The Weekly Round-Up: 29.08.08

Facebook: The Movie is about to become a reality. News which will no doubt strike fear into the hearts of movie execs running the big summer blockbuster franchises.

The writer behind hit US show the West Wing has been assigned the job of turning the trials and tribulations behind launching the world's biggest social networking site into a two-hour flick for the big screen.

Not that he has much of a clue what he's going to write about. In fact, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has admitted he doesn't really have much of an idea what Facebook actually is, though he now has a profile.

To kick off his learning process, Sorkin has created his own Facebook group. His introduction starts so:

"I figured a good first step in my preparation would be finding out what Facebook is, so I've started this page.

"(Actually it was started by my researcher, Ian Reichbach, because my grandmother has more internet savvy than I do and she's been dead for 33 years.)"

So he's in an ideal position to write a 150-page script then; the project's in safe hands.

"I honestly don't know how this works, which is why I'm here," he adds with admirable candour.

"If anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer them as best I can. If anyone has any comments I'm glad to listen. And if anyone has any Facebook stories I think they might be helpful."

This might sound like a dodgy starting position but the Round-Up suspects it has a touch of genius about it.

After all, Facebook is one of the darlings of web 2.0, which is typified by user-generated content and folksonomies and the like. Could the guy actually get the Facebook community to write the entire script for him?

Despite his general ignorance of how Facebook works, he's clearly unconcerned about a number of additional profiles appearing on the site that claim to be Aaron Sorkin.

"I understand there are a few other people using Facebook pages under my name, which I find more flattering than creepy." Just wait, Aaron, just you wait.

But it all sounds splendid, and leads us neatly on to casting. The movie won't be out for couple of years so the actor who will eventually portray Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, probably isn't out of pre-school yet.

And way, the Round-Up's got the trailer tagline in the bag. Facebook: this time it's personalised...

Sorry, have you got the time to read this? You need to take an important work call? No problem, we can wait.

Finished? Good, well a report this week has revealed that almost one-third of us… What's that? Boss calling. Sure, take the call, no hurry.

Forget him, he'll have to catch up. A report this week has revealed that almost one-third of us are slaves to our business mobiles.

Workaholic Brits are taking work calls and sending emails in places they really shouldn't, according to a brand new Silly Season survey. (Don't worry, it's almost over.)

Almost one in three of us considers the concept of not being contactable by his or her employer at all times a complete anathema. This belief is either commendable or very sad, depending on how you look at life but it has led to a number of business calls being answered in rather unprofessional environments and situations.

What sort of environments? Glad you asked. One in five has taken a call down the pub. That's not too bad, particularly for sales guys and journalists who spend most of the working week there. But it gets a bit weirder.

Thirteen per cent of survey respondents have taken business calls in doctors' surgeries, where phones should probably have been turned off, at least to minimise disruption to other worried people.

Then there are the hard core. The people who simply must be connected to the office at all times or else risk a global economic meltdown.

Seven per cent admitted to having taken a call during a date, which the Round-Up suspects gets you a serious markdown in 'Is your bloke a complete bastard?' surveys in women's magazines.

Finally, there are the four cent who admitted taking a business call during a waxing or tanning session.

"Bob, have you seen the latest sales projections?"
"Yes I have, boss, they look pretty RRAAAAAARRRGHH!!"
"What was that?"
"Nothing, I was just saying that fourth quarter figures are AAAAAARRGH!!"
"Is this a bad time?"

What does this tell us? It tells us that some people have serious work/life balance issues that could be dealt with via counselling if only they could turn off the BlackBerry for long enough.

It also suggests however, that anyone who can hold a proper discussion during a back, crack and sack session probably deserves a promotion...

It's good to know that it's not just the public sector that's given to acts of extreme stupidity when it comes to handling personal data.

More than a million bank customers' details have turned up on a second-hand server sold on eBay

According to reports, the server, originally owned by archiving company Graphic Data of Shoeburyness in Essex, was bought by an eBay user based in Oxford and contained information on customers of American Express, NatWest and the Royal Bank of Scotland on its hard drives.

The data is reported to include mobile phone numbers, bank account numbers, mothers' maiden names and signatures.

The company has released a statement saying it's investigating how the computer was removed from its premises in the first place as it wasn't scheduled to be removed from one of its "secure" locations. Not that secure, then. Needless to say the company added that it takes customer privacy "very seriously".

As one reader comment points out, this level of data loss is normally associated with the government.

Not that the government is prepared to be outdone this week. Hell no.

A Home Office spokesman announced sheepishly that the department had misplaced a USB memory stick containing sensitive personal data on the UK's entire prison population.

That's about 84,000 prisoners if you were wondering. Pretty bad but it's fair to say the Home Office hasn't "done an HRMC".

The police have been informed, as has the Information Commissioner, who has quite a full inbox at the moment and will probably get around to admonishing them sometime in 2010.

The Home Office obviously considers customer privacy a very serious matter and is probably also very sorry.

It's probably of little comfort to the criminals, or to the law-abiding members of the UK, that the Home Office said the loss occurred at the offices of an external contractor - roughly translated as, "It's their fault, not ours, blame them".

It's of even less comfort that the company concerned is PA Consulting, which in 2004 was commissioned to assist with the design, feasibility testing, business and procurement elements for the ID cards scheme.

The Round-Up also considers it frankly churlish to mention that PA Consulting has pocketed almost £100m from the Home Office in the past three years for its efforts.

And finally this week - some questions to get those brains working a little harder on a Friday afternoon. Okay, so they aren't that taxing, especially as all you have to do it click on the links to find the answers.

Can broadband at home make your kids smarter as well as better at arcade games?

What happens when you try and order a beer after 11pm in Bangalore?

And what is offshoring doing to techies wages? (Here's a hint - it's not bad news for once, apparently.)

If that's not too mentally taxing, why not have a crack at the caption competition too…