from Sky & Google and seems strangely prophetic.

A couple of weeks ago I was driving home late at night and, stupidly, got caught by a speed camera. I was doing a fairly reasonable (in my opinion!) 81mph, but there’s not a lot that one can do when the letter arrives. I’ve commented before on the increased dependency on machines (and bureaucracy) to watch over us (whether that be databases containing our health records or criminal records used to make decisions about us or our children) and speed cameras are another element of that. Instead of a policeman (who can make a judgement about my driving, taking into account conditions, other traffic and how I act) there’s a camera, which takes a photo that gets sent out with the question - “were you driving?”.

I responded, sending a cheque to the nice people and admitting my guilt, barely giving it another thought, until I got a message today (Hi Richard!) pointing out the danger of the sending the forms. Along with the form itself, one needs to send one’s driving license (both parts - including the photo card, which is the most common photo ID in use). The main form though - requires a whole slew of personal data, but nothing too unusual. What caught my eye (and Richard’s) was the payment details - the form contains a nice section for paying with a credit card, but remarkably requires one to enter the CCV (three digit security code on the back)!! Do these people seriously expect anyone to send this through the unprotected postal service - especially when we harp on about using encryption online?

For anyone wishing to commit fraud, either regular or identity-based, then targeting these letters in the postal service would be a good start!

Businesspundit: How To Network: For Introverts

Like a good number of people in the technology sector I’m somewhat introverted naturally and have to make an effort to get involved in networking related activities. Over time I’ve gotten better at it (my Myers-Briggs type is still INTJ, but the last time I took the test I was a lot less introverted) and this has accelerated as my career has required it (and I think it gets naturally easier with age anyway). However, I’m also on the lookout on ways that I can improve further and Businesspundit has some good tips here.

I’ve also recently picked up the book “Little Black Book of Connections: 6.5 Assets for Networking Your Way to Rich Relationships” which has some wonderful tips (I could probably sum them up as “be nice to people” and “don’t lie”, but there’s more to it than that). There are two things this this highlights - first is that there’s nothing compared to getting out, shaking hands and making a face-to-face impact to get results (although tools such as linkedin can be useful). Secondly, and especially for us technology geeks - it’s worth remembering that Metcalfe’s Law applies to real-life networks as well…

NHS Confidentiality « Michael Cole’s Web Journal

Michael Cole seems to have his head screwed on regarding some of these issues (and in the process has reminded me just how difficult it is to be a teenager sometimes). One of the biggest potential problems with the ongoing CfH saga is this question of data privacy - rules at the moment are such that for anyone to view my medical records requires a release form to be signed, once the “spine” is in place then it will be required that everyone’s data be stored centrally and be available to persons other than my own doctor (I won’t go into some of the scaremongering that I could from here!).

What was particularly interesting to me is this post from John Battelle about Google and health information, which was next in Google reader (now my favoured RSS reader). As Battelle says this is a “huge problem to be addressed”, but I think there’s a major dichotomy between Google’s approach to freeing data and the protection that health records deserve! The other factor, of course, is the ongoing cost of the CfH project and the attempts to centralise our personal data