Dear silicon.com... this little piggybacker, don't talk trash, analyse this...

Reader Comments of the Week

What's got silicon.com readers reaching for their keyboards this week? Reader Comments of the Week showcases how our users are responding to the latest tech news and views on the site...

Policing piggybacking
Police arrest man over 'wi-fi theft'

What a waste of valuable police time - shouldn't they channel their resource into illegal activities which actually harm or cause tangible loss to other members of the public.

So long as the 'piggybacker' is doing nothing malicious I really can't see the harm in the activity. If its a issue for the subscriber its a simple matter to secure their wireless connection. No real loss is suffered by the subscriber - certainly its very little different to any broadband contention losses that are part and parcel of broadband subscriptions.
-- John Furlong, London

Are the British police working for the telecoms industry now?

Isn't it about time the police started dealing with real crime in Britain instead of inventing new crimes and turning the average guy into a criminal?

The only crime I potentially see in piggybacking is that some telecoms company is loosing revenue to one of they're customers who broadcasted an open invitation to share the bandwidth.
-- Anonymous, UK

I wonder if the police questioned the owner of the Wi-Fi access point to ascertain what their intentions were in leaving it in an unsecured state?

If they didn't how can they arrest and charge someone for using it.

If the connection was left open through ignorance or supidity that is one thing, but if it was left open so that others could use it then no offence was committed.
-- Anonymous, Letchworth

Editor's choice

silicon.com editor Tony Hallett flags up his picks on the site this week...
♦ Peter Cochrane's Video Blog: Fractal coding - Peter's new format, love the subject too
♦ Skills Survey 2007: Banks hardest hit by staff crisis - worrying news from an already cut-throat vertical
♦ Cheat Sheet: Data Protection Act 1998 - a timely update
♦ The Weekly Round-Up: 24.08.07 - nine years and still going strong

Interestingly in securing a wifi setup I discovered that one of the computers thought to be on the same network was actually picking up a stronger broadband service for another nearby wifi service.

Had been like that for several months and nobody had been any the wiser.
-- David Bradley, Guildford

Trash talk
Chip and bin wheels closer

The only problem with the survey claiming support from 38% of the respondents is that they omit to mention that the other 62% probably aren't gullible enough to really believe that their council tax will drop noticeably!
-- John Wilson, South East

Why should the end user end up paying a third party tax collecting body merely because producers over whom we have no control insist on producing so much packaging?… The principle of charging is not entirely unreasonable, as found with many surveys on other environmentally emotional issues. But the practicality of making sure it is fairly and reasonably implemented mitigates against it as a solution. It may suit some people but for many others with no choice or alternatives it becomes a major burden.
-- Nick Cole, Scotland

Surely this would increase the amount of fly-tipping for residents to reduce their charges?
James Pomeroy, Birmingham

The technology is simple enough to adopt from the "bin wagon side" but as a consumer I'd want a receipt that proved what weight was taken away. I'd want a sliding scale of charges if I was shown to be reducing waste weight. You cannot just use the stick.
-- Keith Devanney, Consett

Of course one answer to the very real problem of neighbours putting their rubbish into your bin, from cost avoidance or grudge, is to have high definition CCTV along every street and alley. This will help the authorities to move another step closer to the Orwellian State of which they dream.
-- Lionel A Smith, Fareham

We are not responsible for the majority of waste that ends up in our bins. It's manufacturers and retailers that make rubbish, not individuals (with multiple layers of packaging, free carrier bags which are at best only partially bio-degradable, electronic goods that are not economically repairable or recyclable, etc)… They should be forced by law to reduce the amount of unnecessary unrecyclable material they impose on us which ends up in our bins.
-- Mark Hosey, West Central Scotland

So I'm thinking of leaving a pile of black bin bags (full, of course) at the doors of the Town Hall...
-- Anonymous, UK

Better customer service
BT pumps millions into customer service system

This sounds like a classic "know-nothing" manager bodge (cf Peter Cochrane's recent article). You can't fix customer service simply by buying a new CRM system. Rather you have to painstakingly scrutinise all the underlying end-to-end processes, identify the root causes of the problems, and fix them. To name but one: how is the new CRM system going to fix the classic home mover problem, wherein broadband service can only be moved a week after the PSTN line has moved?
-- Anonymous, Suffolk

A responsive and quick customer service for email access is great - but doesn't address the problems that occur when the customer service from personal telephone contact is abysmal (personal experience).
-- Dave Brown, Essex

What would also help was if the customer service staff where based in the UK and spoke good English. Have had several runs in recently and found the CS staff struggling with our language and having no clear idea of the frustration levels felt when help is needed and it comes across as if they haven't got a clue what you are talking about.
-- Brian Bolton, East Anglia

The numbers never lie?
Peter Cochrane's Blog: Damn metrics

Four further widespread modern fallacies, especially amongst government bean-counters:

Fallacy 1: If you can't measure it, it's not worth doing!

Fallacy 2: Everything should first be sub-divided into easily manageable budgets; and then each tiny part should be "optimised" in isolation.

Fallacy 3: Peak efficiency means running everything at close to 100% capacity.

Fallacy 4: Bigger means better and more efficient.

These mean that no ambitious manager does the things which are vital but hard to measure;

Every ambitious manager wastes endless time shovelling expenditure onto someone else's budget - even where that adds to the overall cost or reduces the overall result;

Trying, or planning, to run people or plant at over about 80% capacity leads to very predictable failure: Think MRSA in the NHS; think our dwindling, over-stretched Armed Services; etc. etc.;

The drive for ever larger organisations - popular with governments and ambitious "professional" managers - has led to a vast new (PFI) school with no playground or open space "because it couldn't be policed effectively"; and to vast impersonal (PFI) "regional" hospitals which offer far more to their staff than to patients.
-- Richard, UK

Agreed; Achieving a couple of understandable goals is preferable to incentivising everyone with interrelated metrics than are often not fully understood.

Complex metrics are often be changed in an agile business this makes year on year comparisons impossible. Leave these measures only available to the business analysts who understand there scope and relevance.
-- Stuart Fawcett, London

Please note, comments may be edited for clarity - but are not corrected for grammar, spelling, punctuation or style. The views expressed are not necessarily the views of silicon.com. You can write to silicon.com by posting a Reader Comment below, or emailing editorial@silicon.com.