Big brother is watching!

Your data is not private!

In the privacy of our studies, offices, libraries, or wherever it is we have our computers, it may seem that we are alone, with no one looking over our shoulders. But every document we draft, every step through the Internet we take, is creating tracks through the digital environment in our computers. This fact has a number of implications, both useful and detrimental.

What happens when drafting a document?

Suppose we are drafting a Microsoft Word document. It would appear that we are simply typing a single document that we can then save (or not), or delete at will. But several things are going on behind the scenes. As soon as a document is started, even before giving it a name, an invisible document is mirroring what is being typed on the screen. This happens every time the document is opened after it is saved. When printing the document, another invisible file containing all or part the document is created as a buffer for the printer's use. All the while, data from the document is being written into the computer's virtual memory file, a kind of scratch pad the computer uses in order to speed things up. So the very act of writing a document and printing it puts all or part of the document in at least four different places.

What happens when a document is deleted?

When a document is deleted, one letter of the name of the document is changed so that the operating system ignores its presence (it essentially becomes invisible to the user) and allows it to be overwritten. Otherwise, not much really happens to the document right away. Over time, it may get overwritten - or it may not.

What happens when visiting a website?

The browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari) makes a record of the address of the website and the specific page that includes the date and time, it keeps a record of any “cookie" - data that the website gives the browser - this is called “Internet History". The browser also downloads the little images ("thumbnails") that are on the given web page. All of this information sits on the user's computer, and the Internet history gets renewed regularly. Every week or so, the browser makes a whole new copy of the history file, deleting the old one. Of course, like with any other document, the deleted history file doesn't go away - its name is changed and part or all of it may become overwritten in time.

Digital Forensics

A computer forensic expert, using various software tools can look underneath the images in Windows that a user sees. Using a range of computer forensics suites and data recovery tools, the “digital detective" can recover deleted files, and find thousands of otherwise lost snippets of Internet history, missing emails, and apparently erased images. These processes make up a big part of the science and art of digital forensics.

Good news / Bad News

Depending on your perspective, the ability to recover information that one might have thought gone - or never stored - can be helpful or hurtful. On the good news side, such information can help a defendant to prove his or her innocence, or fuel a counter-claim. Conversely, digital discovery can reveal wrongdoings thought hidden or lost.

For the individual, computer forensics can provide the gift of finding data thought long lost. For law enforcement, it can provide the digital evidence needed to prove cases in a wide variety of offenses, from threats to fraud to embezzlement to child or elder exploitation. For business, e-discovery can provide a remedy for stolen secrets or customers. For a defendant, skilful electronic discovery can help to disprove an opponent's claims saving money
, reputation, or even jail time. For lawyers, a whole other avenue of document discovery is opened up.

Digital forensics can be a boon or a bane, but the field is advancing quickly, gaining wider use, and is here to stay.

A comprehensive history of hangovers

After sharing a few green beers with friends on St Pat's day and nursing my hangover, I thought back to the hangovers I've known and loved.

There was my post-Rat-Pack-themed-party hangover, when I spent the day after -- my housewarming! -- attempting not to make any sudden movements while regretting each vodka martini I'd upended.

There was the particularly hairy-tongued post-New Year's party hangover, memorable because on my way home on Military Road, I had a flat tire and I'd had to change it by the curb, my hands moving on autopilot.

Then a few weeks ago, my mate John who has a memorable collection of wines in his cellar (curse his hobby) decided to introduce me to a few specials he had. The rest is history and all I remember is that hangover was one of my greatest achievements.

But probably my favorite hangover was during my first year at Melbourne University. That's where they taught me to drink amongst other interesting things.

Leonid Brezhnev had just died, and my mate, Pat, and I decided to mark his passing by toasting the occasion with Bulgarian wine. Bulgarian wine was not as easy to get then as it is today, but for some reason -- an overestimation of Melbourne's Bulgarian population, perhaps -- but the liquor store near our flat stocked it.

Bulgarian wine tastes pretty much like you would expect it to taste, but after the first three or four glasses you are able to shed your natural reluctance to putting the ghastly stuff near your lips. After two or three bottles you even start to enjoy it, not because it tastes good but because you're proud of yourself for enduring it, the same way I imagine you feel some pride after walking barefoot across hot coals.

We drank through the night and before lecture the next morning went to a cafe for breakfast. We had spent all our cash on Bulgarian wine, however, so only had enough money for a coffee and an order of toast.

A good hangover is like a good movie: entertaining, educational, satisfying. A good hangover should be part of a narrative arc, the final act of a drama that began the night before. Whether it's played for comedy or tragedy, well, that largely depends on the night before.

People might disagree on whether a hangover is immoral, but certainly all hangovers are chemical. No matter what you've been drinking --

Bulgarian wine, Scotch whisky, Guinness -- chemically speaking, it all comes down to ethyl alcohol -- or, as chemists know it, C2H5OH.

"Chemistry is not a strictly academic subject," a commentator said at a seminar I attended yesterday. "It's also something that affects your regular life."

She was wearing green shamrock deelyboppers on her head. She has been giving a St Patrick's Day-themed seminar for eight years.

Humans have been drinking alcohol -- and, presumably, waking up regretting it -- since at least 3700 B.C., she said. (Those were the Egyptians. It's a wonder they got the pyramids built at all.)

Yes, the ethyl alcohol in whatever poison you're drinking can give you a hangover the next day, but you're just as likely to suffer from the byproducts of fermentation, what are called cogeners. (I think Bulgarian wine is about 90 percent cogeners.)

She moved up the ladder of inebriation: .02 blood alcohol level and a drinker typically experiences mild throbbing and a touch of dizziness; at .03 come feelings of euphoria and superiority; at .05, normal inhibitions are almost eliminated.

She said: "Many liberties are taken. I don't need to say more."

She did say a little more: Alcohol can provoke desire, but it typically ruins your ability. "I know you want to say, 'Not me,' but we'd all have to be there to pass judgment on that."

There was nervous laughter from me and my fellow seminar attendees.

On a lighter note ...the next seminar is not for 6 months unless my company decides to "educate" me further.

Perhaps I won't have a hangover.

Twitterisms for all

I'm obsessed with Twitter. Check out my moment by moment Twitter ravings right side of this page.

Massive contributions coming here soon.

Commerce interruptus!

A quick comment

It's been an interesting Christmas and holiday period chock full of of fascinating work drama, travel delays and cock ups. I love this time of the year! Hang in there whilst I prepare a novel to entertain you all. Happy New Year!

Customer service

A few months ago, the wife of one of my friends was connected through to an India call centre because of a technical query (with a well known product).

She was abused and sworn at by the customer service representative who used every disgusting word known.

The India call centre tried to deny it but caved in when confronted with a recording of the call

India call centres are a growth industry but will be their own doom through poor management and people training skills.

Outsourcers pay cheap for India Call Centre support services but in turn will get customer backlash for their products through unsatisfactory support.

The above video is a funny parody of customer service

I confess. I stole the following comments and video from The Cathrinette Chronicles.

Cathrinette said:
"At one point or another we’ve all been forced to deal with that woman. You know the one that I’m talking about. The one that’s supposed to be helpful, has a look on her face like she’s constantly sniffing a big whiff of poo, and would rather stick her hand in a meat grinder than actually help you.

Most of us are lucky to not have to deal with such “helpful” bitches on a daily basis. We just randomly encounter them, deal with them, and then bitch to all our friends about how the woman was secretly begging us to slap her right in her insolent mouth. It just so happens, that I had the joy and pleasure of actually working with a woman just like this."

'tis the Mango Season. Time to Make Merry

I adore a mango. I've just purchased a case on special at the supermarket.

They're good for you but don't tell the kids that.

For fun and pleasure, a mango ranks with Christmas. How fortunate these great seasons coincide in our part of the world. The innocuous mango has a colourful "history". But we'll talk more about this in a moment.

Same as Christmas, mangos are fun and social. For starters, they make people laugh when at lunchbreak I slop it's heavenly contents down the front of my crisp white Kalvin Klein shirt and Trent Nathan tie. It's even more laughable when I'm obliged to attend a meeting later in the day wearing said stained shirt and tie in an office that thrives on gossip and politics.

When invited to someone's home for dinner around Christmas time, a gift of a box of mangos does the trick. It solves the problem of what to give. A nice safe gift for someone you don't know. They'll remember your magnificent offering for festive seasons to come. "Remember when Foss brought those mangos?" Bring wine and they forget you the next day.

They're good for dinner conversation. Nothing breaks an awkward silence on a first date more perfectly - or subtly introduces the topic of mangos to a lemon-loving colleague better than a mango joke:

Two Jamaican men were throwing stones at a mango tree, trying to hit down a large mango right at the top, when one said to the other: "All de stone we stone, suppose de mango no ripe?" "True," said his friend, "Check it out mon." The first man then climbed the tree, went all the way to the top where the limbs were dangerously thin, felt the mango and came back down. "It ripe," he said to his friend. "We naa fling stone fi nutten." Back down the tree he came and then they began to stone the mango tree again.

Q: What is a feminist's favourite non-phallic fruit?

A: Mango

Q: How many mango farmers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A: None. Mangos are cultivated by caterpillars and transported to market on the backs of of lice thus negating the necessity of having a farmer

Knock, knock

Who's there?

A mango

A mango who?

Have you always been able to speak to talking mangos with the ability to knock on doors or is this a new development in your mania?

Q: What do you call a woman with two mangos on her head

A: It's my friend Gertrude. She's mentally disabled and I'll thank you not to make fun of her

The mango attraction is not only enhanced by the eating. It's juicy gossip rating matches that of Britney Spears.

For centuries the people of, at first the Dark Ages, and then the Getting Brighter Ages, had engorged themselves on all the fruits known to man - the plum, the banana, the orange, the tortoise, the melon, the coconut, the apple, and the potato to name but a few - and apathy had begun to set in. Civilisation had become complacent with regards to healthy eating and lusted after the forbidden fruits of cigarettes, cornish pasties and the Aussie meat pie.

Sicknesses and diseases long-considered extinct or, at worst, confined to France such as rickets, scurvy, and Republicanism were sweeping through populations the world over. Something had to be done and someone had to do the something that had to be done before nobody did nothing about the something.

Sadly, nobody did until the latter half of the nineteenth century when popular scientist Isabella di Mango (Italian discoverer of aerobics and popular because of her insistence in performing it nude) accidentally created the world's first mango while trying to perfect the rear body reach near a bowl of overripe peaches and a pear with an inferiority complex.

One quick call to Malaysia to arrange growing rights and royalties, a naked aerobicist dripping in a mango juice advertising campaign, and the mango took the world by storm. As Isabella aged, her popularity, like her often-exposed breasts, sagged, and with it went the soar away success of the new fruit. But like General Douglas MacArthur, it returned to conquer us all

Have a merry mango Christmas

Christmas office party - the silly season

After weeks of silence, I had this brilliant idea. The clouds disappeared, the sky was blue and goddamm. There it was. A bolt from that blue. A thought to pass on to you about Christmas parties now 'tis the season to make merry.

Even though we are thrust into the middle of economic gloom, (thank you US friends for your clever work) the party continues. A few companies have abandoned the Christmas party but most have not.

What the hell. Did not Nero fiddle on whist Rome burned?

But Sydney Daily Telegraph reporter, Joe Hildibrand, beat me to it. Curse his reporter hide! He got there first and stole my great idea.

But I gotta admit, Hildibrand makes me laugh. I promote him to him to "cool guy" status even though he is the enemy and thiever of great ideas. So read his utterances and enjoy.

Joe Hildebrand Friday, November 21, 2008 Sydney Daily Telegraph

"LIKE any good Catholic, the two main driving forces in my life are guilt and regret.
Psychologists agree that these are vital motivators for a happy and successful
future. If one cannot bask in the twin glories of angst and remorse then what
point life?

Of course to fully harness the benefits one must consistently @#$% things up.
Fortunately I have a natural talent for this but for others not so gifted
there is the Christmas party season.

Obviously all parties have a healthy scope for disgraceful behaviour, however Christmas parties raise the benchmark just that little bit higher.
For example it is not enough simply to throw up and pass out in the toilets; one must throw up and pass out in the wrong toilets.

Likewise a sexual indiscretion cannot be limited to mere infidelity or public exposure if it is to qualify as a genuine water cooler conversation.
It has to involve odd numbers, office equipment and a perversity that eclipses conventional bestiality - such as, for example, an unusual application of a potplant.

Then the next morning when you wake up in someone else’s bed/someone else’s flowerbed/Morocco you have to scratch your head and wait for the horror of the previous night to be gradually unlocked by a painful combination of memory recall and eyewitnesses.

Once this panorama of agony has been fully visited upon you I want you to consider this very important fact: You have a mother who sacrificed everything for you.

I now refer you to the opening sentence again.

The other dangerous thing is that the Christmas party season seems to start earlier and earlier each year, to the point where I haven’t stopped drinking since January.

In fact it just so happens I was at a Christmas party this week, which is lucky given that Christmas parties are the subject of this column.

It was held at a very fancy Italian restaurant that had a whole pig laid out on the table in the middle of the room, although after a while someone told Kim
Kardashian it was time to go home.

The party was also furnished with a range of boutique beers, so as to reassure the various media and lobbyist types who were there to convince themselves they were “connoisseurs’’ and not “alcoholics’’.
I myself commented approvingly on the texture of some 27 beers before wandering out into the street muttering something about infrastructure.

It is here that events are, shall we say, hotly contested by historians.
It may be that I ended up in a ridiculously poncy piano bar drinking a $12.50 beer. It may be that the beer was $7.50 and I dropped $5 on the ground.
It may be that Darrin said he didn’t care whether the beer was $12.50 or $7.50 he sure as hell wasn’t going to be buying one and could we all please go to Gilligan’s.

And there was also the rain. The more it rained, the more we had to stay and the more we had to stay, the more we had to drink - of course I don’t remember actually doing this, I just know it is a fundamental law of physics.

What I also know is that after I woke up and started talking to people throughout the morning everyone was looking at me with a mixture of anger and disgust - which is not unusual in itself but very rare when I am wearing pants.

I immediately rang Darrin to find out if there was something I may have done to have upset anyone and while it was difficult to make out what he was saying over the third chorus of On A Night Like This, I did clearly hear him use the words “absolutely everything’’ and “thanks for the appletini, Gomez’’.

Suddenly my memories of the previous night flashed before my eyes. Unfortunately this comprised only a series of European beer brands such as Peroni, Hahn and Melbourne Bitter.
I then toyed with the possibility that when I was telling various guests about my driving passions in public policy making I may have mixed up the words “infrastructure’’ and “paedophilia’’.

At any rate, it is clear that the transgression extended the capacity of even the most comprehensive group email list and so I offer all of you* this: I’m sorry.

*Except, for legal reasons, the stolen generations."