Loudmouthman

It seems you cant get past 30 days without the news kicking around another fear uncertainty and doubt campaign over the level of transparency and openness which the “Kids of today” are living their lives.  We , whomever we are,  give them nick names like the Facebook Nation or the Myspace Generation and we snigger a little. Which may seem a little hypocritical when we take no notice of the fact that living in the UK places everyone under some level of constant surveillance by way of the multiplicity of CCTV.

It  appears that CCTV has become the lazy policeman to our society and whilst It may seem a saving in costs  to enable one operator to cover a wide area it has become the thin end of a wedge which leads to stretching an operators  until they fail. Much CCTV evidence seems to be used after the event and does nothing to reduce or negate the crimes occurring. Whilst I disagree with Christian that this is a tool over which the “Man” can keep control and manage the populace. I do agree that its prevalence has reduced is efficacy.

My personal preference is to open the CCTV images  to constant public review and scrutiny . Since those  CCTV  cameras are mounted in public spaces they are observing public activities so  why not allow members of the public an equal access to the views ? Surely this would provide the benefit that the operators and monitors of those cameras would be aware that their own  conduct was being monitored. I imagine it would be difficult for organised crime to subvert those operators if they were aware that an unknown number of eyes were also watching what the operators were watching.

As to Christians QIK post  I would suggest we have  become Big Brothers unto each other. Our capturing, broadcasting, commenting, flagging and tagging of events that we experience has made us the  Big Brothers to each other and ourselves.

If this topic interest you then I would strongly recommend you keep following Ourmaninside as well as the writings of   Cory Doctorow who has been highlighting the issues of Amateur photography and unwanted surveillance for some years now.

Thanks for reading, and keep watching.

This is not a post about SPAM with its obligatory picture of Hormels finest product. This is a post about Service level agreements and the value of feedback.

Recently a client changed their Internet Service Provider. Those in the technical know how will understand that this involved more than a change of username and password for the router/modem thingy. You have to handle the transition of emails and have a plan in place to handle unwinding from any issues.

Imagine my suprise then when I discovered that Message Labs quote a 72hour Service Level Agreement for responding to change requests and support requests.

Three days without email is a VERY long time to go without email whilst you await an update.

The interfaces provided by Messagelabs for the administration of your account are not the most informative. There are no detailed lists of your current and requested settings.  There is only a form to complete requesting a domain change. There is  no automated feeback or web page with which to confirm that all the information is correct.  Whilst it possible to add redundant entries to your configuration it is no easy  see what those entries are.

I love Messagelabs services but I think  for the sake of other sysadmins out there I should warn them that the after sales is less than the shiniest !

Thanks for reading.