The Weekly Round-Up: 21.10.05

silicon.com has been hanging out with the Dames in Vienna this week...

... but not just any old dames.

Dame Stella Rimington, former head of MI5, turned novelist, this week delivered the keynote at the RSA Conference Europe over in the Austrian capital and silicon.com was there to hear what she had to say.

Dame Stella - who inspired fellow-Dame Judi Dench's character in recent Bond films, as well, it would seem, as inspiring Ann Robinson's 'Weakest Link' look and persona - talked to a packed auditorium about the ways in which technology transformed the intelligence service in terms of both the challenges it faced but also the benefits it derived.

Although mobile phone tracking, encryption cracking and the interception of email and internet data are far more in keeping with our image of high-tech spywork, Rimington highlighted a slightly less controversial technological improvement as being most beneficial.

Battery life and size. It wouldn't make for the most interesting set-piece in Q's laboratory, would it?

"Ah Q, what's this then? Micro-bomb? Medallion camera? Fold-out speed boat? ...Tracking device... ?"
"It's a battery 007..."
"Oh."

Rimington recounted the days (and older mobile phones will attest to this) when batteries had to be so sizable that they were almost impossible to disguise under clothing.

Nowadays - again, as mobiles show - as battery life has soared in duration the weight and size of devices has fallen considerably.

Rimington also talked about the time she was recruited into the mysterious world of the intelligence service.

At the time she was living in New Delhi. Her husband was working at the British High Commission and she "was doing what commissioners' wives did at the time" - which apparently involved "having lunch".

Such credentials clearly marked her out because she one day got "a tap on the shoulder" from a mysterious stranger who extended the invite to join up and serve her country.

... As a typist.

"I couldn't even type," said Rimington. "But that didn't seem to matter."

Such an admission seems very honest but the Round-Up would like to think if it was offered any kind of job in MI5 its first response wouldn't be to disavow any ability to perform the role that was put on the table, aware that it may in fact have been 'a typist' (nudge nudge, wink wink) that they were looking for.

"We'd like you to be a typist."
"But I can't type... "
"Oh, well any chance you can speak a foreign language and shoot a pen-gun?"
"Probably... "
"Then you're exactly the kind of 'typist' we're after."

And so began her life in the hush-hush corridors of power. (The Round-Up accepts that previous paragraph owes more to James Bond than anything Rimington actually said or did but hey, we're just filling in the blanks.)

Rimington did admit that many staff at MI5 had 'day jobs' which they could admit to doing in front of their friends and neighbours. So that chap at number 43 who works in a bank, but drives an Aston Martin or the lady at 71a with the fur hat and the accent, who works as a dentist's receptionist... be careful what you tell them.

And (isn't it always the way) you wait ages for a Dame and then two come along at once.

One silicon.com staffer was fortunate enough to get an audience with Dame Pauline Neville-Jones - the former chairwoman of government defence and technology group QinetiQ.

'DPN-J' (to use a slightly irreverent but RSI-averting abbreviation) was outspoken on many issues, including Tony Blair's balls.

Sort of...

DPN-J said of the government's proposed ID card scheme: "I don't think the government has the balls to force people. They will sell this to us as voluntary but make it so inconvenient for us not to have one.

"They can make something which is voluntary incredibly difficult to live without."

Of course this week saw the ID Cards Bill scrape through the House of Commons and get a step closer to becoming a reality.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke said the cards "will provide an effective mechanism to tackle crime, to reduce identity fraud and to improve legitimate access to services". And: "It will give an individual greater control over his identity."

So not "her" identity then? Ladies, sounds like you're off the hook. (Perhaps Clarke's predecessor David Blunkett warned him about getting too involved with the ladies.)

But sticking with the area of government secrets and defence, other news out this week saw silicon.com reveal how Nato forces are planning on using RFID technology to limit the number of deaths caused by 'friendly fire'.

Putting aside the fact the phrase 'friendly fire' is the most inappropriate phrase ever (with the possible exception of Heathrow 'Express'... for anybody who's had the pleasure this past week or so) the idea is that these systems will be able to detect which tanks or personnel can and cannot be obliterated.

These systems are the modern day equivalent of the original, infallible 'friend or foe?' challenge, which doubtless gave rise to all manner of overseas soldiers adopting an 'If you learn just one word of English make it 'friend'' approach to the language.

Nowadays combat has become a more remote animal and so the bar has had to be raised.

But there is no one answer. A lot of time and money has been spent looking for a single "silver bullet" system, said US Army colonel Bill McKean.

The Round-Up would rather flippantly suggest we should protect ourselves against bullets of all colours and materials... though accepts that he's using the figure of speech to talk about single solutions - from the days of killing werewolves (or at least those unlucky enough to be in the area as US troops flew over Transylvania).

According to lieutenant colonel Tony Sobrero of the US Airforce Airwarfare Battlelab the tags being tested by the military are larger and more rugged - and much more expensive - than the ones being tested by retailers.

Energy sent out by an aircraft's radar is used to illuminate the tag, which can then send back location information in the reflected radar return.

The smallest of the tags being tested is powered by four AA batteries. (It all comes back to those batteries... though fingers crossed they don't run out at the wrong time.)

Sobrero explained: "Typically aircraft are very good at identifying other aircraft but less good at identifying ground assets."

For those who don't speak military spin, by "ground assets" he means living, breathing soldiers in vehicles, and by "less good at identifying them" he means in the past they have been killed by their own side.

We've even got some photos of tanks not being blown up from one staffer's visit to meet Nato on Salisbury Plain.

And finally, moving on from the subject of intelligence - government or military at least - and onto the more academic kind.

We all remember the joys of being told one of our less-popular teachers was off sick ("nothing serious we hope") and that we'd be looked after that lesson by a substitute teacher.

The Round-Up remembers a favourite who was a colourful old Scottish army veteran who could easily be distracted from the lesson plan in front of him with a few well directed questions about what he might have got up to during the war.

"Well it's interesting you should ask that young sirs... " he would begin. "Assuming you're not just trying to get out of today's lesson I should probably tell you about my time serving in north Africa... "

And that was that. The lesson had passed before you could say "that Monty was a bloody good bloke...".

So imagine the rollercoaster of interest, confusion and doubtless no little hilarity and excitement when students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US were told the teacher who normally took their introductory computer programming lesson would be unable to make the class.

... and in walked Bill Gates to fill in.

The Round-Up just hopes somebody had an Apple for teacher.

And some things never change. Gates didn't stick to the lesson-plan either. The Microsoft chairman said he was just passing and "thought I'd drop by". He then talked about how jobs in software are really fun.

''Jobs in software are really fun,'' he said (The Round-Up told you he did).

Then he agreed to take questions from the class of 13 students... which number leads the Round-Up to suspect there may have been a few absentees that day.

"How was class... did I miss much?" one such dodger might have inquired.
"Oh not so much... the teacher was away."
"So you did nothing?"
"Well Bill Gates came and took the lesson and then did an impromptu Q&A with us... "

Should people in future years ask the absentees where they were when Bill Gates came to class and took their lesson, the Round-Up hopes they have great answers. 'Hungover' or 'Watching Oprah' probably wouldn't be good enough.

Nate Rehberg, a 20-year-old student in the class, was one who expressed his own delight at deciding not to skip class that day.

Rehberg told the Chicago Sun Times: ''It was a shock."

You don't say!

Rehberg continued: "I was just planning to come to class and then one of the most successful and wealthiest people in the world shows up.

''He's a master of exactly what we are struggling to learn.''

Apparently another thing the students are struggling to learn is the art of a good question.

During the impromptu Q&A, Gates fielded questions on everything from how much money he has (kids eh! can't take them anywhere) to what his favourite computer game is (they really were challenging him).

For the record his favourite game was Project Gotham... which, wouldn't you know it, seems to only be available on the Xbox.

(And the Round-Up was willing to bet it would be Monopoly on the desktop).

Ah but did he tell them stories about the war?

Speaking of Microsoft for just a second longer, Steve Ballmer this week spoke out about famous accusations that he has a temper (surely not!) which occasionally lends itself to chair throwing (as if!).

"I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life," said the Microsoft CEO.

"And I'll smash this seat over the head of anybody who says I have," he then DIDN'T add (the Round-Up uses the capital letters in deference to our lawyers and those in Redmond).

Oh, and one last thing, as Columbo was prone to saying... before the Round-Up takes its leave, thank you for all the positive feedback to last week's newsletter. It is always very welcome to receive such glowing praise for the work we do in trying to make Fridays that little bit special.

Particular thanks to the reader who congratulated us on "deciding to make the Round-Up funny again". Hmmm.

Until next week, tell your children, grandchildren, nephews and nieces this: "Go to class - you never who you might meet."