Apathy Sketchpad

Another batch of NewsBiscuit submissions. As ever, one above the fold, rest below it. These are rather old, so the topical ones obviously no longer qualify as such. I think they’re all from March: I’ve not been writing much of this stuff for weeks now, mostly due to business, not being in the mood, and various other distractions. (And let’s face it: nobody ever won a mug by writing two items a month.)

Microsoft running ’secret database program’ on millions of computers

There were fresh fears raised this week about online safety and privacy, as it emerged that software giant Microsoft had secretly installed a database program on millions of computers across the world, many in homes and businesses. The mysterious program, known only as ‘Access.exe’ is installed when the user first uses Microsoft Office, and hides among the regular components of Office. Although the program only came to light recently, it is thought that it may have been present on even early versions.

The program was found when Sarah Armstrong, a teacher in London, asked a friend for help with Excel and was shown the extra software hiding in the start menu. Immediately, she called other friends, who confirmed that they had ‘the Access program’ installed. Fearing the worst, she contacted Microsoft technical support and demanded to know why the program had been secretly installed on her computer. According to Armstrong, the support representative candidly told her ‘That’s our database program.’ Armstrong then asked ‘could you use Access to store people’s personal details and track their behaviour?’ and the representative said ‘yes’.

The Daily Express described the revelation as ‘just more evidence of what life is really like in Database Britain’. Microsoft has insisted that the public should not worry about Access, and that the program exists to help users control their own data, however when Armstrong contacted Microsoft demanding to see the information Access databases had about her, she was told that this was ‘impossible’.

EXCLUSIVE: Harriet Harman’s Court of Public Opinion

Speaking on the Andrew Marr show on BBC1, Harriet Harman told viewers that Sir Fred Goodwin’s £650k pension “might be enforceable in a court of law this contract but it’s not enforceable in the court of public opinion and that’s where the Government steps in”. This comment confused many viewers, and so her office has since issued a further statement to clarify and expand on what was meant by this remark:

“In government, we try to legislate in advance wherever possible. We try to anticipate events and make laws to protect people from crime and keep people happy and healthy. But there are things it is impossible to anticipate, and the strict application of the law can result in regrettable or unpopular actions being taken. In those cases, the new Court of Public Opinion will correct the oversight.

“In this case, clearly the law has failed to anticipate the interactions between the financial bailout and contract law, and the first act of the Court of Public Opinion will be to remedy this by stripping him of his legal right to payment for services rendered. Future plans for the new Court include expulsion of Gary Glitter from the UK, in spite of his legal right as a citizen to live here, and the torture and/or execution of the social workers involved in the Baby P case (however indirectly). Right now on the government’s e-petitions site there are dozens of petitions demanding that important football matches be shown on free-to-view TV channels, so naturally that is something we will be looking into at some point.

“The new Court will allow the government to suspend inconvenient laws, such as the Human Rights Act, in certain cases when there is public support or a loud backlash from tabloid newspapers or religious groups. This will help make society fairer, except for that part of the population that the people have decided no longer deserve the protection of the law.

“In order to differentiate clearly between the new Court and the existing Courts of Law, the Court of Public Opinion will not hear cases in a conventional courthouse, but will instead hear them in a specially commissioned television show, including a jury of public phone-voters. These will of course be strictly controlled to ensure that any member of the public who pays the £1.50 call costs will have their vote counted.

“It is hoped that we will have the system up and running by 9PM next Saturday when the first hearing, The People Versus Fred Goodwin, starts on BBC2. If the Court proves a success, we hope to move it to BBC1 within the year.”

The human rights group Liberty has expressed outrage at the plans. Harman’s office has responded by inviting them to appear on episode five of the show, entitled The People Versus Meddling Hippies. Liberty initially declined the invitation, but the government insisted it was really more of a summons.

Sweatshop worker biopic ‘Slumdog Milliner’ fails to wow Oscar panel.

God, Women Eh, Study Finds

A four year study into behavioural gender phenotypes at Sheffield University concluded this week that men are genetically incapable of living either with, or without, women. The discovery follows a long investigation, led by recently divorced behavioural athropologist Dr Clive Allen. Allen claims the controversial research ‘clearly demonstrates’ that all women are ‘irrational and vaccuous windbags, incapable of reason and who delight in shopping for things they will never wear using their husband’s money’, and vindicate his positions on everything he and his ex-wife ever disagreed about.

As part of the work, the researchers split 1004 male volunteers into a ‘test’ group, who were instructed to, and a ‘control’ group, who were asked to refrain from. After following both groups for six months, no significant difference was seen between the groups, and the scientists concluded that men are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

Another experiment published in the same work involved a survey of 2503 men. Each was asked about the time his partner took to get ready for a night out, and how she looked when this was complete. Attractiveness was found not to correlate with time taken to get ready, but it was found that the time was significantly longer when the party was with the man’s friends who he hadn’t seen in ages.

Out of 503 women tested, it was found that 498 had the physical strength and manual dexterity required to successfully lower a toilet seat, and the paper concluded that ‘more research is needed’ to determine what they’re all whining about the whole time.

Critics have accused Allen of mysogyny. Allen says that his data show that his attitude towards women is, in fact, based on solid scientific evidence, and that those who disagree are deluding themselves.

BBC Exec says Top Gear is ‘just a vehicle for Jeremy Clarkson’

Clarkson told reporters ‘if Top Gear was a vehicle, it would be a tank!’ however fellow presenter James May said ‘of course it’s a vehicle — and it’s not going anywhere’.

Church of England to offer Sharia-Compliant Christianity

Online Privacy Campaigner Disappointed Google Street View Stops Two Streets From Her House

Google unveiled the first Street View images of the UK, covering central London, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh yesterday, and like many people, Clare Hunter immediately loaded Google Maps to look for her own house. Hunter, who has long been one of Google’s fiercest critics over user privacy issues, said she was ‘mildly disappointed’ that the coverage area stops two streets from her house.

‘It’s frustrating,’ she told reporters. ‘America has had this for ages, and we’ve patiently waited, and now when it arrives I’m just outside the zone. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so close!’ Hunter admits that if you load a nearby street and look through a gap between two houses, Google has caught a picture of what she is ‘pretty sure’ is her washing line. ‘In some ways, I wish I’d had some washing out that day, so I’d know for sure. Although that would raise serious questions about the ethics of putting people’s dirty laundry on the internet.’ After a moment’s thought, she corrected this to ‘wet laundry’.

Other members of her campaign group whose houses do lie within the Street View coverage area have contacted Google to complain, but they were surprised that Hunter did not sympathise with them. ‘Whenever we’ve had privacy concerns in the past, Clare’s been very helpful and supportive, but when I visited her yesterday and showed her the photos Google had taken of my house — and in one case my cat! — she just said “oh, sure, rub my face in it, why don’t you?” and closed the browser window.’

Hunter has plans to harness the democratising power of the internet for an online campaign to have Street View extended, which will launch as soon as she finishes filling in her Facebook account.