CCTV surveillance and Rudd laptops
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This week tackles whether multitudes of video surveillance cameras and students with free government laptops are a good thing.
Law-and-order politicians love video cameras, and we've got more CCTV cameras than ever before. We're told they stop crime, but do they? And at what cost?
On this week's Patch Monday we speak with security consultant Crispin Harris, co-author of the soon-to-be-published paper Information overload: CCTV, your networks, communities and crime.
Meanwhile, some high school students have been getting their new laptops courtesy of the Rudd Government's Digital Education Revolution.
One 15-year-old student has told Patch Monday it was easy to break out of the security lockdown, install software and access the school's server. Combine that with the possibility of a student bringing an infected laptop onto the school network. Are we looking at a security disaster waiting to happen?
Plus we bring you Stilgherrian's idiosyncratic summary of the week's IT news — everything you would have read yourself if you weren't so busy.
Patch Monday now also accepts your audio comments. Either Skype to "stilgherrian", or phone Sydney 02 8011 3733.