The wonderfully obtuse Dave Cocannon sent me a cute left-field link on lost and found today. Dave is a great software developer that we have worked with a lot and has a great dry sense of humour which helps when you work with us at Yougetitback HQ.
This site posts pictures from lost cameras and usb sticks. It has had a few success stories in reuniting owners. It is a great idea and the stories reinforces our experience that there are lots of honest people out there willing to help.
I read a great article by Patrick Barkham in The Guardian (G2 supplement Feb 27 2008) detailing all the great changes in the new Terminal 5 . Heathrow ( aka hell) is a not a good experience for travellers and I am waiting with baited breath for its opening in March 27th.
One of the key issues it is trying to solve is the lost baggage issue.
For some odd reason I always thought that there was a crew of happy Ooompa Lumpas ( Willy Wonka- not the scary remake ) whistling and singing when taking my luggage to the plane. The Guardian has blown that apart with their pictures of real people working hard, the average Oompa Lumpa moves 200 bags per shift but if you are good at your job you get to become a LOAD MASTER – no world domination here – you have to balance the lugagge on the plane so it doesnt fall over.
For fellow anoraks out there here are the digits:
6.2 million bags delayed /lost by European Airlines in 2007.
Up 6% from 2006
BA was the worst European airline 26.5 bags lost / delayed per 1000 passengers.
Costs airlines £46 to reunite customers with their lost /delayed bags.
(My Simple Maths = 6.2 million x £46 = approx £280 million issue. )
Heathrow & Terminal 5
T5 is the biggest single span structure in Britain
Costs £4.5 bn
8km of super fast track ( conveyor belt to you and i) for late bags
Aim to get bags from plane door opening to reclaim belt in 25 minutes
Heathrow in the quite month of January processed 4.3 million bags
They are looking at RFID being added to the sticky labels they use but reckon it costs too much.
Looking forward to seeing it – if it goes badly the fine men in Cork’s new airport could show them a thing or two.
A cool ,if a little expensive, product called Undercover from the people at Orbicule. A few nice features like pretending to have a HD failure and it notifies the Apple store when you bring it in for repair. $49 per Mac. People love their Macs so this could be a winner.
This is a great story of a stolen phone which was returned after this guy ,Evan Guttman, set up a website to put pressure on the person who had the phone.
The person has tried to upload pictures from the phone but it went to the real owners account, so a friend of hers (Evan) set up a website to track the person down - they did - hundreds of people go involved.
Put on the kettle - make a cup of tea - this is worth reading.
No Phone, no ipod, no email - sounds either like hell or bliss I am not sure which. A great post of living without technology from the guys at shefbase.com. The quote that sums it all up.
“The week had bordered on torturous. Technology has become such an integral part of our lives, it is almost incomprehensible to live without it.”
All of us at yougetitback.com spend all our time making sure that people get these items back - it is fascinating to get an insight into what it is like without our tech tools to operate our increasingly busy lives.
Perhaps it is because I have started this blog recently but there seems to be an incredible amount of theft and losses of data particularly in the UK in the last few months. Asavin Wattanajantra has posted on ITPRO a great timeline detailing all the major events from end 2006 to now.
A quick tot shows that there were data breaches on 27.2 million people in the UK, albeit one major 25 million event by Revenue&Customs. This event has the dubious honour of being one of the worlds largest ID protection failures ever.
As well as being a worry to consumers , it is costing big business a lot of money as well as losing trust from consumers. Nationwide Building Society was fined £1m for losing customer data that was on a laptop stolen from an employees home.
A good article on Snopes about IMEI numbers and their role in locking phones.
They reckon all thieves want is to make lots of phone calls before your carrier locks the phone down. This may be very true but it seems to be a bigger issue in the USA than Europe primarily because there is very little prepaid in the USA. No great joy for a thief trying to ring an expensive destination if he steals a phone with 5 euro prepaid credit.
The optimistically titled Automatic Millionaire column on Yahoo Finance gives lots of really good tips on phone security and details a case of a consumers who got hit with a $26,000 bill after the phone was stolen. Is there a case for a credit card level of service where they call you if your phone suddenly changes calling pattern? I have got the odd call from my credit card provider asking was I really in the States spending like there was no tomorrow.
Here is an unfortunate story of an AT&T customer who had to pay $450 for porn downloads after the phone was stolen. Frisky lot these phone thieves.
Protecting personal data on phones is becoming a hot topic.
What we take for granted re laptops security is becoming as important for phones.
MSNBC had a good article on this with the key tips as follows:
1. Passwords
1,2,3,4 or 0000 is not a tough one to crack. Make sure you have a decent password and your phone locks up after a period of time.
2. Dont have it on the phone
Keep it off the phone if you can. Use an removable memory card so it isnt on the phone all the time- problem with this is that it is very cumbersome and can also be lost. No security features on cards that I am aware of.
3. Clean it
Most people change phones every 18 months so make sure when you are selling / dumping /giving to your 2 year old to play with you clean the phone of all the data.
3. Software
New software where they can remotely delete information on the phone is useful.
4. Back it up
Make copies of everything important
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