From Good Morning Silicon Valley…

On Friday, officials from The National Nuclear Security Administration told a House oversight committee that a malicious hacker stole a computer file containing the names and Social Security numbers of 1,500 employees of the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons agency. The theft was detected last September, but no one bothered to report it to senior officials until late last week. NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks blamed the cockup on “bureaucratic confusion.” “It appears that each side of that organization assumed that the other side had made the appropriate notification,” Brooks told the House energy panel’s oversight and investigations subcommittee. “Just as the secretary just learned about this week, I learned this week that the secretary didn’t know. There are a number of us who in hindsight should have done things differently on informing.” That explanation didn’t fly with Rep. Joe Barton, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, though. “That’s hogwash,” Rep. Barton told Brooks. “You report directly to the secretary. You meet with him or the deputy every day…. You had a major breach of your own security and yet you didn’t inform the secretary,” adding “you should be removed from your office as expeditiously as possible. And I mean like 5 o’clock this afternoon.”

Fact 1: The NNSA is a semi-autonomous arm of the Energy Department and also guards some of the U.S. military’s nuclear secrets and responds to global nuclear and radiological emergencies.

Fact 2: Earlier this week the Pentagon revealed that personal information on about 2.2 million active-duty, National Guard and Reserve troops was stolen last month from a government employee’s house.

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Julie Bindel had an interesting piece about an aspect of the World Cup not usually dwelt upon in the football pages.

With just 10 days to go until the first matches kick off, shops across Britain are heaving with World Cup merchandise: football shirts, whistles and scarves. And then there are the condoms. At 500 branches of Superdrug, there is a range of condoms tailored for England supporters. They are emblazoned with the slogan “Lie Back and Think of England” and decorated with the cross of St George.

It may seem reassuring that football supporters travelling to Germany are being encouraged to be sensible, but there is a pernicious side to the connection between the 2006 World Cup and sex. Alongside the beer tents and burger bars catering for a massive influx of fans to Germany, entrepreneurs are preparing to sell a product already openly on sale throughout Germany: women.

Germany has legalised its sex industry – Cologne opened the world’s first drive-in brothel in 2001. But with three million foreign football fans about to descend on the 12 cities hosting the tournament, entrepreneurs are laying on special facilities. In Berlin, for example, a 3,000sqm mega-brothel has been built next to the main World Cup venue. It is designed to take as many as 650 customers at any one time. Wooden “performance boxes” resembling toilets have been built, with condoms, showers and parking all laid on…

The really scary question is: where will these women come from? Answer: people trafficking.

Well, well. According to BBC Online,

Older people across the UK are being given the chance to try out the internet to show how technology can be beneficial to their lifestyle.

More than 1,500 IT taster sessions have been set up as part of Age Concern’s Silver Surfer Week, organised in conjunction with BT and Microsoft.

Older people will be shown how they can order shopping and services from the comfort of their own home.

A bus, equipped with computers, will also tour UK towns.

Given the sponsors, the bussed-in computers will presumeably be running Microsoft software with its legendary ease-of-use facilities and entertaining facilities like Solitaire. Funny way to demonstrate concern for aged people.

I cannot believe that people fall for these Nigerian email scams. But here’s a true story from the New Yorker which suggests that they do.

James Miller collects all the 419 emails he receives and keeps them in a special folder (no doubt labelled “Greed, Folly and Stupidity”). He also pointed me to Scamorama, a site which realises the comic potential of the 419 racket.

Guy Kewney, a computer expert, was waiting outside a BBC Television Centre studio to discuss the high court ruling on the Beatles’ Apple Corps v Apple Computer on Monday morning. As he watched the news in reception, he was amazed to see “Guy Kewney” pop up on screen. Unlike the white, bearded technology columnist for IT Week, this “Guy Kewney” was black, and appeared stumped when asked about the US computer giant and its tussle with the Beatles over the Apple trademark.

“Were you surprised by this verdict?” he was asked. “I’m very surprised at the verdict,” he gamely replied. “Because I was not expecting that when I came.”

A BBC insider said the wrong Guy was a minicab driver, waiting to pick up the real Guy. When the producer went to collect the computer expert from a different waiting area, he called out “Guy Kewney” and the driver said “hello”. He was then whisked upstairs to meet the BBC’s Karen Bowerman, who asked the first question on live TV.

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BBC NEWS | S Africa’s Zuma cleared of rape…

Mr Zuma said he had had a shower after sex to prevent HIV transmission and believed that a healthy man was unlikely to catch HIV from a woman.

What is it with African males? Jacob Zuma was Deputy President of South Africa until obliged to stand down because of indictment on rape and corrruption charges. He’s now been acquitted of the former, but faces trial for the latter in July.

The really weird thing, though, is that until these clouds appeared on his horizon Zuma was head of the council which advised the South African president on Aids.

One thing mysteriously missing from the discussion about the managerial chaos at the Home Office is the fact that this is the organisation which is going to oversee (and ensure the security of) ID cards.