The Times: Tech column - The VeriChip/Rewriting online history/The end of free

By David Rowan

Forget all the excitement this week about global-positioning satellites tracking your car to bill you for your journey. That is so 20th century. The newest application for this technology is far more intrusive: the computer chip permanently implanted in your arm, so wherever you are the network can track you. Not even Orwell thought of this one.

It is called the VeriChip and the Florida company behind it, Applied Digital Solutions, is promoting it as a solution to everything from medical emergencies to kidnappings. It has even applied to trademark the phrase "Get chipped" to make what is effectively a subcutaneous radio transmitter sound hip. The VeriChip carries personal data which can be picked up with a special scanning unit, or linked to a GPS transmitter to identify wherever you happen to be. You need never be alone again.

This week, 14-year-old Derek Jacobs from Florida is waiting to have the centimetre-long microchip injected into his left arm and, he hopes, those of other family members: his father, who has Hodgkin's Disease and lymphoma, could share his medical history with anyone who has a reading device. In Brazil, meanwhile, Antonio de Cunha Lima, a politician in Sao Paulo, wants to be chipped for another reason: "I believe this technology will act to deter the rise of kidnapping in our cities," he says. If Daniel Pearl had been a carrier, it was muttered this week, the Wall Street Journal reporter might have been rescued in time. Perhaps.

But what happens when this technology becomes so cheap and widely available that politicians also promote its ability to erode personal privacy? In anti-terrorism circles, the personal microchip is already being touted as the next-generation identity card. Earlier this month, the US news programme 60 Minutes pinpointed its attraction. "We need a system for permanently identifying 'safe' people," the programme's Andy Rooney explained. "Most of us are never going to blow anything up, and there has got to be something better than one of these photo IDs. I wouldn't mind having something permanently in my arm that would identify me."

Amid such worrying discussions, Britain's debate about a national identity smartcard begins to look rather parochial. Even now, you can almost hear some Home Office upstart imploring the minister: "Let's go the whole hog and stick a chip into a few troublesome refugees. Then, maybe, the benefit claimants." And then the rest of us. It's not that far-fetched a vision for a nation apparently happy for cameras to track its citizens' every movement.

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It is always unwise to rewrite history, especially when the Internet Archive is busy capturing pages for posterity at www.archive.org. The biography of Thomas E. White, Secretary of the US Army, was recently modified on the Army website to explain that from 1990 to 2001 he "was employed by Enron Corporation and held various senior executive positions". Funnily enough, the earlier version goes on about his responsibilities at Enron, from "purchasing, maintaining, and operating energy assets" to "capital management and facilities management". Why would he want to omit all that?

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Remember when the Internet was full of expensively generated content that cost you not a bean? It was always an eccentric business principle, giving things away for free. Now, though, reality appears to be setting in: each week another bunch of websites launches a "premium" paid-for service or turns to a subscription model. In the past week, AvantGo has started charging for some PDA services, AltaVista has scrapped free e-mail, and Another.com has demanded cash for web-mail. There is even a website that is chronicling this trend: www.theendoffree.com. It is free to visit - though there is no telling for how long.

(The Times, February 27 2002)

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The Times: Tech interview - Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto

Shigeru Miyamoto is the 'Spielberg of video games'. - and the biggest threat to Sony and Microsoft in the War of the Consoles. Interview by David Rowan

Imagine an all-action console game in which three domineering warlords - let's call them Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony - are fighting it out for supremacy. And then, just as you think Microsoft's superior engine or Sony's vast armoury has clinched victory, the warriors of Nintendo send in their secret weapon: a short, grinning Japanese man called Shigeru Miyamoto. Suddenly the outcome becomes harder to call.

You may not have heard of Miyamoto, but you will certainly know of his progeny. A graphic artist who rose to be Nintendo's head of entertainment, Miyamoto is the creative genius who brought us Donkey Kong, Super Mario and the Legend of Zelda. Now, as Nintendo prepares to launch its GameCube console here on May 3 - to take on Microsoft's new Xbox and Sony's PlayStation2 - Miyamoto is leading the advance guard which hit London last week.

Commentators tend to refer to Miyamoto as the "Spielberg of video games", or simply as "God". Last year, 24 years after joining Nintendo as an industrial designer, he helped its sales to reach £2.7 billion, due in no small part to the 70 video games that have made him a legend. Not that Miyamoto, a freckled, youthful 49-year-old, expects to be recognised. "I don't like fame much - it can disrupt your daily life," he says. "Creators should not be that visible. Besides, it is a team product."

But after Donkey Kong changed the face of arcade gaming in 1981, and his 1985 creation Super Mario Bros went on to sell 40 million copies, a consensus emerged among the international gaming community: no one designs a better game than Shigeru Miyamoto. It all stems, he confesses, from a childhood lost to the Japanese cartoon books known as manga. "When I was growing up we had no video games - manga was starting to obsess children," he recalls. "My parents worried about me reading manga all the time. Then, when I was in elementary school, I saw a puppet-theatre show on TV. I then made a marionette puppet and put on a play for my neighbourhood.

"Because I lived in the countryside, and there were virtually no toyshops, I would make my own out of bits of wood. But by the time I started junior high school, I had decided to be a cartoonist. I was always busy drawing cartoons."

He has not forgotten his origins: today he tests job applicants at Nintendo's games division by making them draw a four-frame manga that must make him laugh. His mischievous humour remains a trademark, not least in Luigi's Mansion, his latest creation for the GameCube, in which Luigi, Mario's brother, hoovers up the ghosts in his haunted house. "When I was drawing manga, I always liked the slapstick style of gag," he says. "I was influenced by the traditional professional storytellers, who rely on voice, hands and facial expressions. That is what makes me laugh."

Success has meant fewer early-morning starts at Nintendo's games lab in Kyoto, but Miyamoto still works until midnight - save one evening a week for dinner with his wife and two teenage children, and the occasional practice session on his bluegrass guitar.

The challenge, he says, is never knowing what the next trend will be. "You can never tell - so often I have seen one single game change the course of the whole entertainment industry. That is why it is such an exciting industry to work for. Whatever the future holds, we are ready to deal with it." Hence the slots on the GameCube box for both broadband and narrowband adapters.

The Internet offers game-players new opportunities to compete remotely and at high resolution. Microsoft, for one, has been making much of Xbox's readiness for online gaming. But Miyamoto remains to be convinced that this is the future. "We believe that is one of the options," he says. "We creators have to have a number of different ideas - of which online gaming is just one. When I see most games developers say the future is online, my response is, 'really'?"

He is more excited that the GameCube can be connected simultaneously to four GameBoy Advances. He admits to having played the Xbox, but makes much of its slow loading time. "The specifications may look impressive, but the numbers can be deceptive when you are making games software," he says. "I don't think Xbox can outperform GameCube when it comes to gameplaying. Of course, I am not saying it is a bad machine - they have included lots of expensive components - but GameCube will be cheap to buy and easy for the whole family to use."

GameCube is expected to cost less than £200, as opposed to Xbox's £299. "Rather than the hardware, we need to focus on what kind of software we can offer," says Miyamoto. "GameCube's design concept is to be the best machine for games software creators to work on. There are lots more third-party developers now working on Nintendo software than in the days of the N64." At launch, 20 games will be available, typically at £40, including Luigi's Mansion and another Nintendo creation, WaveRace: Blue Storm.

Third-party games, often unique to GameCube, range from Star Wars Rogue Squadron II to Tarzan Untamed. By this summer, there should be 50 more games. Miyamoto is especially fond of Pikmin, an adventure starring what appear to be brightly coloured genetically mutated ants who must be cultivated to help to repair your crashed spaceship.

"In Pikmin, we have achieved a game so part of your heart that it moves you more than any game you have touched," he says. "It is an emotion you can share regardless of your background - a human instinct." Miyamoto genuinely makes it sound more than a sales pitch.

But he never forgets that, in the War of the Consoles, you score points only by shifting boxes.

(The Times, February 27 2002)

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Evening Standard: Mark Frith, Heat magazine

By David Rowan

Celebland can be a cruel, catty place. This week, as Heat magazine celebrates an extraordinary 106 per cent year-on- year circulation rise, the editors of rival showbiz titles have been lining up to spoil the party.

"I don't look at Heat very much," claims Jane Ennis, editor of Now. Phil Hall, editor-in-chief of Hello!, dismisses his opponent as a "mickey-taking youth magazine which has little advertising". Even Hot Stars, the Heat clone given away with OK!, jumps in to knock its mentor. "There is little in it that I haven't seen or heard before," sneers editor Martin Smith. "And it still sells only half as many copies as Hot Stars and OK!."

Not that Mark Frith is bothered. Frith, who as editor has taken Heat from sales of 70,000 to 355,904 in less than two years, is equally spiky. "Now is a weird magazine - the sort my auntie would buy if she had a spare quid," he says. "I'm astonished Jane doesn't read Heat - in her position I'd read every word." OK! and Hello! are "naff" - "how naff is it to sell your wedding, telling friends not to bring cameras as you'd sewn up picture rights?" As for the "rubbish" that passes as Hot Stars: "I don't know how the team behind it can look at their CVs without shame." Miaow.

Behind the war of words lies the fiercest circulation war yet in the celebrity-magazine sector. In the past six months, Now and Heat have continued to boom as Hello!'s sales dropped by 37 per cent and OK!'s by 25 per cent. The six-month comparison is not entirely fair, as Hello! and OK! were previously boosted by bulk sales through newspaper promotions, but it is clear that the young upstarts have hit the more reverential showbiz magazines. Now's 552,136 newsstand sales currently beat Hello!'s by almost 130,000. Heat, which came close to closing in 1999, sells 340,000 copies at full price, compared with 326,000 for OK!. "Next time we'll start with a four," predicts Frith.

He attributes Heat's success to its understanding of our celebrity culture, and the access it offers. "The stars love the magazine - Victoria Beckham, Davina McCall, Kylie, Zoe Ball all give very limited inter-views to anyone else, but they will talk to Heat." The weekly's witty and knowing tone reflects what the readers - mainly women in their twenties and late teens - will be gossiping about.

"Celebrities are their main currency when they meet up at a bar - they'll say, 'Did you hear Ali G on Radio 1?', or 'Have you heard what Kylie said?'" But not all celebrities are equal. Frith would have turned down free coverage of Joan Collins's wedding, even though OK! paid almost £400,000. "Heat isn't Joan Collins or Neil and Christine Hamilton," he says. "When the Hamiltons were on OK!'s cover, it was their lowest-selling issue of the year."

Managing director Louise Matthews - brought in two years ago to relaunch what was originally a general entertainment magazine as a more focused women's celebrity title - insists that the magazine is "fan-tastically profitable". A Heat TV show is planned this year.

But its success does not unduly worry Hello!, at least in public. Phil Hall is keen to differentiate Heat and Now from his more "upmarket" title. "It's like comparing The Sun and the Daily Mail," he says. "We achieved record ad revenue last year - more than £10 million - and our ABC1 reach has risen to more than 70 per cent. Heat's ironic tone is not for us - if anything, we're going to take another step upmarket." What Hello! can offer, Hall says, is exclusive access to A-list stars. "In 2000, we had 11 A-list Hollywood stars on the cover; last year it was 18. People want celebrities with substance and real talent."

Like Frith, Hall considers OK!'s Joan Collins deal a mistake. "Hello! didn't even compete for it," he says. He believes that Richard Desmond, proprietor of OK!, needed stories to push during a TV ad campaign he had booked. "He's spending huge sums to try to turn things around at OK! If you're spending £1 million (on ads and buy-ups) to achieve a circulation rise of 100,000, it's shoot-yourself-in-the-foot stuff. It's like a heroin addiction: once you take away this TV advertising, the numbers will collapse."

(Evening Standard, February 20 2002)

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The Times: Tech column - BT's patent idiocy/Googlewhacking

By David Rowan

SOMETIMES a company makes such a grotesque misjudgment that its corporate minions almost elicit sympathy as they obediently hammer away at the public good. When that company claims to be a custodian of the Internet, and yet so fundamentally misunderstands its very culture, technology columnists have a duty to step in. So here, for the personal attention of Sir Christopher Bland, is a well meant plea: stop now, Sir Christopher. BT's latest courtroom battle is turning your brand into an international laughing stock.

When BT "discovered" two years ago that it owned US patent number 4,873,662, filed in 1980, the number-crunchers got excited. The archaically worded patent - for an "information handling system and terminal apparatus" - makes passing reference to links within the "remote terminal" network that you might remember as Prestel. Aha, thought the suits: if we claim that this extends to hyperlinks - the code that lets you jump from one Web page to another, then we can charge a royalty on every click. So they picked on Prodigy, an Internet service provider, and 14 months ago went to court.

The case - rivalled only by The Onion's satirical headline "Microsoft patents ones, zeroes" - continues its embarrassing journey through the US legal system, with no certainty that BT will win. "If the court decides in our favour, then that will be nice," Sir Christopher, the chairman, commented with studied nonchalance. Even the New York judge at a pre-trial hearing last week doubted BT's case, contending that the invention "was already outmoded by the time it was patented". Yet BT intends to go to a full trial, probably around September. Meanwhile its reputation takes a hammering through the very medium it seeks to confine.

BT should know that the Web is the fastest and least controllable medium for destroying a corporate brand. As if its slow and expensive rollout of broadband had not made BT enough online enemies, last week the Web was saturated with opinion hostile to the court case. A typical comment on the Slashdot bulletin board encapsulated the mood: "I don't see how this makes good business sense, even if there is money to be made," wrote Nijika. "Alienating, well, everyone who ever will and does use the Internet is probably bad for PR."

The fact that the case has gone this far suggests that senior management must be so riven with rivalries, or so misinformed about the prevailing web culture that they should spend more time clicking around and less time inventing absurdities such as mm02. Besides, a number of earlier contenders have rather better claims. In 1945, Vannevar Bush wrote about computers that could access hypertext databases (he called the links "associative trails"). And in 1968, Douglas Engelbart at Stanford demonstrated what looked very much like hypertext linking. Without such pioneers putting their work into the public domain, the Internet as we know it would not exist.

Sir Christopher is welcome to e-mail his response. Let us hope so: Technobabble is applying to patent the keyboard "@" sign, and we will charge him our standard rates to type it.

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Google, the world's most useful search engine, has inspired a compulsive new pastime: "Googlewhacking". This involves submitting a search query that generates a single result from the 2,073,418,204 Web pages indexed. You invent phrases comprising two or three words, and keep going until the combination occurs on a single web page. "Orchestrator bamboozling" and "metronome dewpoint" were recent Googlewhacks - until their creators celebrated the fact on a second web page, thus nullifying their uniqueness.

(The Times, February 20 2002)

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Evening Standard: The stars' intimate online diaries

Drink, women and gambling: stars tell all in online diaries. By David Rowan

TO know a public figure's innermost thoughts, you needed, until now, to wait for the divorce-court battle, the Andrew Morton book or the Anthony Clare interview. No longer. Today's clued-up celebrities are recording their views in intimate personal diaries and making them available, within hours, to the rest of us.

Thanks to the internet, the famous can now bypass the journalists and scandalmongers who, they will tell you, get the facts wrong. As growing numbers of actors and rock stars rush to chronicle their daily lives, we offer the ultimate guide to the celebrity journals - revealing as only genuine diary entries can be.

The Setting the Record Straight Diary, by Melanie Griffith
Melanie writes to take on some "foul articles written about Antonio and I". "These so-called 'Journalists' have fabricated a story about Antonio spending a lot of time in Las Vegas, gambling and womanising," a recent entry states.

"The 'Journalists' have also said that I have overdosed on pills and heroin. So I am going to tell you the truth. I love my husband more every day, as he does me. We have a fabulously deep love for each other and we never lie." She continues: "He has never been unfaithful. I have not overdosed on pills nor have I ever used heroin." By the way, she adds: "I don't expect these 'Journalists' to correct these statements because they never have and they never will."

Read more at: www.melaniegriffith.com.

The Twelve Steps Diary, by Kelsey Grammer
The Frasier actor gets confessional. "I recognised years ago that I might have a 'drinking problem'," he writes. "Not until I realised there was nothing I could do about it did I have any chance of getting better; I had to get help."

Then there's the shame to deal with. "Often the closest people to us attempt to shame us into abstinence ... The feeling is - words escape me - but it is lonely and scary and hopeless. Any other human being, if they felt this low, would ask for help; but the alcoholic is incapable of asking for anything but another drink."

Read more at: www.kelseylive.com

The I'm Not Just a Musician Diary, by Moby
The music world's most obsessive diarist, Moby, updates his journal three or four times a day. Recent confessions concern his love for a vegan smoked-turkey substitute, a street cat that bit him and a TV programme about Mariah Carey's house. "Oh my. Did anyone else see this? She has a closet that is bigger than my home. I'm in awe. The room for her shoes is larger than my whole studio. Ethically questionable, perhaps, but isn't everything?"

Read more at: www.moby.com

The Buy My Books Diary, by Delia Smith

Between plugs for Sainsbury's and her cook books, Delia shares insights from a recent holiday in Normandy. "I wasn't going to tell you this, but I will - I ate two apple tarts in one day," she reveals. " She also discloses what excites her: "I actually managed to beat Michael (her husband) at Scrabble twice. Little me who can't even spell, seeing off an Oxford classics scholar! Can life get any better?"

Read more at: www.deliaonline.com

The Bill Clinton Memorial Diary, by Barbra Streisand
Not so much a diary as an outlet for her Democrat politics. Barbra refers you to recent New York Times editorials she agrees with, and writes about the evils of President Bush's policies. "Even in this time of crisis, the Republicans are back to politics-as-usual, as we can see from the 'economic stimulus bill' they are trying to pass and which gives huge tax-breaks to corporations," she writes. Read more at: www.barbrastreisand.com

Plus one honourable mention:

Britney Spears's Mum's Diary Britney's literary muse may have deserted her, but her mother Lynne files regular matriarchal wisdom. "Britney called me two nights this week from Europe," a recent entry reveals. "She makes me laugh, because she always forgets the time change. Brit called at 1.50am one morning and 4.00am the other time. It's a good thing I can go back to sleep easily!" We also learn what Britney gets up to on tour: she plays Pictionary.

Read more at: www.britneyspears.com

(Evening Standard, February 14 2002)

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Evening Standard: Cosmo's history in cover lines

How to hook a Cosmo girl: The cover lines that reveal how women's lives have changed over 30 years. By David Rowan

A THIRTIETH birthday is invariably a time to reflect on life's rich journey, and to contemplate the values with which one hopes to ease into middle age. For one 30-year-old, whose birthday falls on Monday, those values are likely to include frequent sex, of all varieties, and a crusade against the missionary position.

Cosmopolitan has never been shy of shouting about what matters.

Cosmo has witnessed a few changes in these past three decades. Thankfully, it has thought to document them in all their vivid immediacy: from the early feminist awakenings to the late-Nineties backlash, the magazine's cover lines have faithfully recorded the nation's mood.

"There must be four million PhD theses based on our cover lines," explains Deirdre McSharry, editor from 1973 to 1985. "I know, because I saw the students at work in our building."

McSharry and launch editor Joyce Hopkirk had worked together at The Sun, and their tabloid sensitivities were to define a witty new style of magazine tease line. They also learned some Hollywood pizzazz from David Brown, husband of American Cosmo founder Helen Gurley Brown and later the producer of such blockbusters as Jaws.

Gurley Brown's creation proved an instant success in Britain. The first issue, with a print run of 350,000, sold out in 24 hours; the second sold 450,000 in 36 hours.

"We were just working out what preoccupied a new generation of young women at a time when wages were rising, job opportunities were growing, and education was improving," McSharry says.

She credits much of the success to the words on the front page. "There was a bit of a formula. We tried to get the word 'sex' on to every cover. For research, I'd take four or five of us to Newcastle, and stand on the station platform to see what jumped out from the various magazines. It was usually Cosmo that won, with words like 'join us', 'win', 'enjoy', 'celebrate'."

The covers succinctly narrate the changing lives of Britain's young women since 1972. Along five walls in National Magazines' Soho headquarters, an almost complete collection of Cosmo front pages tells of a nation gaining ever greater sexual curiosity, redefining gender roles, and empowering women in the workplace. Take sex. From the first issue's bold teases - "Michael Parkinson talks about his vasectomy", above Jilly Cooper on why Roy Jenkins makes a "fantastic lover" - the sexual references become ever more lurid.

Initially, sexual taboos were such that any reference to lovemaking was enough to grab attention. Then along came Alex Comfort's Joy of Sex, and Cosmo felt increasingly comfortable talking about nymphomaniacs, faked orgasms and Paula Yates's sex toys. By the early 1990s, few things could not be said. "Great sex is crazy positions, silly noises, odd odours and other undignified things," stated one cover line.

"We were looking for lines that made you smile," says Marcelle d'Argy Smith, editor between 1990 and 1995. A highlight, she recalls, was the 1991 line: "Read all about it - the 60lb penis." "In fact, it was something I'd got from some nature magazine about a sperm whale. I had readers ringing in furiously to complain."

Smith was not averse to using "oral sex" on cover lines, but felt that "power" did not work in those pre-Spice Girls days. By contrast, Cosmo's current editor, Lorraine Candy, is comfortable with "power", but has banned "shag" and says she will never run a feature on oral sex. "I don't think I'd use the word 'vagina', unless it's very clever or ironic," Candy adds. "I have used 'Penis genius', though I wouldn't use it as the biggest cover line. It's not the readers we have to worry about, it's the supermarkets and WH Smith." London Underground, too, has sought to define the limits of acceptable cover lines. It objected to the words "I was frigid", and demanded that the offending "frigid" be covered by a black strip. Alas, the tape only partially covered the word, leaving some posters saying: "I was f-d".

Athough sex appears on every cover, Candy is convinced reallife stories are what sell Cosmo.

"When we put women's confessions on the front, we know it will be the biggest-selling issue of the year," she says. "I don't think they're buying Cosmo for the 'one-hour orgasm'." Women's vulnerability also sells. "We compiled a list of cover lines after six months of research, and the top 10 were all about personal safety - how to be safe on the streets, avoid being raped, deal with sexual harassment at work. I was surprised. 'Rape' is a big draw for us."

(Evening Standard, February 13 2002)

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The Times: Tech column - Deafeating the online ad blitz/Personal jetpacks

By David Rowan

YOU would be pretty annoyed if, while sitting enjoying The Times, an uninvited ruffian sat behind you throwing advertisements over each article you were reading. Then, if that failed to distract you, he let you close your newspaper only after making you carry an equally large advert in its place. Or maybe a dozen of them, springing up in every direction until they hemmed you into your seat, powerless to avoid sales pitches for miniature webcams or hardcore porn.

The intrusion would be intolerable. So why should you put up with website owners' latest ruses to generate revenue? In search of ever-more obtrusive ways to attract your attention, they are giving up on traditional banner ads, instead opting for "pop-ups" and "pop-unders" that multiply over and under your browser window, "floating" ads that walk across the text you're trying to read, and "scripting", programs that alter your computer's settings and redirect you to porn sites. But there are ways to stop the onslaught.

It's not advertising that is the problem: the discreet single pop-up and the brief screen animation are highly efficient ways to pay for content that would otherwise disappear, and congratulations to anyone who can sell ads in the current climate. No, the issue is one of balance and, to some extent, the control that some rogue sites seek to usurp your web-browsing experience. If you want to regain control, try the following programs. They are generally free to download, and mostly work by filtering HTML code or disabling JavaScript commands that trigger these pesky invaders. They might make it slower to surf, and not all work well across all browsers or on Macs, so test them. And let me know how you get on.

PopUp Killer
http://software.xfx.net/utilities/popupkiller/index.html
One of the most popular programs, six-year-old PopUp Killer looks out for pop-ups and zaps them before you see them. You can set it to limit the number of browser windows you have open and - the highlight - to make noises when it scores a kill.

Pop-Up Stopper
http://www.panicware.com/ product_dpps.html
The free version claims to save bandwidth by blocking unwanted windows, particularly those annoying "pop-unders" that load under the page you're viewing (Yahoo!, we're talking about you). You can upgrade to a Pro version that comes with an Internet Explorer toolbar and gives you more say over what is blocked.

WebWasher
http://www.webwasher.com/en/products/wwash/download.htm
An alternative generally favoured by Mac and Linux users, this one isn't recommended for Windows XP users. It's very popular, having been downloaded almost 3 million times.

Proxomitron
http://proxomitron.org
A wide-ranging free program that blocks everything from pop-up ads to animated Gifs. It also helps to prevent sites recording where you have come from. Its creator's motto: "Don't be slave to some webmaster's whims."

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Remember the Segway, last year's overhyped scooter that was destined to revolutionise passenger travel? So passé. Today's hot transport gadget is the personal jetpack. Millennium Jet, a company in California, is convinced it has the answer to traffic jams in its SoloTrek, "a new kind of flying machine that you step on, strap on, and fly". The gas-powered mini-helicopter is still in development, but the prototype has been successfully tested at 2ft (the company's boss stayed up for 19 seconds), and a military version is promised next year.

(The Times, February 13 2002)

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The Times: Tech column - UK online/The Onion/Airport screening

By David Rowan

There was quiet satisfaction in Whitehall last week at the news that almost half of British homes are now online. This Government, after all, has pledged that all its services will be delivered electronically by 2005, and the growth in home access - as well as the 6,000 local Web centres promised by December - adds to the pressure on departments to get wired. So how are they doing?

Don't get too excited. The main UK online website (www.ukonline.gov.uk) leads to a wealth of factual information, but don't expect to interact digitally with government just yet. Yes, you can buy software to file a tax return online. Sure, you can apply online to join a quango - though to be considered you must mail in your signature. Beyond that, there's nominating someone for an honour or buying a TV licence online. That hardly makes Britain the pinnacle of e-democracy.

Slowly, however, the bureaucracy is waking up to the benefits of two-way conversations with citizens. It is even starting to take Internet voting seriously: in May's local elections, we may see some remote casting of Internet votes. It is also making it easier to do business electronically, for instance by recognising contracts that contain digital signatures. The key, of course, is to make it easy for us to communicate securely and confidently with all branches of government. And that is where "digital certificates" come in.

Digital certificates, held on your computer, contain personal identifiers that let you exchange information securely with other websites. The Government sees them, together with smartcards, as the future. They can send vast amounts of personal data securely using a "dual key" encryption process. The Inland Revenue is already using digital certificates; eventually they will give dozens of government agencies secure access to your data. But once vast amounts of your data are being passed around Whitehall, an important question arises: who gets to control it? Whenever you interact with government, local or central - from your planning application to your speeding fine - you will leave a searchable record. We might be grateful, in the fight against terrorism, that MI5 can easily mine these various databases to detect worrying patterns of behaviour. But the State has not yet explained how it will protect our personal privacy as it does so.

Dr Ian Kearns has been studying the risks for the Institute for Public Policy Research, and he concludes that the Government's online strategy will give it the most detailed picture ever of individuals. The emerging e-government network, he warns, creates "vastly increased monitoring and searching potential", yet no guidelines have been laid down to protect us.

What if official databases are combined so that software can profile us? Could hospitals reject patients as likely troublemakers, or police monitor teenagers deemed high-risk? Dr Kearns warns that we must address "the implicit threats of increased surveillance and monitoring by the State" before technology overtakes the discussion.

We need this debate, and quickly. Last week, the Chief Constable of North Wales, Richard Brunstrom, told MPs that roadside speed cameras should record digital images of drivers' faces, which could be matched against databases to track potential wrongdoers. Do we really want a relationship with government that lets it identify us in detail and know exactly where we are?

Until I know where my data is going, I'm not going to give the State any electronic information that I can provide on paper. Some things should be relatively private.

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It has taken a while to find a laugh in Microsoft's epic legal battle, but finally this week The Onion (www.theonion.com), the Web's best satirical journal, hits the bullseye. Below the headline "Judge orders God to break up into smaller deities", the paper reports that the Lord has been found in violation of anti-monopoly laws. He's used his might to build a marketplace hostile to other deities, and now faced being split into a pantheon of specialised gods. And though his lawyers did not deny the charges, they argued "that God offers followers unbeatable incentives in return for their loyalty, including eternal salvation, protection from harm, and fruitfulness". Worshippers should now get a faster prayer-response time - although reform might take some time. God's lawyers are, of course, planning to appeal.

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Here's one disconcerting use of database technology already in the pipeline. The US Federal Aviation Authority is close to testing a system for screening passengers, based on instant analysis of personal data - from people you live with, journeys you have previously made, even the magazines to which you subscribe. When you check in, software packages will send warnings to airline staff based on complex analysis that scans dozens of databases in search of worrying patterns. "This technology gives us a pretty good idea of what's going on in a person's mind," boasts Joseph Del Balzo, who's working on the project. All very well - but if you have ever seen your credit history, you will know how easy it is for errors to fill your file. How will you convince the system that you're not a potential terrorist?

(The Times, February 4 2002)

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