Whatnot At Work

Border Patrol May Confiscate Work Laptops

Business travelers have a new issue to worry about. U.S. border patrols have the right to search and seize your laptops and are doing it more frequently now. The searches are no longer just for explosives or other contraband. Now the searches include the content of the PC, including pictures and emails. Once confiscated, a laptop may or may not be returned.

Appeals are under way in some cases, but the law is clear. “They don’t need probable cause to perform these searches under the current law. They can do it without suspicion or without really revealing their motivations,” said Tim Kane, a Washington lawyer who is researching the matter for corporate clients.

Laptops may be scrutinized and subject to a “forensic analysis” under the so-called border search exemption, which allows searches of people entering the United States and their possessions “without probable cause, reasonable suspicion or a warrant,” a federal court ruled in July.

Aside from the inconvenience of losing your laptop during travel, this issue brings up several other issues.

1. Employees may arrive at their destination without the needed tools and data to perform their job.
2. Company or customer confidential data may be subject to an unknown number of eyes as it travels through the government confiscation process.

Tips to lessen the impact of a laptop confiscation.

1. Backup data to alternate devices, such as thumb drives.
2. Email and/or overnight mail data and/or equipment to the destination ahead of the employee.
3. Encrypt sensitive data on laptops - this should already be done anyways to avoid litigation and other problems from loss or theft of equipment.
4. Make sure travel laptops are cleaned of all personal/questionable data prior to travel or return travel, especially photos and browser caches and histories. If companies have separate laptops designated specifically for travel, this will avoid the inevitable conflicts arising from the requirement to remove all personal data and images that the employee may not want to part with.

Cell Phones Double As Breathalizer

Some companies in Japan are using cell phones with built in breath testers to make sure their employees are not driving under the influence.

The new system, which uses NTT DoCoMo's FOMA third-generation cell phone equipped with a breath analyzer, is easy to use. First, the driver makes a video-phone call to his or her company and breathes into the analyzer connected to the cell phone. The video image showing the driver blowing into the analyzer and data regarding the alcohol concentration on his or her breath are transmitted to the company and confirmed by computer there.

What have you done for your IT Manager lately?

A new survey of 141 IT managers reports that most managers feel that bureaucracy is the biggest roadblock to their success. Some other findings:

• 1/3 of managers wish they had learned new skills.
• 20% felt that taking more risks would have helped their career.
• 2/3 felt they should have asked more questions.

Photocopiers Recalled

Check your photocopier - Canon is recalling all of its desktop copiers for potential fire hazard. Here are the details on the Canon website.

Brain Boosting Media Player

A new media player uses neurotechnology to guide your brain into different states like relaxation or concentration, by playing different sounds or displaying different patterns.

Imagine increasing your productivity simply by listening to sound that is specially designed for your brain. All of this is now possible, with a new program for the PC called Mind Stereo(TM).

Health professionals and researchers have shown that (Brainwave Entertainment) BWE has great potential in improving brain power, reducing stress, increasing focus, raising energy levels and enhancing creativity.

New MRI Lie Detectors

Temple University scientists are developing a future fool proof lie detector that uses MRI (magenetic resonant imaging) technology to look "directly at peoples' brain activity." The technique isn't perfected yet because there are many areas of the brain that are used during lying.

"There really is no one lying center," Faro says. "There are multiple areas in the brain that activate because there are a lot of processes that have to take place."

One thing they found is that "the brain has to work much harder to lie than to tell the truth." There research showed that lying subjects had twice as much brain activity as the truthful subjects.

Bumping Locks Open Instantly

Bumping is a quick way of opening any door lock that uses the tumbler system (just about all of them except electronic card locks) - without the key. The video here shows an eleven year old opening a standard Kwikset brand door lock in about 3 seconds (WMV file). This video here is a news cast of a locksmith bumping open his own store in about 10 seconds.

The technique requires no skill, no training, and no tools other than a bump key and something to tap it with. The bump key can be made easily from any key that fits the type of lock by filing away parts of it. The way the technique works is you bump the pins quickly causing the tumblers to jump up, leaving a gap between the pins and tumblers (as in second picture). Twisting the key while the gap is present opens the lock. The technique opens the lock (without the correct key) as quickly as using the correct key would.

What is at jeopardy: your door locks, USPS and UPS post office boxes and padlocks. No damage is caused to the locks and no telltale evidence is left behind. Insurance companies can deny claims on the grounds that the door or lock was not locked.

Abloy locks use a different mechanism than the standard tumbler system above and are immune to bumping. There are four pdf writeups detailing abloy locks (links on the right of the page).

The Kryptonite bicycle lock disaster (a plastic pen opens it in less than a minute) spurred the company to fix their locks quickly. Hopefully this information will spur door lock makers to fix theirs too.

Rude And Stupid Too

If you think no one notices when you take a quick peek at your blackberry, PDA, or cell phone you are wrong. It interrupts everyone and lets everyone know you are not paying attention. This is especially discourteous in meetings with customers. That is why companies are setting policies forbidding the use of personal devices in meetings. Some companies ban personal devices from meeting rooms and threaten confiscation.

"So many people would come to the meeting and have their BlackBerry turned on and constantly fiddle with it while they're talking or you're talking," said Finkelstein, the company's president and chief executive officer. "It's hard to stay focused, and it's clearly rude. More than once, people have gotten annoyed."

His solution:

"No phone zone. Check your cell phones and crackberries at the door, or they will be confiscated."

Can you believe that someone on a job interview would interrupt the interview to check his blackberry? How to clearly demonstrate your cluelessness.

"When you're an interviewer, you're looking for somebody who wants to find a job," she said. "It's a nonverbal indicator of what's to come. I was very polite and professional and told him, 'Obviously, this is not your top priority. My time is very valuable to me. I don't feel as if it's as important to you as it is to me."

Electronic Devices At Work Tips:

1. Don't bring electronic devices to meetings. You will be tempted to look at them. It will be noticed, no matter how quick or covert.
2. Use vibrate mode when at work. No one else wants to hear your cool ringtone.

They Hate You

Ever wonder why technical support is so bad? Can they be that stupid? Or are they just evil? Turns out it's the latter - they hate you and are deliberately messing with you. According to a survey in the UK, half of IT managers admit hating their users and purposely obstructing them. Three quarters of all IT workers wish they had a different job.

Warehouse Of The Future

Here's an advertisement in Scientific American, November 1956, predicting what the factory of the future of 1962 will look like.

Here’s tomorrow’s "look" in warehousing! Electronically, orders are received, checked against inventory, assembled, packed, wrapped, labeled, and whisked to shipping - untouched by human hands!