Perhaps Frankfurt is suffering from the Heathrow disease of being just too big for its boots.

Is this legal? Is it within the terms of the merchant agreement? Is it sensible? Is it secure?

I don’t know, but it’s sure weird. I haven’t seen any other merchant do this.

But accordingly, I would like to politely request that Hampshire Police remove the following signs across the county, which I find offensive:

• ‘Please wash before exiting rest room’ (the facilities in my office)
• ‘Baby on board’ (still seen on the occasional car)
• ‘Defacing council property will result in the police being called’ (Job Centre, Winchester)
• ‘We will not sell Eggs or Flour to under-18s’ (seen in Sainsbury’s, see attached photo)

I hope Hampshire police get cracking with this; there’s nothing like a muted, inoffensive society to inspire us to greater wealth and knowledge.

Anyway, enough frothing at the mouth – I’m beginning to sound like The Devil’s Kitchen, with a little less of the adult language. Time for a Valium, perhaps.

Incidentally, any particular reason we can’t have a free market here? I’d happily pay less for less ‘security’.

My worries were further compounded when I phoned during office hours the next morning to check again. They could find no record of the card being declined, or an explanation as to why it was. The only suggestion I was offered was: ‘try it in another ATM’. Well, duh.

I’ve no doubt my card will probably work again next time I try it, and this was a one-off glitch. It’s not entirely reassuring that the problem doesn’t seem to have been recorded, but what is surprising is the illogical service I was offered by the Woolwich. This isn’t price discrimination, this is just stupidity: with 24-hour callcentres and computerised records, there is no excuse.

This type of problem in the past has been one of the things that has encouraged me to keep multiple accounts with different banks (so I can get at money when I need it). I suspect the Woolwich might soon lose its place in my portfolio, though. Any recommendations for a replacement?

However, I recently read a story in Seth Godin‘s book, All Marketers are Liars, which cast a new light on this. Apparently, something similar was happening in 80s Harvard: entrepreneurs would buy last year’s model of speaker (hence cheaply) and sell them to local students from the back of a van. Because the students assumed they were stolen, they could rationalise why they were cheap. The entrepreneurs made a tidy profit.

Is there something more to the Imperial story? Did the folks at Felix skimp on their research?

I was listening to a podcast by Bruce Schneier the other day on the topic of privacy. I found his speaking to be a little less powerful than his blog. However, although I didn’t always agree with his proposed economic or legal solutions to problems, primarily because we have a differing political perspective, he is good at explaining security principles and how they apply to real life.

If you’re like me, when discussing privacy with people, you sometimes get frustrated by people who use the mantra ‘What are you scared of? I have nothing to hide.’, or some variation. I find this a hard argument to win. Bruce gave a simple reply which I’m betting is 90% effective.

If you genuinely feel you’ve got nothing to hide, please append your salary and your name as a comment to this posting. If you don’t (and I suspect you won’t), it probably means you have something to hide. This doesn’t mean you are a bad person. It doesn’t mean you’ve committed a crime. It just means you have good reasons not to fully disclose everything about your life. This is what privacy is about, and is why some people get upset when it’s taken away.

A large majority of the presentation was dedicated to a speech by Clinton, with the remainder being pre-vetted questions. My heart sank when I saw what appeared to be some Powerpoint slides ready and waiting as I entered the hall, but fortunately he didn’t use the projector. He appeared to being using some notes, which was a surprise, but they didn’t intrude too much into the presentation. He was a clear orator, and delivered plenty of soundbite-worthy phrases – his eloquence and fluency wasn’t quite up to the standard of a legend, however.

His speech focused around four main questions:

1. What is the fundamental nature of the 21st century?
2. How would you like to change the 21st century?
3. What steps are necessary to move from (1) to (2)?
4. Who’s supposed to do it?

Each of these questions had detailed answers, and it was here that I began to deviate from the president’s view. His basic premise was sound – the world is increasingly interdependent, and this has both good and bad effects. He focused a lot on security, however, and appears to believe in the current worldview of terrorism (large, complex networks with vast power), whereas I am doubtful (and of course am in the minority). As some compensation, though, it’s good to see him recommending the use of intelligence agencies as the primary weapon against this problem, as Bruce Schneier has recommended many times in the past. Clinton is obviously in favour of income redistribution, and made it sound impressively appealing to me, despite my moral objection. He’s obviously also a competent businessman – his discussion of the return on investment of war, and his wry observation about a country’s budget being controlled by what it spent last year (as is the case in most organisations) betrays his business knowledge. He spoke with admiration about a recent initiative to teach entrepreneurship in Scottish schools – I also believe this should be encouraged.

Clinton’s answer to the fourth question, ‘Who’s supposed to do it?’, was where we deviated most. It’s clear he thinks everyone has a duty to act through democracies, NGOs, and so on, to make the changes they believe are necessary for the world. Irrespective of whether you believe this is an effective method (I think its success is less than overwhelming), this has shades of Kennedy‘s famous quote: ‘Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country’, but with the USA replaced with the world. As Milton Friedman explains in his introduction to Capitalism and Freedom, this is hardly the rallying cry of someone pro-freedom. Although I don’t think it’s fair to accuse Clinton of being illberal, I drew the conclusion from this and other comments that he cares more about equality than freedom.

It was quite obvious that Clinton now feels that he is able to speak his mind, having left his presidency. He was asked at one point which world leaders he had met whom he admired, and his passion about three of them (Nelson Mandela, Yitzhak Rabin, and King Hussein) was plain to see. He does seem to be as honest a man as one could reasonably expect in such a position, and I admire him, even if I don’t agree with him.

For example: My credit card expired recently. On receiving the new one, I forgot to sign it, and put it in my wallet with the back blank (yeah, I know). I’ve since been able to use it twice unsigned:

• At a pub, I paid for ~£10 worth of drinks. They didn’t use chip-and-pin, so I was asked to sign. When the barman noticed I was missing a signature, he pointed out that I really should sign it, but ‘this time’ he’d take other ID. I showed him my photo driving licence (with a signature), and there were no further questions. I was sufficently fazed that I forgot to sign it again, and:
• At a shop in Southampton airport, I went to pay for a magazine. Again, no chip-and-pin. When noticing the card was unsigned, I was again encouraged to sign it, but this time no other ID was required – even though I offered my driving licence. ‘I’ll trust you’, I was told.

Of course, it is dumb for me to walk around with an unsigned card in my wallet. However, it’s also dumb for these retailers to accept it. You could argue that it’s a low risk for them – I look respectable, I have other ID with my photo and signature, and these are low amounts involved. Whether they are breaking their contract with the bank by accepting it, though, I don’t know – I suspect it would frowned upon, at least – and they are probably liable for any fraud.

I was tempted to leave the card unsigned and see how much longer I could get away with it. If I wasn’t putting myself at risk, I’d do it, but I’m paranoid about losing things, so I haven’t. But it’s curious to see just how easy it is to get away with some things.

Update 10:21: One of the links above goes to a downloadable copy of the BBC documentary ‘The Power of Nightmares’ on archive.org. It looks like the site is currently overloaded, but it’s well worth watching when it comes back online.

Update 13:59: The link now seems to be working again.