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Thieves help selves to PCs from Office for Digital Inclusion
The UK.gov's digi-quango, the Office for Digital Inclusion, has lived up to its name by distributing a whole office of PCs to underprivileged people without even trying. The ODI's job is to close the digital divide and force people onto the web, even if they don't want to. Staff at the fledgling quango apparently turned up to …
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Friday 18th September 2009 12:53 GMT Andus McCoatover
Our "Digital Tsar.."
seems to be a Lame Fox.
Myst-all-chucking-frighty. Locks and beefy security gorillas aren't a modern invention. CCTV cameras must've caught the perps. er....G20 - probably "switched off"
Hint: Check the local Sally Army shop. They're probably distributing them for the needy, with a cup of soup and a pair of one-previous-owner underpants.
I for one welcome our replacement new competent digital tsar.
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Friday 18th September 2009 13:21 GMT The BigYin
Hmm
Was there no silent alarm to summon plod? Or were the police too busy targeting speeders to care about real crime?
Why were the PCs not tethered to desks? It's not hard and slows thieves down.
Were the PCs, monitors etc tagged to make tracking/finding easier? Again, not hard to do.
Are the PCs encrypted/locked to render them useless to anyone without a key/fob?
Was there any CCTV showing the thieves?
Were the PCs (and their lack of security) plainly visible from the street?
Did the windows, doors and other access points not have security barriers?
What information did these PCs hold? Was any of it sensitive? If so, was it protected in any way?
As MLF was in charge, will she offer her resignation if it is shown that basic security measures were not taken?
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Friday 18th September 2009 15:29 GMT RW
Force people onto the web? Good lord.
A minor detail: email is NOT part of the web, though there are web interfaces to gmail, hotmail, and their ilk.
But more seriously: what a foolish mission. The simple fact is that modern personal computers of all types are simply not ready for prime time. To keep them up and running an in good health takes a degree of intelilgence and initiative that a sizable fraction of the population simply lacks. They are not interested in geekiness.
Windows is out of the question with its endless security holes and periodic epileptic fits (i.e. BSOD). Linux is far, far too geeky, though once it's up and running it's much less of a headache than windows. And the Mac? I remain to be convinced that it's any better. Until the use of a computer is no more complex than the use of a telephone, this whole initiative is doomed to a sad, lingering failure.
Who is going to support the forced-user community when things go wrong? Or will that be yet another quango?
I have news for the idiots in government: computers are not the end all and be all of existence.
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Friday 18th September 2009 19:38 GMT Steven Knox
@RW
"The simple fact is that modern personal computers of all types are simply not ready for prime time. To keep them up and running an in good health takes a degree of intelilgence and initiative that a sizable fraction of the population simply lacks."
Sounds to me like you're saying that a sizable fraction of the population isn't ready for prime time, rather that personal computers -- unless you specifically mean ready for watching prime-time television, in which case, you're right -- the majority of the population are perfectly qualified for that.
"Until the use of a computer is no more complex than the use of a telephone, this whole initiative is doomed to a sad, lingering failure."
Fortunately, Blackberry, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and their hardware and network partners are working night and day to ensure that, indeed, the complexity of a computer will soon be exactly on par with that of a telephone.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
