Garda John O’Toole needed a favour. Phone records necessary for a criminal inquiry were trapped in bureaucratic hell, and the investigation was going nowhere. He phoned his brother-in-law in Garda HQ, asking if he could speed things up. The chief had signed the authorisations, but nothing was happening at the phone company. DI Nyham said …
Tag Archive: data protection
Aug 28
Spider Hack
Mention earlier this week of the Morris tribunal reminds me of one of the minor riddles that inquiry left in my mind. In June 2005, the tribunal apparently learned that it’s website had been ‘hacked’. The Sunday Times later reported that ‘rogue computer software known as spyware was attached to the server used to “air” …
Apr 23
Inconceivable
![John Gormley and his senior advisors [picture from Irish Times]](http://faduda.ie/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/gormley-150x150.jpg "gormley")
The Friday Irish Times front page, which went to press an hour or so ago, has a picture of environment minister John Gormley chatting with some national school children. Gormley’s other official duty today was to announce the scrapping of misguided government plans to introduce evoting. Back in March, Gormley conceded it was ‘inconceivable‘ that …
Oct 10
Doublechecking
A few months ago, I bought an electronic toll device. When I entered my car registration number, the NRA webpage updated to show me the make, model, colour and country of registration of my car. A quick test showed I could also look up any other car details simply by entering a registration number. When …