Rupert Goodwins' Diary

Thursday 7/4/2005

Not content with annoying BT, our crusading news editor Graeme "The Daddy Now" Wearden cruises into town to speak to Paoga about its cunning new plan to provide a central data repository for individuals. All good clean fun (even if Paoga demonstrate the risks of uncontrolled data sharing rather too vividly by including a mysterious picture of our MD, Tom Bureau, in the random faces it plonks on the top of its home page).

Towards the end of the briefing, after a good lunch and lots of Sancerre, Graeme settles into a long discussion about privacy and security with Drew Cullen of the Reg. Mr C takes a keen interest in such matters, and gets increasingly excited as they explore the issue of people losing laptops with lashings of private data on. You can compromise the privacy of hundreds of thousands of people in one careless move that way, such is the power of modern portable computing. "It's atrocious!" says Drew. "Why is this information on the laptop anyway? They just want to fiddle with their Excel spreadsheets. It's database masturbation, that's what it is".

Wearden takes careful note of this truly seminal insight. "Bet you can't get that phrase onto your Web site", says Drew. "How much?" asks Graeme. "Fifty quid, payable to Privacy International", says Drew. "But no blogs. That's cheating."

Alas, Mr Cullen, the Diary is no blog. It's been going for nearly ten years, for starters. But seeing as we're decent human beings, if you pony up the dosh we'll match it — and give you a phrase of your very own to insert into the sacred text of Vulture Central.