to swoop down and investigate
in detail what was happening
on any of the dozens of computers
he now managed.

One morning, when staff
logged onto their computers, Darryl
sent a message warning everyone
from the Managing Director downwards
that henceforth anyone might be
subject to screening by the
Computer Manager. Unbeknownst to most,
Darryl’s newly installed VNC was
humming away merrily in the background.
If he received an alert
that somebody had downloaded a
virus or was trying to
install some unrecognised software, the
VNC would be activated.

The VNC is a mighty
powerful tool. To some, its
use will appear like a
straightforward business practice, but in
the global Internet, deployment of
VNC software is fiercely contested.
In much of continental Europe,
governments and companies are strictly
forbidden from accessing any information
on their employees’ computers that
is not related to work
(and even that is not
easy). The monitoring of emails
is strictly illegal.

Crime detection and civil liberties
have always been uneasy bedfellows,
but their coexistence has become
significantly more troubled since the
spread of the Internet, and
this will continue in the
future. In Germany, if a
police officer is tracking a
suspect anonymously over the Internet,
he or she is legally
bound to identify themselves as
belonging to law enforcement, if
asked by an online interlocutor.
This makes very difficult the
practice widespread in Britain and
the United States of officers
posing as underage girls and
boys in order to entrap
paedophiles who appear to be
grooming children online. The deployment
of a VNC is politically
charged and circumscribed by important
data-protection laws. So Darryl Leaning
had to handle his pet
with great care.

One day in early February
2008 an alert that warned
of suspect software flashed up
on Darryl’s screen. Unauthorised Application:
Messenger. Darryl’s systems were looking
out for several different types
of unauthorised application. The word
‘Messenger’ suggested that someone was
trying to install or operate
some form of communications package
like Skype. Within minutes Darryl
had traced its origin to
one of the chemical engineers
who represent the backbone of
GSA’s business. Walking over to
the workstation in question, Darryl
decided simply to ask him
outright whether he was running
any new instant messenger on
his machine.