Rupert Goodwins' Diary

Rupert Goodwins ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 05 May 2006 17:50 BST

Monday 1/5/2006

Workers of the world unite – lay down your keyboards and get down the pub. It's another bank holiday. Fortunately, the rest of the week is full of enough industry stupidity to make up for one missing day. Read on...

Tuesday 2/5/2006

Cake! We like cake, and here's a big one. In a box, with icing and everything. It comes from the Business Software Alliance, a consortium about whom we have been extensively rude in the past. We listen carefully – there is no ticking from within. Our portable reagents kit reveal none of the major poisons are present. A passing ad sales guy is hastily appointed chief taster, and we watch with concern as he wolfs down a slice.

He burps appreciatively, and carries on his way. It looks safe.

The cake comes with a note, advertising the . This is a Flash game where you play the part of an MD, stalking around your offices after dark trying to find out who's been committing terrible crimes – copying software, accessing servers – which might land YOU in TROUBLE! My!

Now, I'm not sure it's entirely within the law for an MD to go searching through their employees' desks, reading what could be personal correspondence and generally acting like Sam Spade. And some of the advice doled out during the hunt is frankly bizarre – Fiona from HR has software installers on her desktop! She must have access to the company server! These people can be the most dangerous – what if they have a vendetta against you?

Any company who can't tell who's got access to the servers by looking at the server permissions and logs is in trouble enough without having the MD donning a deerstalker. And if HR is conducting a vendetta, your problems are by no means confined to illegal software copying – likewise, if HR doesn't have access to the company server, it's hard to see how they can do their job. Also, security training is a bit lax if everyone leaves their computers logged on overnight so anyone can come in and use their account. Isn't that worth warning people about, BSA? Hello?

Then there's stuff like "Laptops synchronised to your network can threaten your infrastructure". Well yes, anything connected to the network can do this – but synchronised? The whole affair is riddled with technical terms used incorrectly and paranoid mutterings like "Why is this person using blank CDs?". How about asking them?

Anyone taking this piece of software seriously should consider taking up the violin until they feel better. Or, if they really can't shake the fear and suspicion of their entire company, consider a guaranteed approach to removing illegal software reuse from the company as recommended by OpenOffice. Use open source software – it works just as well, and you can make as many copies as you like. Have everything open source, and you can tell the BSA to naff off for good.

But be nice about it – send 'em a cake.