The Weekly Round-Up: 28.01.05

"If there is any belief that life should be treated with any equity, then that is an investment for which the resources have to be found."

With these words Bill Gates this week announced his intention to donate $750m to charity.

Cue the angry backlash...no, really... and genuine bewilderment on the part of the Round-Up as to how giving that amount, as a down-payment on even more considerable investments in the future, can ever be considered a bad thing.

"He's got enough money. It's not like he can't afford it."

Sorry, not quite convinced by that argument to be honest. There are still a lot of people out there who never donate that kind of fraction of their wealth to charity. Of course he's not going to leave himself living on the breadline but nor he should. Whichever way you dress it up this is a massive commitment to initiatives such as vaccination schemes which will genuinely benefit the developing world.

Ah but...

"It's all one big tax write-off."

Well, it isn't. A great many companies and individuals worldwide will be aware that there are tax deductible benefits to charitable donations but we shouldn't 1) assume that's the only reason they do it or 2) assume Gates in this instance is working such breaks up to and including only the upper limit of tax relief. The commitment Gates has made to charity far exceeds any kind of tax write-off.

"This is just a show of power. He's sending a signal to governments around the world, reminding them how powerful he is. Next stop world domination. Be very afraid."

For those who will see wrong in Gates' every action there are no words to placate their ire but for all the good-natured (OK, occasionally borderline spiteful) criticism aimed at Gates in this very newsletter, the Round-Up would like to offer praise to him...

...but we just can't quite bring ourselves to. So assume the intention was there, because what he's done is pretty damn commendable.

Gates yesterday also met up with Bono, lead singer of Irish rock band U2, at the World Economic Forum in Davos (...not to be confused with the leader of the Daleks) to discuss the problem of third world poverty and perhaps have a bit of a pow-wow about music.

It's not the first time this meeting of minds has taken place, restaging a get-together at the same event in 2002.

Bono may even have thought it appropriate this time around to apologise for his starring role in recent Apple marketing campaigns. Perhaps as a gesture of goodwill he might have convinced Gates that 'Even better than the Real thing' was a tribute to Media Player. Though it's more likely 'I still haven't found what I'm looking for' was about the quest for a bug-free Windows operating system.

...and there is definitely something about 'Stuck in a moment you can't get out of' that puts the Round-Up in mind of some recent experiences with Windows.

At the other end of the worthiness scale to Gates' benevolence this week was a man who, as reported by the Round-Up three issues back, was arrested for sending spoof emails to the families of tourists missing in the tsunami crisis, informing them their loved ones had been killed.

Christopher Pierson wrote the sick prank emails which purported to come from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and sent them to 35 families who had posted messages of hope on a Sky News website.

Despite several pleas of mitigation from his defence (look in the dictionary under 'thankless task') Pierson was this week sentenced to six months in prison.

Pierson's solicitor, Andrew McArthur said: "He somehow saw that by sending these emails he was providing some sort of closure to the relatives and families to those people who may have been killed due to the tsunami."

Fortunately the judge, clearly attuned to the sound of a barrel being scraped, wasn't convinced.

Still on the subject of law enforcement in the internet age one UK crime buster this week offered startling insight into the police's attempts to fight cybercrime while speaking at the Computer and Internet Crime Conference in London.

(To clarify, he was speaking at the conference, about fighting crime, rather than offering insight into how to fight crime while speaking at a conference, which would be a massive feat of multi-tasking for anybody).

DC Tony Noble from Surrey Police Computer Crime Unit said many reported incidents of cybercrime, such as hacking or data theft from within a company, don't get investigated due to "an accountancy culture" in the police force.

He added that limited funding could get paired down further - to the point that police units such as his become untenable.

Noble expressed frustration at having to turn down cases because it wasn't financially viable to follow them up and added that he had even seen cases turned away where companies and individuals had lost as much £100,000.

"Just because you report a crime it doesn't mean you will get it investigated," said Noble who also mentioned the fact he has to use his own car for work, despite the fact he has to be out and about visiting victims in their homes and offices.

(Think of the mileage, think of the depreciation. One minute he might need to be in Reigate, the next Godalming. Then there's Bookham, Croydon, Epsom, Guildford - not forgetting Dorking.)

Yet despite such scrimping and saving Noble surprised delegates by referring to the level of funding he currently receives as "very lucky" (look in the dictionary under 'easily pleased').

Worse still he expressed concern that this 'luck' may one day run out.

At the heart of this is an interesting bureaucracy.

The Round-Up says 'interesting', of course it means 'worrying'.

"If we can't prove we have a cybercrime problem in the UK then the funding will be directed to whatever else is flavour of the month," he said.

It's certainly a novel way of running a police force - where 'no arrests' equals 'no problem' rather than somebody realising 'no arrests' likely means 'not enough police officers' or 'not enough resources'.

Next step will be blindfolds for all police officers and 999 operators trained to adopt a "la, la, la, la, la... I can't hear you" approach to handling crime reports.

It would certainly help those clear-up rates and save the tax payer a lot of money.

One initiative which is likely to increase the workload and bureaucracy of cybercrime fighters is an initiative launched this week by an international police task force and several leading ISPs.

The initiative is a way for children and adults alike to report anybody they believe to be a paedophile.

The goal is to make the internet a safer place for children. The likely outcome however may just be that it makes the world a far more dangerous place for innocent PE teachers, paediatricians and anybody else who mob-rule-inclined morons elect to crucify.

After all, any child or thoughtless adult with an axe to grind can now register the name of whoever they chose with the service and while not all reports will lead to investigation the Round-Up is already getting a very bad feeling about this.

And speaking of mob-rule, the Sun newspaper this week did its bit to stir up a good old-fashioned cloud of hype around suggestions a Fathers 4 Justice campaigner had released a computer virus.

The Sun hack responsible put down his pitchfork and burning torch long enough to suggest the virus "looks set to cause chaos on the internet".

Which is strange, because very few copies of the virus have actually been seen in the wild.

So that's 'chaos' in a 'passing with little or no effect' sense of the word.

Still, it didn't stop Graham Cluley from Sophos chipping in with his two-penneth...

...or putting out a press release.

In fact Sophos is the only anti-virus vendor to have even spotted the worm. Either that or others did but thought better of issuing any warnings about a threat so negligible it didn't even jog their dials. You decide. The Round-Up couldn't possibly comment.

Many other papers and news services ran the story, though most gave Fathers 4 Justice their chance to distance themselves from such renegade action.

A spokesman for the organisation told silicon.com: "This is categorically nothing to do with us and we condemn any such actions."

And finally, still on the subject of questionable journalism, news reached the Round-Up this week that one of the year's most ridiculous stories was little more than a lie... cheaply concocted to sell papers. (Which is the Round-Up's slightly self-important way of saying 'phew, thank God we didn't write this...)

The saga began with a journalist writing for the Romanian tabloid Libertatea claiming to have found a couple who named their child 'Yahoo!' in celebration of the fact they met online.

Even the most copy-hungry newspaper editor, with all manner of serious ear, nose and throat issues should have smelled something a little bit fishy at this point but the journalist concerned, the negatively charged Ion Garnod, had gone to the trouble of backing up his story with a forged birth certificate.

(The Round-Up can't help thinking at this point that it's a very telling sign-of-the-times that skilled forgers in Eastern Europe are turning to journalism as a source of income.)

However, as surely as night follows day, fact followed fiction and Garnod was exposed as a liar who made up the story "to make himself look good".

To do what? To make himself look good!?

Whatever happened to elaborate lies about sexual conquests - perhaps involving twins - or great sporting prowess?

"Alright lads... how's it going?"
"Good thanks Ion... what's kept you, you're very late?"
"Oh, I bumped into this couple who named their baby Yahoo!"
"Wow, you're the greatest, pull up a chair and let us buy you an absinthe."

The Round-Up doesn't know who Garnod hangs out with but really thinks his peer group is way too easily impressed.

What about:

"Yeah sorry about that lads but I bumped into the Cheeky Girls and spent a wild night in a hotel with them..."

Actually, maybe 'Yahoo!; the baby was the better option after all.

(Apologies at this point to any readers in Romania for having a woeful grasp on who the latest Romanian pin-ups might be... without a doubt there must be better than the Cheeky Girls.)

Simona Ionescu, Garnod's deputy editor-in-chief, told Reuters "we fired him", which didn't exactly tax the shorthand of the Reuters journalist.

Ionescu did go on to say: "If it were real, it would have been a good story indeed."

No, if it were real it would still have been a story about a couple who named their baby 'Yahoo!' let's not get carried away.

The Reuters report added that Garnod was not available for comment, which makes the Round-Up think this man really wasn't the sharpest tool in the box - even if his rather lame lie had probably already exposed that fact.

Top tip: If you're an out of work journalist and the most famous news agency in the world gives you a call. Answer it.

Until next week the Round-Up is off to fake a birth certificate... keep your eyes peeled for our 'Bill Gates love-child shocker...' story next week.