PARTINGSHOTS
130 JULY2020|COMPUTERSHOPPER|ISSUE389
Zygote
Coronavirusmay havebroughtthe worldtoahalt,butit’spromptedonegovernment
servicetorollout anITschemequickly, efficientlyandunderbudget.Strangedays,indeed
Although the HTTPS padlock
shows in the browser address
bar,users aren’t aware that when
their credit cards are authorised,
the payment form is registered
to an email address with the
Russian provider Yandex. If this
seems suspicious forapayment
system on aleading US branded
website, it’s because it is.
COURTINTHEACT
As the nation struggled to adapt
to the health crisis, HM Courts
and Tribunals Service budgeted
forlawyers and judges to conduct
hearings via Skype.Infact, there
were plans forafuture spend of
£1.2bn to replace all criminal
trials with video conference calls.
The plans had been long
delayed, amid accusations of
inefficiency and overspending.
But, of course,everythinghas
now changed, and there are
three systems up and running for
use in our courtrooms.
The Justice Video Service is a
secure system used between
fixed locations such as remand
centres, crown courts, probation
offices andprisons. Skype for
Business has been installed on
court-issued laptops, and is being
used by judges and court staff.
BT Meet Me is now the approved
audio conferencing system.
And the cost? Afraction of
what had been originally quoted,
and all delivered almost instantly.
SEX SCANDAL
Watford Community Housing is
not only responsible formore
than 3,500 tenants, it is also
responsible forthe online data
security of all those people.
Those people could include
residents seeking sanctuary from
abusive partners, as well as
individuals housed under the
witness protection scheme.In
which case,sending out amass
email to awhole load of
recipients on acompletely
different mailing list would seem
like areally bad idea, even it was
simply a‘please updateyour
contactdetails’ jobbie.
The innocent-looking email
included an attached spreadsheet
with 3,544 rows of data, including
the names, addresses and dates
of birth of all the organisation’s
tenants, their ethnic origin,
disability status, religion and,
scandalously,sexual orientation.
Four hours later,Watford
Community Housing sent
everyone asecondemail along
the lines of,‘whoops, please
deletethe first one’. That seems
to confirm the cock-up was
neither ahacknor asystemerror,
butidiocy.Zygoteisunsurprised
to learn that it is now “in
engagement with the Information
Commissioner’s Office”.
Meanwhile,across the pond,
Microsoftsentout an internal
email about discount deals for
employees, families and friends,
which came completewitha
Reply-All default. Unfortunately,
every time it was copied and sent
on to anew list of contacts,it
simply added the new email
addresses to the snowballing list.
At the last count, the number of
addresses in this unstoppable
chain of MicrosoftReply-All
messages had reached 52,000.
CELIA LIPS
The fashion forsaddling virtual
assistants with girly names
continues. Amazon has its Alexa,
Microsoftemploys Cortana,
Apple offers us Siri, and now
Huawei announces the arrival of
Celia. This coincides with the
announcement of itsown
headphones, speakers and
‘ear-worn wearable’accessories.
As you would expect, Celia
helps users to set reminders and
send messages, but so farshe is
not toobright when it comes to
answering questions, mostly
because Huawei has been
cold-shouldered by Google’s
mobile services.
Instead, Huawei has done a
deal with the French search
engine Quant, which has arather
unfortunatepronunciation in
certain English accents. Zygote
supposes that it’s more politeto
make users shout ‘heyCelia’at
their phones rather than the
alternative ‘heyQuant!’
GETTINGSARKY
It has taken all of 20 years for
the International Standards
Organisation to recognise the
online existence of Sark, the
smallest of the Channel Islands.
But although the Organisation
has decided to grant the little
island atwo-letter internet
identity,itcould take another 20
years to agree which two letters
to use forits top-level domain.
While neighbouring Guernsey
enjoys the .gg domain, saddling
Sark with .ss is somewhat
insensitive,considering the
allegations of Channel Islander
collaboration with the Nazis
during the 1940-45 occupation.
So what are the alternatives?
The South Africans have bagged
.sa, Suriname owns .sr,and .sk
belongs to Slovakia, so there’s
nothing very meaningful left.
The Conseiller of Sark is
Nicolas Moloney, andheinsists,
“In today’s connected world,
business and personal matters
are increasingly transacted
online,soitisimportant fora
small island like ours to promote
and protect its identity.”
Zygotewould like to suggest
using the identifier .cq, which
would stand forCerq, the original
name of the island when the
Normans ran the place.Not only
that, CQ is the international code
used by radio operators as an
invitation foranyone listening to
respond. Zygote is sometimes
accusedofbeing alittle bit sarky,
but on this occasion the
suggestion is completely genuine.
FOOD FORTHOUGHT
If you’re frightened about all that
hoarded food goingoff, then
look no further than that
purveyor of hygienic, sealable,
plastic containers, the mighty
American giant, Tupperware.And
now look awayvery fast indeed!
Due to arogue image file
planted in its website,www.
tupperware.comhas become a
conduit forstealing moneyfrom
unsuspecting folk among its one
million visitors amonth.
