may the force be with you

"The WSJ has a story about SGI filing for bankruptcy, but the SGI Investor's Relation page doesn't say anything." Nothing else really known at this point, but this is not unexpected.

source:http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/06/05/08/124245.shtml

Distinguished engineer weighs in on the state of network research and her latest projects.

Some people refer to Sun Labs distinguished engineer Radia Perlman as the Mother of the Internet and the creator of the spanning tree algorithm used by bridges and switches. Others know her as the author of network textbooks such as Interconnections. Network World even singled her out in March as one of 20 people who changed the industry over the past 20 years. But when I met with her recently at a security event in Boston I wanted to know this: What have you done for us lately?

One week I get to see Tim Berners-Lee, the Father of the Web, and the next week I get to meet with the Mother of the Internet. What more could a networking editor ask for?

Mother of the Internet. That’s kind of a strange marketing sound bite. I cringe when people emphasize my gender, because it's really a very small part of my life, especially my professional life. Recently a recruiter for a company sent me e-mail saying "We are particularly interested in you as a female thought leader." I didn't reply, because I wasn't interested in a job, but I fantasized replying: "Thank you for your interest. Although my credentials as a thought leader are impeccable, I must warn you that I am not that qualified as a female. I can't walk in heels, I have no clothing sense, and I'm not particularly decorative. What aspects of being female are important for this position?"

What exactly does a distinguished engineer do?

The job is not that well defined so I get to kind of do whatever I want. I enjoy talking to various groups in and out of Sun to find out what they're doing and often it intrigues me with some problem that needs to be solved. Or I meet two groups that ought to know each other and I introduce them. At Sun Labs it's nice if we do things that make the company money but it's also nice if we change the world. Though if all I did was change the world, then I assume that would be a bad thing.

What's your take on the state of networking and security research these days?

The taste of whoever is in the funding agencies tends to cause everyone to look at the same stuff at the same time. Often technologies get hot then go away. There was active networking for a while, which always mystified me and has now died. In security the money is behind digital rights management, which I think ultimately is a bad thing -- not that we need to preserve the right to pirate music, but because the solutions are things that don’t solve the real problems in terms of security. The few dishonest people will always manage to steal things. But most people are basically honest, and are willing to pay if you make it convenient. If there's a trust relationship there most people will wind up buying things. I hate to see so much emphasis on digital rights management.

Where should the funding go?

The things that seem absolutely unsolvable but that we have to solve is the user interface stuff. Everything is so complicated. People tell you to turn off cookies because they are dangerous, but you can't talk to anything on the Web without using them. People build this horribly complicated software, put up all these mysterious pop-up boxes and then blame the users when things don't go right. I keep hearing people say, like with distributed denial of service, that there are all these grandmothers out there who don’t know how to maintain their systems. Don't blame the grandmothers; blame the vendors. Liability is one of those things I don't understand. Somebody makes a toy and some kid manages to stick a piece up his nose and dies from it, that company has to pay millions of dollars because everyone is so sympathetic. But in the software industry, when you install something there is this 9,000-page legalese that basically says: "We have no idea what this thing does, we're not claiming it does anything, if it remotely does anything useful you should be grateful to us, but you shouldn’t blame us if it doesn't do what you expect." And they get away with it!

We could use more standards, such as with document formats. Customers would be better off, but it's not really in the interest of the vendors to do that. And customers actually don't want standards; they want the cheapest thing that works. Even though it's good for them, how do you convince people to eat broccoli instead of chocolate bars?

Yeah, broccoli can be tough. Even tougher might be getting them to use something called an "ephemerizer."

What's this security project of yours all about?

You want to be able to create files that have expiration dates and make lots of copies of all of your storage so even if your data center burns down you can buy a brand new machine, reinstall the file system from scratch, get your backup tapes and be able to recover all the data that hasn’t expired and not be able to recover any data that has expired. You want to be able to do this in a way that can be very scalable and in which you won't lose performance and to do it with key managers that manage time-release keys in a way you don’t really have to trust them.

We've been working on it for a few years and it's been evolving. Originally the design was every time you opened a file that had an expiration date you had to go to a key manager, like an external site, and ask him to unlock the file for you. When I tried to sell it to the file system groups they were unhappy about the overhead every time you opened a file and the amount of information you'd have to keep in the header of the file was a whole bunch. After that I changed it so that only after a file system recovers from a crash does it have to ask for one decryption from an outside agent and otherwise it works autonomously so it has no performance problems. In the header of a file all I need is about 4 bytes for a key ID.

What form might this all take in products?

The intention is that it will get built into file systems, but I'm just in research and who knows when and if things will happen. I'm optimistic that it will and fairly soon.

I've read your "Algorhyme" poem about spanning tree [plays off of Joyce Kilmer's "Trees"]. I'm thinking that coming up with words that rhyme with "ephemerizer" might be tough.

True. The spanning tree one just sort of came out. My son actually set that poem to music and my daughter and I had a chance to perform it at a concert at her office [Click here to hear Radia (on piano) and her daughter Dawn Perlner (voice) performing at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory.]

What else is on your plate?

I'll tell you, but there's a story behind it. A couple of years back there was this Boston Globe article about a hospital network melting down and in the middle of it was mentioned the spanning tree algorithm. I'm thinking: those are words that don’t belong in a Boston Globe article even if spanning tree was involved. Eventually we tracked down the company providing the switches and indeed it was a giant bridged network. Now bridging was never intended to do that: it was kind of a hack because people at the time were all confused about what Layer 3 was and they thought Ethernet was a competitor to DECnet. With bridges we did such a good job and it was so plug-and-play that you didn’t have to think about them, so people are still taking large networks and doing bridges. As it turns out people kind of believed IP must have been the best protocol ever because it just took over the world (just like English must be the best language ever because it's going to take over the world, but no, it has nothing to do with how good a language it is). DECnet would have been a much better protocol for the world to have adopted. It had a lot of advantages, like a larger address space (We're still talking about will IPv6 ever happen and if it does, there's nothing better about it than what we could have had 15 years ago). One of the advantages DECnet had was the ability to have a whole campus that was zero-configuration, that all had the same prefix , and you didn’t have to divvy up your address space for every link like IP does. But given that companies didn't go in that direction they're using bridging, which is inherently more fragile, especially when you take that notion and try to make it more responsive by doing all these things that involve lots of configuration. If you get the configuration wrong things can melt down. You shouldn’t be stressing it really hard. One of the things I'm trying to do now, given that we're stuck with IP, is come up with something that gives you the advantages of bridging so it can be all zero-configuration within a campus and all look like one big prefix and not be confined to just transmitting data along the spanning tree. You'd be able to use shortest paths and will be safer if you have temporary loops, so it shouldn’t melt down. About a year ago we finally got through the politics and got an IETF working group started called TRILL, which stands for transparent interconnection of lots of links. I'd written a paper about this five years ago and have been trying to sell it to the various standards bodies. I'm pretty sure it will get implemented. There are a lot of companies asking the sort of questions that only would be asked if they were planning to.

So TRILL is kind of like a new spanning tree?

You can think of it as a replacement to spanning tree that has the same properties of being zero-configuration, just plug it together and it works and it looks like one big thing but performs better because you have optimal paths. With spanning tree it's like taking the highway system and saying you don’t need both Rtes. 128 and 495 [to use local roads here in Massachusetts] just because they both sort of go in the same direction.

Jeez, I wasn't even going to ask you about spanning tree. I figured it was old news.

Something else you would think is old news is my thesis from 1988 on how to design a network that had the property that even if some of the routers were really malicious and were trying to do bad things (lying about who they were connected to, flooding the network with garbage, etc.) how could you cope with that. My thesis sounded really hard and important when I proposed it but the solution turned out to be embarrassingly simple. I found out years later that University of Washington networking people were required to read it. The thing was, though, that my proof of concept required a small enough network that all of the routers in it could keep track of all the source destination pairs talking at the same time. Recently I was discussing my thesis with someone else and we realized it does not extend to larger networks where you need hierarchy. We had to rethink it and do it in a totally different way which also has implications for congestion control. That's another paper that I've been working on recently.

Speaking of schools, I understand you aren't thrilled about how networking is being taught these days.

I get frustrated. Universities tend to teach it like it's a trade school. As if the only thing that every existed is TCP/IP The attitude seems to be that everything about it is perfect, so you just need to get your students to learn how to use it and write applications to it. But there are a lot of problems with this field where people just repeat things and nobody questions them anymore. Including in text books that are used at reputable universities. There's a lot in there that's just wrong. Like that ISO failed because it had too many layers. Or, if everything were encoded in XML it would all be interoperable or that security problems will go away once you have IPv6. What I'd like to see more of, and what I tried to do in [my book] Interconnections is to get people to think about things conceptually. One problem is that the books out there today only tend to deal with one or two layers and if they do all of networking they tend to only be strong in the areas of the writer's expertise. I've thought of collaborating with others on a book that would look at all of networking.

source:http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/050506-sun-radia-perlman-interview.html

"According to the Times Online Apple Computer successfully defended themselves vs the suit brought by Apple Corps." If you are looking for background on the case we had talked about it earlier. I'm just relieved that the battle of two bazillion dollar companies turned out well. Phew. And, of course, Apple Corp has filed an appeal already.

source:http://apple.slashdot.org/apple/06/05/08/1041255.shtml

Security and validation are critical issues in computing, and the next fifty years will be harder than the last. There are a number of proven programming techniques and design approaches which are already helping to harden our modern systems, but each of these must be carefully balanced with usability in order to be effective. In this talk, Alan Cox, fellow at Red Hat Linux, explores the future of what may be the biggest threat facing software engineers, the unverified user.

The well meaning user, often an employee of the company, represents a particular threat to computer systems because they work within the security perimeter and must be handled gently. Software developers are beginning to build some established security techniques into their code in order to protect the system from malicious exploits and well intentioned blunders. For example, some tools in the GCC compiler can now detect buffer overflows which no amount of code gazing had revealed before. Modularity, variation, and randomization of memory, file handles or process IDs can also help limit the spread of exploits. Breaking systems into components means that discreet rules can be imposed in order to limit the tasks which different pieces can execute. This approach could, for example, be used to define the allowable actions of an image viewer very precisely, reducing the possibility that the viewer could be hijacked to spawn a shell for malicious intent. Separation of secrets is another helpful concept. For example, a bluetooth phone can work very well as a remote security device for user verification.

No matter how good our prevention methods get, Cox argues we must understand ways to mitigate attacks. Flaws in software are inevitable, and bound to grow given the complexity and ever more rapid development cycles. A current emphasis in RedHat's Security-enhanced Linux (SELinux) is to defend against the user as a point of vulnerability to viruses and spyware. The computer can be taught to enforce security policies that the users themselves are unlikely to uphold, given their propensity to ignore advisories and software dialog boxes. Software engineers must build in security that is active by default, and they must understand the user so that security tools are actually used. If security thwarts the users or makes them stop and answer hard questions, the users will inevitably bypass even the strongest security measures.

source:http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail869.html

Usually the only alcohol-powered muscles are the ones in barroom brawls, but one scientist is adding alcohol to artificial muscles to power robots and more. This ScienCentral News video explains.

Artificial Muscles
Scientists at the University of Texas at Dallas have developed "artificial muscles" -- science's best attempt at mimicking natural muscles. But they're not made with the hydraulics or gears that power most of today's big, strong machines. These muscles are made of an elastic metal called "shape memory wire."

"These artificial muscles are able to do over a hundred times more work per cycle than a natural muscle," head researcher Ray Baughman says, "They're a hundred times stronger than an actual muscle."

Most robotic muscles are powered by an electrical current. As recent competitions have shown, scientists are working on many different versions of artificial muscle. But as he reported in the journal Science, Baughman's artificial muscles are powered by chemical energy, just as human muscles are.

In one experiment, Baughman used alcohol to fuel the movement of these artificial muscles. His team coated the shape memory wire with a chemical called a catalyst. When alcohol was added, it reacted with the oxygen in the air, burning up and releasing heat. The catalyst on the surface of the wire made the combustion of the alcohol proceed at a faster rate. All of that burning fuel causes the artificial muscle to heat up. "And as the shape memory wire is heated it actually contracts. Normally you think that a material heated would expand, but these shape memory materials contract," says Baughman.

According to Baughman, they contract by a large amount, "This contraction is like the contraction of arm muscles in our body." The muscles then expand when the alcohol is shut off.

Shape memory wire expands and contracts based on temperature.

Baughman says they hope to one day power these muscles with environmentally friendly fuel sources such bio-diesel or bio-alcohol.

Baughman, who works with funding from the military, says these artificial muscles could serve multiple uses. "Artificial muscles are needed for a variety of applications that are extremely important for our society, for example for prosthetic for those that are handicapped," he says. He adds that they could also power everything from artificial hearts, to super-muscles for astronauts or soldiers, and maybe even self-sufficient robotic androids.

"On the more humorous side," he says, "perhaps in a very distant future the humanoid robot who is sitting next to you in a bar might be drinking alcohol in order to work the next day."

Baughman's research was published in the March 17, 2006 edition of Science and is funded by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Robert A. Welsh Foundation.

source:http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?type=article&article_id=218392785

"According to the New York Times, lots of girls and younger teens are abandoning their dolls for the Sims. Says one professor, "We leave most of the social work in our society to women and The Sims lets young girls, in particular, work out their desires and conflicts about those relationships." Says another, "Children generally want to create characters, but with girls we see them wanting to create a friend." Meanwhile, says Will Wright, boys will "do the same stupid thing over and over again and be happy," (and I wince looking at my vast collection of first-person shooters). The article does quote one 10-year-old boy who plays with Sims, and has learned valuable life lessons. "I learned don't leave your baby crying or people will come take your baby away."" And I learned that if you lock Sims in your upstairs torture chamber, with no tiles to sit, they eventually cry themselves to death.

source:http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/07/1334236

Diamond-based devices could be helping IT managers detect network snooping and prevent information theft as anti-eavesdropping technology from the University of Melbourne gets venture funding.

The technology, based on quantum cryptography, uses a diamond to produce a single photon of light to stop information being intercepted, according to Dr Shane Huntington, University of Melbourne scientist and CEO of Quantum Communications Victoria (QCV).

The QCV program within the university's School of Physics has secured a A$9 million ($7 million) deal with a consortium of quantum communication production and commercialization companies, including MaqiQ Technologies, Japan, Qucor Pty., Sydney, and California-based SGI.

"Eavesdropping is a global problem which causes huge financial losses for security agencies [so] there is a critical need for Australia to keep up with the rest of the world in Internet security," Huntington said. Existing communications systems are not foolproof because hackers or eavesdroppers can extract information from optical links without users being aware of it, he added.

First-generation products will be for very secure transmission of secure datasets, like a bank's daily offsite backup, but could serve the commodity networking market in about 20 years, Huntington said. It's a low transfer rate but idea is not to send data [this way] but the encryption key so you don't need the same transfer rate. One of the consortium's goals is to enhance that as much as possible. If you can securely transfer the key you can transfer the rest of that data over a standard telco line, he said.

"We hope to have a prototype within three years," Huntington said. "It's not a stronger form of encoding, it's a new paradigm, so if someone steals the information you definitely know it's happened. If you're sending one photon at a time and one goes missing you know it."

Huntington said the nascent industry already exists in the US and Europe, but commercial systems available today don't send one photon at a time - "they approximate it".

"The technology we're developing is a true source of these single photons; [others] use a laser and put it through a filter so there is approximately one," he said.

This is achieved by "growing" diamonds, which are "usually cleaner" than the mined gems, in QCV's lab. The synthetic diamonds have a defect which is the source of the single photon.

The program began after QCV was awarded A$3.3 million as part of a grant from Victoria's Department of Innovation Industry and Regional Development to develop the technology. A further A$480,000 from the federal Department of Education Science and Training was recently awarded to help QCV find infrared sources of single photons appropriate for international telecommunications networks.

For the latest on network-oriented research at university and other labs, go to Network World’s Alpha Doggs blog.

source:http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/050506-diamonds-it-security.html

Earlier this week, the Massachusetts Information Technology Division (ITD) issued a Request for Information (RFI) titled "OpenDocument Format Plug-in for Microsoft Office Suite." Almost immediately, Pamela Jones posted word at Groklaw from Gary Edwards that the OpenDocument Foundation had completed just such a plug-in, and would be responding in detail to the ITD shortly. There will surely be other responses as well, as I have received email over the past several month from other groups embarked on the same project, some as far afield as Australia.

The RFI itself has some interesting aspects as well. Rather than a formal Request for Proposals, the RFI is instead a message to the greater IT community asking for assistance, not only from those that may be creating tools, but from those that may simply be aware of something interesting that is going on. Specifically, what the ITD is looking for are tools that can assist it in its conversion to software that supports the ODF-compliant office software. The page at the ITD procurement Website where you can view the RFI in ODF, PDF or (yes) Word format is here.

As a result, if you are involved in a relevant project, or know of one, I would encourage you to check out the RFI and supply any information that you may have that could be useful. Whether or not you have anything to offer, though, the RFI makes for interesting reading, and I'll now point out a few reasons why.

First of all, the RFI begins with the required trappings of the government contracting process, but also utilizes a refreshing community-based approach, as signaled by the email that I (and presumably many others) received pointing me to the RFI. That email closed with the following: "As we are interested in gathering information about all current and potential efforts in this area we would appreciate any assistance you can give us in getting the word out to as many interested parties as possible. Thanks in advance for your help."

More specifically, the introduction of the RFI states as follows:

Through this Request for Information, the Commonwealth seeks information pertaining to the existence or development of a “plug-in component” or other converter options to be used with Microsoft Office that would allow Microsoft Office to easily open, render, and save to ODF files, and also allow translation of documents between Microsoft’s binary (.doc, .xls, .ppt) or XML formats and ODF. Respondents responding to this proposal need not be on state contract.

Clearly, such a component would be useful in multiple ways, most particularly by allowing those with disabilities to continue to use Word, pending further progress on improving the accessibility of ODF compliant office software, while their co-workers convert to an ODF-compliant environment. Similarly, when the ITD deals with state municipalities and others in the outside world, such a plug-in would be useful on an ongoing basis for swapping files received, and converting documents for sending out.

Many of the questions in the RIF that follow are predictable, dealing with issues such as ease of use and installation, available features, proof of conformance to ODF, level of user training required (if any), total costs of ownership, and availability schedule. Others are more intriguing, such as question III.P, which asks "What external (sponsor, investor, customer) resources that are not currently available or committed to the respondent would be necessary to achieve the functional release timeframes described above?" hinting (perhaps) that the ITD might be willing to underwrite some measure of development costs in order to expedite development, and to influence included features.

But by far and away the most interesting of the 23 included questions are the following:

R. How much and what kind of cooperation from Microsoft would be required of a team creating an ODF translator plug-in that was very well integrated with Microsoft New, Open, Save, and Save As functions?

S. What kind of technical information would the respondent require from Microsoft in order to successfully develop an ODF translator plug-in that was very well integrated with Microsoft New, Open, Save, Save As functions?

In other words, would the cooperation of Microsoft be required in order to achieve the technical requirements of the ITD, and if so, what type of cooperation?

If the answers come back "yes," either as a necessity, or in order to get faster and/or more satisfactory results, then the question that necessarily follows is whether Microsoft would in fact be willing to cooperate in order to make it easier for existing customers, such as the ITD, to migrate to competing products? If not, would third parties (such as the antitrust authorities of the European Union) mandate such cooperation?

The answer would seem to be that Microsoft might find it difficult to say no, given the statements made by one of its spokespersons in recent days. On May 3, multiple journalists reported the following quote from a statement issued by Jason Matusow, Microsoft's Director of Standards Affairs, upon the announcement (reported first at this blog) that ODF had received an overwhelming vote of approval in ISO/IEC:

There are hundreds of industry-specific XML schemas used right now by industries spanning health care, real estate, insurance, finance and others. ODF is yet another XML-based format in the market....The ODF format is limited to the features and performance of OpenOffice and StarOffice and would not satisfy most of our Microsoft Office customers today.

Matusow's statement is curious in a number of ways: First, as he knows, there are multiple other products that support ODF, such as IBM's Workplace Managed Client and KDE's KOffice suite (see my interview comparing the KOffice product to other ODF suites). Second, ODF, as he also knows, is not an industry-specific schema. He is correct, of course, that XML-based formats have been widely developed and adopted, comprising a wildly successful way to help manage and use data.

Most significantly for current purposes, however, is what Matusow said next:

Yet we will support interoperability with ODF documents as they start to appear and will not oppose its standardization or use by any organization. The richness of competitive choices in the market is good for our customers and for the industry as a whole.

Surely this would include cooperating with developers of the type of plug-ins that the ITD is seeking, for the good of Microsoft's customers and the industry as a whole.

source:http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20060506173536926

Yet another digital display connectivity standard

DVI-I, DVI-D, UDI, HDMI -- a confusing group of abbreviation for many. Interestingly, all of them do similar things and the two later ones attempt to address the same issues including backwards compatibility while being different themselves. As far as standards go, computer and digital displays have pretty much been using one big standard, DVI. However, industry supporters say that connectivity is too confusing, and in fact, will now launch a newer standard, called DisplayPort.

DisplayPort, designed by the VESA group, attempts to do one thing: unify digital display connection interfaces. Like UDI and HDMI, DisplayPort will be backwards compatible with DVI. The specification claims however, that DisplayPort offers greater bandwidth for HD video while at the same time offering a connection interface that's simple and easy to use. Dell's press release claims:

The DisplayPort specification also addresses the industry need for a ubiquitous digital interface standard with a compact connector, as well as optional content protection, that can be deployed widely at low cost. A protected digital interface that can be easily deployed on a PC enables broad access to premium content sources such as high-definition movies.

The DisplayPort interface is designed to be used for all types of digital display connections, including internal connections in a notebook, monitor, or TV. This capability makes it possible to avoid the costly signal translation from one display format to another that is required with today's display interfaces.

Interestingly, the original supporters for UDI and HDMI also vouched to offer the same things. What consumers hate most however, are too many competing standards that just confuse the purchasing and learning progress. Too many standards also drive up manufacturing costs, where some manufacturers end up implementing an entire range of standards just so that their customers won't be left out. This drives up costs, and in the end, the consumer is the one left paying. HDMI cables, for example, still cost upwards of $30 for even small lengths.

DisplayPort, however, is now receiving major industry support by Dell, HP and Lenovo -- three major PC giants that make up most of the world's desktop PC shipments. The HDMI forum recently said that HDMI would replace DVI by 2008. DisplayPort's supporters say however, that its standard will be superior to existing and emerging standards.

On the other side of the industry, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD still have yet to come to terms. Drive manufacturers are now implementing both standards into drives and it looks like we will have another DVD-R and DVD+R situation on store shelves. For now however, it is uncertain which digital interface will succeed but DisplayPort definitely has significant industry backing.

source:http://dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2154

READ MORE: Apple, Laptops, Mac, MacBook Pro, copyright, lawyers, something awful, thermal grease

After a Something Awful denizen took apart his MacBook Pro and discovered that Apple had slathered on far too much thermal grease, he found that using a more modest amount dropped his MacBook Pro’s temperatures by several degrees. Now the forum has recieved a threatening letter from Apple’s legal staff, requesting a link to this image [pictured above] be removed because “The Service Source manual for the MacBook Pro is Apple’s intellectual property and is protected by U.S. copyright law.”

Of course the real problem isn’t the single excerpted page being linked from Something Awful, but instead the fact that the image shows the extremely sloppy manufacturing process that is causing the MacBook Pro to run at temperatures as high as a 95 degrees Celcius under full load. (A temperature so high that the processor is at risk of malfunctioning.) Rather than addressing the problem of the shoddy workmanship, documented not only by those who purchased Apple’s $2,500 laptop but by Apple’s own service manual, Apple is trying to silence those from the Macintosh community who are trying to help other Mac users fix Apple’s mistake.

My MacBook Pro has the problem with the whining screen, too. Perhaps I’ll wait until they acknowledge the sloppy application of the thermal grease before I go in to request repair. In the meantime I will keep telling people how much I love using my Mac while silently questioning my devotion to a company who would rather use the law than service to assuage their customers’ complaints.

source:http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/laptops/thermal-greasy-apple-sics-lawyers-on-something-awful-171394.php

Yesterday, Rob Hyndman noticed an impressive disclaimer for a rock preserve, noting that he wanted to include similar language in future contracts. Lawyer David Canton couldn't resist and used the disclaimer as a model for a wonderful new disclaimer for the internet that we agree should be a must read for all internet users:

Business is unpredictable and unsafe. The Internet is dangerous. Many blogs have been written about these dangers, and there's no way we can list them all here. Read the blogs. The Internet is covered in slippery slopes with loose, slippery and unpredictable footing. The RIAA can make matters worse. Patent trolls are everywhere. You may fall, be spammed or suffer a DOS attack. There are hidden viruses and worms. You could break your computer. There is wild code, which may be vicious, poisonous or carriers of dread malware. These include viruses and worms. E-mail can be poisonous as well. We don't do anything to protect you from any of this. We do not inspect, supervise or maintain the Internet, blogosphere, ISP’s or other features, natural or otherwise.

In related news, we have finally updated our poll, thanks to a suggestion from Barry Lefsky for a new poll topic: Which Internet Concern Worries You The Most?

source:http://techdirt.com/articles/20060505/1743215.shtml

"According to EE Times, an Israeli company has developed a personal video display device that looks like a simple pair of glasses. You can use these glasses with various sources, such as a portable media player or your cell phone. This technology promises to eliminate the dizziness phenomenon usually associated with this kind of display. And with these glasses weighing only about 40 grams, you'll feel that you're viewing a 40-inch screen from a distance of 7 feet." Video screens embedded into eyewear isn't that new, but the footprint of these is smaller than what I've seen before, making them cooler to wear on the subway.

source:http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/06/1323202

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW Watch the interview

In 2002, Gary McKinnon was arrested by the UK's national high-tech crime unit, after being accused of hacking into Nasa and the US military computer networks.

He says he spent two years looking for photographic evidence of alien spacecraft and advanced power technology.

America now wants to put him on trial, and if tried there he could face 60 years behind bars.

Banned from using the internet, Gary spoke to Click presenter Spencer Kelly to tell his side of the story, ahead of his extradition hearing on Wednesday, 10 May. You can read what he had to say here.

---

Spencer Kelly: Here's your list of charges: you hacked into the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Department of Defense, and Nasa, amongst other things. Why?

Gary McKinnon: I was in search of suppressed technology, laughingly referred to as UFO technology. I think it's the biggest kept secret in the world because of its comic value, but it's a very important thing.

Old-age pensioners can't pay their fuel bills, countries are invaded to award oil contracts to the West, and meanwhile secretive parts of the secret government are sitting on suppressed technology for free energy.

SK: How did you go about trying to find the stuff you were looking for in Nasa, in the Department of Defense?

GM: Unlike the press would have you believe, it wasn't very clever. I searched for blank passwords, I wrote a tiny Perl script that tied together other people's programs that search for blank passwords, so you could scan 65,000 machines in just over eight minutes.

SK: So you're saying that you found computers which had a high-ranking status, administrator status, which hadn't had their passwords set - they were still set to default?

GM: Yes, precisely.

SK: Were you the only hacker to make it past the slightly lower-than-expected lines of defence?

GM: Yes, exactly, there were no lines of defence. There was a permanent tenancy of foreign hackers. You could run a command when you were on the machine that showed connections from all over the world, check the IP address to see if it was another military base or whatever, and it wasn't.

The General Accounting Office in America has again published another damning report saying that federal security is very, very poor.

SK: Over what kind of period were you hacking into these computers? Was it a one-time only, or for the course of a week?

A bird or a plane?... Gary was not able to get a picture of what he saw

GM: Oh no, it was a couple of years.

SK: And you went unnoticed for a couple of years?

GM: Oh yes. I used to be careful about the hours.

SK: So you would log on in the middle of the night, say?

GM: Yes, I'd always be juggling different time zones. Doing it at night time there's hopefully not many people around. But there was one occasion when a network engineer saw me and actually questioned me and we actually talked to each other via WordPad, which was very, very strange.

SK: So what did he say? And what did you say?

GM: He said "What are you doing?" which was a bit shocking. I told him I was from Military Computer Security, which he fully believed.

SK: Did you find what you were looking for?

GM: Yes.

SK: Tell us about it.

GM: There was a group called the Disclosure Project. They published a book which had 400 expert witnesses ranging from civilian air traffic controllers, through military radar operators, right up to the chaps who were responsible for whether or not to launch nuclear missiles.

They are some very credible, relied upon people, all saying yes, there is UFO technology, there's anti-gravity, there's free energy, and it's extra-terrestrial in origin, and we've captured spacecraft and reverse-engineered it.

SK: What did you find inside Nasa?

GM: One of these people was a Nasa photographic expert, and she said that in building eight of Johnson Space Centre they regularly airbrushed out images of UFOs from the high-resolution satellite imaging. What she said was there was there: there were folders called "filtered" and "unfiltered", "processed" and "raw", something like that.

I got one picture out of the folder, and bearing in mind this is a 56k dial-up, so a very slow internet connection, in dial-up days, using the remote control programme I turned the colour down to 4bit colour and the screen resolution really, really low, and even then the picture was still juddering as it came onto the screen.

But what came on to the screen was amazing. It was a culmination of all my efforts. It was a picture of something that definitely wasn't man-made.

It was above the Earth's hemisphere. It kind of looked like a satellite. It was cigar-shaped and had geodesic domes above, below, to the left, the right and both ends of it, and although it was a low-resolution picture it was very close up.

This thing was hanging in space, the earth's hemisphere visible below it, and no rivets, no seams, none of the stuff associated with normal man-made manufacturing.

SK: Is it possible this is an artist's impression?

GM: I don't know... For me, it was more than a coincidence. This woman has said: "This is what happens, in this building, in this space centre". I went into that building, that space centre, and saw exactly that.

SK: Do you have a copy of this? It came down to your machine.

GM: No, the graphical remote viewer works frame by frame. It's a Java application, so there's nothing to save on your hard drive, or at least if it is, only one frame at a time.

SK: So did you get the one frame?

GM: No.

SK: What happened?

GM: Once I was cut off, my picture just disappeared.

SK: You were actually cut off the time you were downloading the picture?

GM: Yes, I saw the guy's hand move across.

SK: You acknowledge that what you did was against the law, it was wrong, don't you?

GM: Unauthorised access is against the law and it is wrong.

SK: What do you think is a suitable punishment for someone who did what you did?

GM: Firstly, because of what I was looking for, I think I was morally correct. Even though I regret it now, I think the free energy technology should be publicly available.

I want to be tried in my own country, under the Computer Misuse Act, and I want evidence brought forward, or at least want the Americans to have to provide evidence in order to extradite me, because I know there is no evidence of damage.

---

Nasa told Click that it does not discuss computer security issues or legal matters. It denied it would ever manipulate images in order to deceive and said it had a policy of open and full disclosure, adding it had no direct evidence of extra-terrestrial life.

source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/4977134.stm

"On Wednesday we posted up comments from Havok about rival AGEIA's use of their physics processor in the PC version of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. Today we have an expanded article with point-to-point comments from AGEIA that address Havok's statements." From the article: "How much interaction do you want in your PC games? It used to be that graphics were the number one factor in picking up a new game but now players are asking more and more about interactions in the environment. One company that has provided such interaction is Havok. They have developed a physics engine that has been used in a ton of games, including most famously in Valve's first person shooter Half-Life 2. Recently, Havok announced plans for a new physics engine, Havok FX, that would use Shader Model 3.0 graphics cards to further enhance game interactions and physics."

source:http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/06/0147242

A nuclear waste vault in New Mexico will long outlive our society. Experts are working on elaborate ways to warn future civilizations.

CARLSBAD, N.M. — Roger Nelson has a simple and unequivocal message for the people of the year 12006: Don't dig here.

As chief scientist of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Nelson oversees a cavernous salt mine that is the first geological lockbox for the "fiendishly toxic" detritus of nuclear weapons production: chemical sludge, lab gear and filters laced with tons of radioactive plutonium.

Nearly half a mile underground, workers push waste drums into crystalline labyrinths that seem as remote as the moon. A faint salty haze glows in powdery beams from miners' headlamps and settles on the lips like a desert kiss. Computer projections predict that within 1,000 years the ceilings and walls will collapse in a crushing embrace that seals the plutonium in place.

But plutonium remains deadly for 250 times that long — an unsettling reminder that some of today's hazards will outlast the civilizations that created them. The "forever problem," unique to the modern technological age, has made crafting the user manual for this toxic tomb the final daunting task in an already monumental project. The result is a gargantuan system that borrows elements equally from Stonehenge and "Star Trek."

Communicating danger may seem relatively straightforward, but countless human efforts to bridge the ages have failed as societies fall, languages die and words once poetic or portentous become the indecipherable marks of a long-forgotten scribbler.

To future generations, warnings about Nelson's dump may seem as impenetrable as the 600-year-old "Canterbury Tales" are for all but a few scholars today.

"No culture has ever tried, self-consciously and scientifically, to design a symbol that would last 10,000 years and still be intelligible," said David B. Givens, an anthropologist who helped plan the nuclear-site warnings. "And even if we succeed, would the message be believed?"

The Energy Department predicted such a problem when it began planning for the $9-billion waste dump, dubbed WIPP, in 1974 and for a similar repository in Nevada at Yucca Mountain, near Las Vegas. That site has not yet been opened. Eventually it will store highly radioactive spent fuel from nuclear power plants as well as high-level waste from the weapons program.

Trying to communicate across 500 generations posed an unprecedented challenge of linguistics, semiotics and materials science, so the government first asked scientists, futurists and historians to envision what the far-distant future might be like.

Their report combines dry analysis and projections worthy of sci-fi disaster films, including massive climate change and feminist corporations that disbelieve WIPP warnings because they were written by men. Civilization is so interdependent and fragile, one panelist grimly noted, "that any massive global catastrophe might lead to reversion to at least a preindustrial era." Greed or desperation could give rise to legends that WIPP holds buried treasure — apparently confirmed by surface warnings to keep out.

In a sense, they're right. Oil and gas deposits lie thousands of feet below the plant. In 100 or 5,000 years, an energy-poor government, company or gasoline-addicted tribe in a ruined society, like those depicted in the film "The Road Warrior," could adopt a "drill first, ask questions later" policy — piercing the repository and pulling death to the surface.

Others predicted the invention of self-guided robotic "mole miners" that would penetrate the site from the side or below. In a scenario set in the year 11991, robotic slaves are infected with a computer virus that compels them to override their safety programming as they compulsively drill and construct mine shafts.

Opportunities for WIPP to fail, the experts agreed, are limited only by the imagination.

The government formed a separate panel of scientists, linguists and artists to create a warning scheme to counter the pessimistic projections. That group immediately rejected digital or paper records — only a solution cast in stone could hope to solve a problem for the ages.

If Egyptian pyramids have lasted more than 5,000 years, today's monuments should fare better — if built from prosaic materials, such as ultra-hard concrete. Scavengers stripped the pyramids bare for their once-shimmering marble skins.

The trefoil symbol for radioactive material might seem a natural alternative to text, but experts doubt that it will be understood by future societies any better than today's English. Consider the swastika, first used on pottery by European tribes in 4000 BC. It was adopted by ancient Troy and later became a holy icon of Hinduism. When the Nazis claimed it, the symbol became widely reviled.

The panelists also considered the plaque on the 1972 Pioneer space probe, now headed for deep space. It pictures a nude man and woman, a schematic drawing of the craft escaping our solar system and a basic interstellar map. They soon rejected it as a model, said Jon Lomberg, an artist who designed the plaque with the late astronomer Carl Sagan.

"You'd think it would be easier to communicate with humans" than extraterrestrials, he said. "But the [Pioneer] spacecraft will never land, so it's only going to be found by some highly developed technological culture. All we can guess about the future inhabitants of the area near WIPP is that they are human — unless they are cyborgs…. Once you have people with augmented brains or genetically engineered minds with enhanced perceptions, you can't be sure how human they will be."

There are at least two universally understood pictographic forms. The human stick figure has survived nearly unchanged from Stone Age cave drawings to the doors of modern public restrooms. And the sequential panel, or comic strip, was developed independently by ancient Egyptians, American Indians and medieval Japanese.

They also are far from foolproof. The South Africa Chamber of Mines learned this when it used a simple picture sequence to train illiterate miners to clear rocks from mine tracks. Instead of improving, the rock problem worsened.

"Miners were indeed reading the message, but from right to left," said Lomberg, a former WIPP advisor. "They obligingly dumped their rocks on the tracks."

Nelson considers such concerns far-fetched, citing 30,000-year-old cave drawings.

"I understand those cave drawings and I don't speak Neanderthal…. He's killing a bison, 'bison — food!' I can do pictographs just as well," he said. "I can convey an absolute sense of danger."

Yet the same Stone Age caves contain markings and handprints whose meaning remains obscure.

"The scribbles, we have no idea what they are…. The handprints — is that the artist's signature?" Lomberg said. "We don't know. Of course the big difference is that these were not intended as messages to the future — so far as we can tell."

With so many ways to fail, WIPP's planners opted for the classic American approach: Think big and leave no stone unturned. The plan will take more than a century to implement.

To grasp the scale of the warnings, start with the Great Pyramid in Egypt, built from more than 6.5 million tons of stone covering 13 acres. Multiply that mass by five, and you have the first warning layer: a 98-foot-wide, 33-foot-tall, 2-mile-long berm surrounding the site. That's just to get the attention of anyone who happens by.

"Size equates with importance. The bigger the animal the more that animal is to be reckoned with," Givens said.

Powerful magnets and radar reflectors would be buried inside the berm so that remote sensors could recognize the site as purposefully and elaborately designed.

It would be surrounded by 48 granite or concrete markers, 32 outside the berm and 16 inside, each 25 feet high and weighing 105 tons, engraved with warnings in English, Spanish, Russian, French, Chinese, Arabic and Navajo, with room for future discoverers to add warnings in contemporary languages. Pictures would denote buried hazards and human faces of horror and revulsion.

The same symbols would be printed on metal, plastic and ceramic disks with abrasion-resistant coatings, 9 inches in diameter, that would be buried just below the surface.

Three information rooms would archive detailed drawings of WIPP's chambers and the physics of its hazards on stone tablets. They would also provide a world map showing all other known waste repositories and a star chart to calculate the year the site was sealed.

One such room would stand in the center of the site. Another would be buried inside the berm, its only entrance a 2-foot hole to inhibit theft of the tablets, sealed with a 1,600-pound stone plug. The third room would be off site — perhaps inside the nearby Carlsbad Caverns.

The final thing WIPP needs is a kind of Rosetta stone, a pictorial dictionary to aid in translation.

The markers will take decades to build and test, to help ensure they stand the test of time. But there's no hurry. WIPP won't be full until 2033. It would then be guarded by the Energy Department for 100 years until it is abandoned; no one who designed the markers would be alive to see them succeed for even a single day.

Inspired by so long a view, one of the site's expert panels, in an epigraph to its report, quoted Rabbi Tarfon, a Jewish sage who lived 1,900 years ago:

"You are not obliged to finish the task, nor are you released from undertaking it."

Once the vault is locked, some of WIPP's advisors want the site left unmarked because any warnings would draw only more attention, they say. Warnings, they argue, would be misunderstood or dismissed, the same way ancient grave robbers ignored curses inscribed on the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs to seize the riches inside.

Leave it bare, they contend, and the site will melt unseen into the harsh New Mexico desert.

"Any monument would become a tourist attraction," said Gregory Benford, a UC Irvine physicist and former WIPP advisor. "People come; they need hotels. Hotels need water. They drill for water and break into the vault. 'No marker' is a strategy, but people regard it as immoral."

Such views reflect WIPP's one certainty: No one knows what will happen far in the future.

"I have to assume that the divine creator is going to take care of most of this stuff," said Steve Casey, the WIPP engineer charged with overseeing construction of the warning system. "No matter what confounded thing we come up with, all it takes is one catastrophic event and it's gone."

That so much time and effort are spent even thinking about how to warn future generations reflects a significant shift in nuclear attitudes. The past still can be glimpsed a short drive from WIPP at a site where an atomic warhead was detonated 1,151 feet underground in 1961.

Two corroded plaques glued to a 4-foot concrete slab commemorate the test, dubbed Project Gnome. The monument has been nudged several yards over the decades by cattle that use it as a rubbing post. Spent rifle shells crunch underfoot; the pockmarked shrine is favored by locals for target practice.

A third plaque was pried off, perhaps as a souvenir. According to earlier visitors, it read, in plain English, "This site will remain dangerous for 24,000 years."

source:http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-fi-forever3may03,1,7584113.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

"About 80 Improv Everywhere agents invaded their local Best Buy store wearing blue shirts and Khakis. Eventually they were asked to leave, but not before capturing some great photos and video." From the article: "Security guards and managers started talking to each other frantically on their walkie-talkies and headsets. 'Thomas Crown Affair! Thomas Crown Affair!,' one employee shouted. They were worried that were using our fake uniforms to stage some type of elaborate heist. 'I want every available employee out on the floor RIGHT NOW!'" Their inspired cellphone symphony from this February is also well worth checking out.

source:http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/05/1242253

The idea for this mission was submitted by a stranger via email. Agent Slavinsky wrote in to suggest I get either a large group of people in blue polo shirts and khakis to enter a Best Buy or a group in red polo shirts and khakis to enter a Target. Wearing clothing almost identical to the store's uniform, the agents would not claim to work at the store but would be friendly and helpful if anyone had a question. There aren't any Targets in Manhattan, so I decided to go with the two-story Best Buy on 23rd Street.



I staked out the Best Buy a few times leading up to the mission. I wanted to figure out the exact shade of blue they used for their uniforms. One detail I noticed is that all employees wore belts and black shoes. I figured it would be against policy to film in the store, so any cameras we used would have to be somewhat hidden. In addition cameras could also be "hidden" in plain sight by using Best Buy's demo cameras to document the mission. All we would have to do is bring in blank tapes and memory cards to insert in their own video and still cameras.

I sent out an email to my mailing list to recruit agents. I didn't want to give away the exact nature of the prank for fear of word spreading to Best Buy employees ahead of time. I had to be as vague as possible and still make sure everyone wore the correct clothing:

In order to participate you must arrive adhering to a very specific dress code:

1) Blue Polo Shirt. Short sleeved. Any brand. Preferably with no logo. As Close to Royal Blue as possible. As close to this exact shirt as possible.

2) Khaki Pants. Any shade of khaki is fine. No shorts.

3) Belt. Any belt is fine.

Other Instructions:

-If possible, please wear black shoes. This is not required, but please wear them if you have them.

-You must also bring a NEWSPAPER (Any newspaper is fine--just grab a free one on the street.)

-If possible, do not bring a backpack or any type of bag. This is not a huge deal, but it will work better without bags.

-Do not bring any type of camera. This mission is, as all IE Missions should be, participatory. We are covering it with our own small staff of camera people and do not need any more cameras or journalists. Only show up if you are wearing the proper dress and ready to participate and have fun!




We met at Union Square North at 3:30 PM. Around 80 agents showed up, most them looking like wonderful Best Buy employees. More than a few came dressed in navy or teal, but with the belt and the khakis they still looked employee-like. After everyone arrived I explained the mission. The first step was for everyone to throw their newspapers away. The instruction to bring a newspaper was a red herring meant to throw people off the scent of the mission's true nature. I then revealed the plan, "We're heading up to the Best Buy on 23rd Street. We'll enter the store one by one. Once inside, spread out and stand near the end of an aisle, facing away from the merchandise. Don't shop, but don't work either. If a customer comes up to you and asks you a question, be polite and help them if you know the answer. If anyone asks you if you work there, say no. If an employee asks you what you're doing, respond 'I'm waiting for my girlfriend/boyfriend who is shopping elsewhere in the store.' If they question you about your clothing, just explain that it's what you put on when you woke up this morning and you don't know any of the other people dressed like you."


Agents listening to the instructions

It had been a rainy morning, and I was worried that most agents would show up with rain jackets and umbrellas, something Best Buy employees surely would not have on their person while working. Fortunately the rain stopped about an hour before our meet up time and most folks came empty handed. One Agent had a car parked nearby and let folks store their backpacks in his trunk for the duration of the mission. Agent Simmons was particularly resourceful, opting to check his bag at the Strand Bookstore on his way to the meeting point.



After everyone was briefed on the mission, we took a few group photos. We must have looked like some type of church retreat group to anyone passing us in the park. The group slowly started heading up towards the store. I positioned myself on 22nd street, just one block south of the store and around the corner. As agents started arriving, I had them wait out of view and sent people over individually in fifteen-second intervals.


An agent waits his turn

Our camera crew entered the store first with their hidden devices.


Agents EMartin and Reeves

Agents Shafer and Reeves stored their cameras in duffle bags.


Agent Shafer's camera

Agent EMartin hid his camera inside an Xbox 360 box, cutting a hole in the side for his lens. The plan was for him to claim he was attempting to return his Xbox and get the security guard to tag it with a pink slip. Once inside he could walk around freely with what looked liked store merchandise.



Agent Carlson entered the store with only a Mini-DV tape. He went directly to the video camera section of the store, locating on the ground level right next to the front door, conveniently. He found their best 3-CCD camera, inserted his tape, and positioned it to film everyone entering the front door.


Agent Carlson inserting his tape

IE's favorite photographer Agent Nicholson was on board per usual to snap photos. He brought a couple of cameras of his own, but he also brought a variety of memory cards to insert into Best Buy's own demo cameras.


Agent Nicholson with his memory cards

Using a demo camera he snapped a few photos on the upper level discreetly.


Agent Simmons and Rodgers are among the first to enter


Agent Carlson loading the a demo video camera while Agent Kinney "works" in the background

After about fifteen minutes of staggered entrances, all 80 agents were in the store. Not noticing the lack of Best Buy logo and nametag, customers immediately started asking our agents for help.


Agent Kinney helps a customer near the front door


Agent Rodgers helps someone find a router


Two agents cross each other on the escalators

Pretty soon there was an agent stationed at every aisle in every section of the store.











We had a pretty diverse crowd, men and women, young and old. One agent brought his 9 and 11 year-old daughters with him. "Take your daughter to work day," he explained to me. Their shirts weren't quite the right color, but they made great employees nevertheless.



Some agents looked pretty close to a typical Best Buy employee.



Others, not so much.



I spent much of my time wandering the store checking out other agents and making sure everything was going to plan. Every now and then I would stay put for a bit on the end of an aisle. I helped a few customers. One woman wanted to know where she could find "Sound of Music on DVD." I happily walked her over to the DVD section.



One employee passed me with a smile on his face and exclaimed, "All you guys have GOT to get together for a photo, because no one is ever going to believe this!" Another came up to me and said, "Let me guess, you're waiting on your friend? Good answer." I guess at that point he had heard that answer more than a few times.

The reaction from the employees was pretty typical as far as our missions go. The lower level employees laughed and got a kick out of it while the managers and security guards freaked out. Some employees speculated that we were a cult, or maybe protesters. One employee tried to get a date out of the incident, informing one agent, "Tell that girl in the computer section that 'Mike says hi.'" Another employee after being told to go get some merchandise from the back, declared, "You should ask one of these other 50 people to do it!"


A real employee with three fake employees in the background

Security guards and managers started talking to each other frantically on their walkie-talkies and headsets. "Thomas Crown Affair! Thomas Crown Affair!," one employee shouted. They were worried that were using our fake uniforms to stage some type of elaborate heist. "I want every available employee out on the floor RIGHT NOW!"


Two managers confer (right) while a security guard looks on (left)


Another manager meeting

Employees began asking our agents to leave the store if they weren't shopping. Most stuck to their "I'm waiting for my girlfriend" story and refused to leave. Others pretended to shop whenever employees were near by. A few were escorted out by employees.

Agent EMartin's Xbox video camera rig was discovered when an employee approached him to offer advice on how to return his Xbox. He was asked to leave, and then detained by security at the front door. There a manager claimed it was "illegal" to film in Best Buy and instructed someone to call 911. She informed him that he had violated her "civil rights" by filming in her store. Agent Nicholson, who had been taking photos at the hip to avoid detection was caught as well, but he was able to leave the store freely.

With our main photographer busted, I took out my camera and started taking covert snapshots. One employee caught me in the act and rushed over. As soon as he got to me, I caught him off guard with a question, "Hey, do you know where I can find the right memory cards for my camera?" He stammered for a second and then said, "Sure. They're right over there." I thanked him and was on my way. Another employee caught me moments later in the DVD section, but I disarmed him with a question as well, "Do you know how much the Star Trek DS9 DVDs are? There is no price tag." We chatted for a second about how expensive the set was, and by the time I walked away he forgot all about the camera.

The cops arrived and began questioning Agent EMartin about why he was filming. He claimed he didn't know us, but thought it was funny and started filming (inexplicably out of his Xbox). While filming this altercation, Agent Shafer's camera was also discovered and the cops began questioning him as well. Already out of the store, Agent Nicholson was able to take photos through the window.





While the cops were questioning Agents Shafer and EMartin, we had two other cameramen filming the interaction. Agent Carlson remained undetected filming from a Best Buy demo camera, and despite the fact that her camera was the least hidden, Agent Reeves was never discovered. Perhaps being tall, blonde, and female had something to do with her camera not being noticed. Agent Shafer confidently informed the cops that it was not, in fact, "illegal" to film in Best Buy and that they couldn't accuse him of trespassing until he had been asked to leave the store. He pointed out that he was perfectly willing to leave. A manager told Agent Shafer, "I don't come to your house and film you," to which he replied, "Who lives here?" The cops argued for a bit, but finally realized there was nothing they could do. They let the cameramen go and informed the manager, "The worst you can do is ask them to leave."



We had been in the store for around 40 minutes, so I decided it was time to start leaving. I also figured our departure would ease the heat off of the cameramen. I walked around and gave agents the signal to leave. Before heading out, I snapped a few more photos and was busted a third time by an employee. He asked me to leave, and I informed him I was on my way out. I soon found myself in the middle of about six other agents heading towards the escalators. The guy who busted me decided he wanted to talk to me more about my camera, but couldn't remember which one I was. As he walked with the six of us in our blue shirts, he started demanding, "Which one of you had the camera?" None of us answered. Riding the escalator up I took one last glance backwards. The employee saw my face and shouted, "That's him!" I worried that he would make it to a security guard to radio in my description to the front door guys so they could intercept me. I picked up the pace and hurried out the front door, undetected, camera safely in pocket.


A security guard checks out an agent on his way out

Once on the street, we headed to a meet up point about five minutes away from the store. One manager followed us outside with her walkie-talkie shouting, "They're heading down 6th Avenue!," as if she was going to get someone to trail us.


Manager on the street

Another employee chased after us with a camera, hoping to get some group photos.




VIDEO:

I've edited together nine videos of this mission, one main video and eight supplemental "agent interview" videos with additional footage. Enjoy the main video here and look for the others in the agent reports below.



Best Buy on Vimeo


AGENT REPORTS:

Agent EMartin, Hidden Camera



Best Buy: Agent EMartin on Vimeo


I created a hidden camera setup for this mission by making a smallish hole in an Xbox 360 box and crudely securing the camera inside. I thought I was going to be pretty clever walking around the store with a camera in a large bright-ass green box. I lasted about 5 minutes. One employee started chatting me up about return options and another employee wearing a tie came from behind me and spotted the lens-hole. They asked me if I was recording, I said yes, and he told me I had to leave the store.



I was escorted up the escalator, thinking that I was going to be kicked out. Near the front door a manager stopped the employee with a tie and started asking me questions about "what was going on." I said I had no idea. She then lectured me about how I violated her civil rights and how I had endangered people in the store by distracting the employees. Her exaggerated arguments didn't make much sense, but she was set on doing this "by the book" and calling the police. Two security guards made sure I didn't leave. It took the manager a while to find the correct precinct phone number in their manual, and eventually they just dialed 911.

While I was waiting for the cops (it took 15-20 minutes for them to show up) I overheard some interesting exchanges. Only a couple of employees interacted with me directly, but aside from the one manager accusing me of endangering the masses, everyone was very polite. Both security guards loudly advanced their own theories about what was going on. One security guard didn't know who the group was, but suspected that it was some cult, because, "They all have that zombie look in their eyes. They just stand there staring at nothing." They also argued about if the prank was funny or not. One did not think it was funny at all and the other said he thought it was "kinda funny," and tried to explain the humor, "What if you went into Home Depot and there were all these people wearing orange aprons all over the store?" "That's completely different." A few employees tried to get me to spill the secret on what the group was, and another employee came over twice and asked me in a hushed voice, "Are YOU a police officer?"

Once the cops showed up everyone including me got a bit more tense. They were obviously not happy about having to deal with the situation. They did not think the prank was funny and they repeatedly asked me for everyone's names. I didn't say anything, but agreed to show them the tape. One cop watched it while another spoke with store employees. Every time it would show an agent on the tape he would ask me what his name was. I would say I didn't know (which was the honest truth), but he kept saying, "Bullshit, I don't believe you. Why are you taping them if you don't know them." "Because, I think it's funny." "I don't think it's funny." This whole time, agents were recording the event with Best Buy's own demo video cameras. No employees noticed, even though they seemed to be pretty blatant.

Eventually, the cop angrily insisted that I was to go around and personally get all of the non-employees in blue shirts to leave the store. I complied and went around the store relaying the message to any of the agents left in the store. My favorite part of this was when an agent and his daughter refused to acknowledge me and didn't break character, even though I was speaking directly to them.

Apparently, while I was walking around the store Agent Shafer was also discovered with a video camera. They kept asking us for the names of everyone else involved, which we didn't disclose. They grew frustrated and at one point said that they would be writing both Agent Shafer and I summons for trespassing. Fortunately, Agent Shafer knew the law and kept turning the officer's statements back on themselves:
"I'm not trespassing until you ask me to leave. No one has asked me to leave yet."
"Are you disobeying a lawful order?"
"Are you asking me to leave?"

With most the agents now gone from the store, the cops gave up and we left the store.


Agent Shafer, Hidden Camera





Best Buy: Agent Shafer on Vimeo


Agent Reeves, Hidden Camera



Best Buy: Agent Reeves on Vimeo

I was excited to see so many people show up at Union Square in Blue polo’s and Khaki pants. When I got to Best Buy my job was to first stand outside and videotape the agents going in. After the first five minutes, four employees came out and stood next to me as they smoked. They knew something was up, one guy thought he was tripping on Acid, another said it was just like the Thomas Crown Affair. Whenever a new agent walked by, the guys would say, “Hey, Best Buy is right here, you might want to go in, your friends are in there.” Then they noticed agents were coming from every direction and this made them confused.

Audio clips of these employees:



Best Buy: Agent Reeves, audio on Vimeo




Out of all the camera people, I was the most obvious. The lens was sticking out of my bag but nobody ever said anything. I caught up with Agent Kula as he helped some shoppers who were looking for a new TV. I saw some other Agents talking with customers about which video game or cell phone to buy. As everyone was leaving I stood downstairs in front of the escalators and spoke with two Black shirts about why they had so many employees working that day. The guy said about 50 people just came in randomly dressed as Best Buy employees and they absolutely did not work there. When I was leaving, I saw a police confrontation another cameraman, Agent Shafer. I stood next to them and videotaped the whole thing. That must have been the highlight for me. I made it in and out with a camera videotaping the whole time and nobody asked me about it. It’s just too bad we didn’t walk down to Blockbuster afterwards.


Agent Kula





Best Buy: Agent Kula on Vimeo


Agent Rodgers





Best Buy: Agent Rodgers on Vimeo


Agent Natty



Best Buy: Agent Natty on Vimeo


Agent Barnes



Best Buy: Agent Barnes on Vimeo


Agent Scott



This was my third mission, and the first time I had the opportunity to bring my daughters (Agents Co and Bo). For us, it was a HUGE success. At one point on the way over to Best Buy, Agent Co said to me: "My cheeks hurt I'm smiling so much!"

We actually had other plans for Sunday--fortunately canceled by the rain--so we woke up uniform-less that morning. A stop at Old Navy got Bo and Co as close as we could get, and Agent Todd hooked me up with the perfect royal blue shirt. I must say that the anticipation, and the speculation about what we might be doing, was at least half the fun for the kids. And spotting other people in their "prank uniforms" on the way to the meeting place provoked total giggles in all three of us!



I was actually surprised that my kids didn't feel a little disappointed by the prank itself, because there was no, like, "big moment." Keeping on a game face and seeing their dad do something so... I don't know... ridiculous and silly and "daring" was obviously entertaining enough.

Some highlights of our time inside the store: the customers who would stop mid-question upon seeing no logo on my shirt and apologize, sometimes pretty profusely, that they thought I worked there (wonder what gave them THAT idea!?); watching my kids massage their cheeks in that classic "don'tsmiledon'tsmiledon'tsmile" maneuver; the dude who seemed genuinely angry at me for wearing the shirt ("What are you guys doing?!! Why are you wearing these clothes!!??); and at one point about 45 minutes in, wandering from the video games all the way back to the TVs and seeing the scope of our "invasion."

You know, though, having recently seen V for Vendetta and The Inside Man (both of which feature robberies and/or escapes using lots of people in identical outfits, I could definitely identify with the growing anxiety of Best Buy's security and managerial staff. All in all, though, we had a great, truly memorable day, which always seems to happen when I hang with the Improv Everywhere crew!


Agent Ace$Thugg



When I entered the store, right off the bat, the employees pointed at my blue shirt and said, "Look, here comes another one! What's going on?" So it didn't take them long to be on to me. I then walked to the most vacant open space I could find, which happened to be the speaker section. It was there that I became the focal point of the manager Al (yellow shirt), and his manager Rick (white shirt.) As I stood with my back to the display case and arms behind me, Al first approached me within 30 seconds and asked if I needed any help. I asked him where the bathrooms were (I was actually needing to go), but he told me they were out of order. I said, "Alright, I'll just wait for my girlfriend then. She's looking for the bathroom. I guess I might be here awhile." Five minutes later Rick came by and asked me pointedly, "What's going on? What are you and your buddies doing?" I, flabbergasted, told him kindly I was waiting for the bathrooms to be fixed. And he, not believing me, asked me to leave and said he's calling the police and then stormed off. I said ok and just went to another section.

In this section, Al approached me twice asking me if I needed help. I assured him, if I did indeed need help, I knew to come find him. And then he asked me if I had a child at home, and if I knew any children. Curious about his line of questioning, I asked him what he was getting at. He said he noticed that I was in the children's section for a long time and it was making him uncomfortable. Not wanting to make him or any children uncomfortable, I went back to the speaker section. Rick then came by again said, "I can't believe you guys are this bored; you better not talk to any of my customers." I just stared at him with a puzzled look on my face claiming I knew of no others here but my lost girlfriend who I was becoming concerned about. He just walked away in a huff.

A customer did approach me soon after though and asked where the calculators were. I, trying to be helpful, pointed and said I think they are on the other side of the store. As soon as I finished my sentence, the couple says, "Here they are!" That was when I learned I was in the speaker and calculator section of Best Buy. I would not have made a good employee.

About 10 minutes later, I saw Al walking towards me from across the store. Trying to avoid him, I picked up a Best Buy brochure that was at the end of the aisle. I picked it up thinking it was an employment application, and Al asked if I needed any assistance once again. I asked him if they were hiring, nodding towards the brochures. And then we got into an awkward discussion about how it was actually a Best Buy credit card application and I said "it would be good for me if I actually did any shopping here." He then said, "It looks like a lot of people like you like to shop at this store" as he pointed to all the other blue shirts. All I could muster was, "Yeah… that's weird."

Al and Rick finally approached me together towards the end of the mission. Al asked me my name, and I told them it was Al too, and of course they didn't believe me. Al explained that he was still very uncomfortable with my presence in the store (even in the speaker and calculator section) and wanted to know what I was shopping for. I said, "I'm not shopping for anything. I'm browsing." And the two looked at me like I was the first person to ever browse a Best Buy aisle with my back to the display cases the whole time. Rick, feeling defeated, said to Al. "You know what Al, just let them have their fun. We can't do anything." And as he said that, I got the cue from Agent Todd to exit, and then we all left in a timely manner.


Agent Shelktone



I was lucky to score one of the regulation shirts from Agent Todd. As such, I was one of the first of the blue shirts to enter the store. I didn't get five steps in before a dude asked me on the elevator, "Where are your land line phones? Are they downstairs?" I said, "Yeah, I think so." He then asked, "Oh and where are the bathrooms?" I said sheepishly, "Oh I don't actually work here." He pointed, "The blue shirt." I shrugged and said, "Oh right."

Then downstairs very quickly the real boys in blue started to notice the mass influx of recreational blue shirters. They responded at first by very deliberately greeting me. "Hello!" "How are you?" Then, they grew more suspicious trying to suss out my level of craziness. "Can I help you with something?" Then to, "Hey, why are you wearing a blue shirt? It's confusing." To finally flat out accusation from a yellow shirted higher up, "Hey man, what's going on? What are you guys going to do?" I explained I was just browsing and had felt like wearing blue today. He didn't buy it. Two minutes later, I heard one of the dudes say, "I can't deal with this, I'm calling the police." To be fair, I think I might have been a little freaked out too. Still, if you were a manager you had to love what appeared to be wall-to-wall employee coverage of the store for every five feet. Now, that's service!


Agent Montague



I arrive at Best Buy and immediately have the chance to hold the door for a few customers. I step inside, cruise down the escalator, and quickly encounter an annoyed security guard. “May I help you sir?” he asks. “No thanks.” “What’s going on here?” “What do you mean?” I respond. “Is this some sort of event?” “I don’t understand.” “Why are you wearing that?” he presses. “Oh,” I smile, “These are just my clothes.” He shakes his head, and I wander off.

I tour the store and feel pretty good about landing a spot next to the vacuum cleaners. There are no employees in sight. I hover. A 50-something bearded Jewish man makes eye contact, walks toward me, my first customer. “Do you work here?” he asks. “No, I don’t.” He starts looking at vacuum cleaners, not knowing where to start. “What are you looking for?” I ask. “I need a vacuum cleaner,” he says. “I have a Dirt Devil. It works really well, very powerful machine,” I say. “A Dirt Devil. Dirt Devil, OK.” A real employee approaches. “May I help you sir? the employee asks. “Yes, I’d like to buy a Dirt Devil,” the man responds.” I sold my first vacuum cleaner. Damn, it feels good.

Shortly after that, I was asked to leave for not shopping. Instead, I decide to stay. I stroll around the store for awhile, until I overhear an employee say the cops had been called. I casually make a daring escape up the escalator and out the front door. Have a nice day, a large, bald bouncer says in a tough voice as I left.


Agent Jester



I searched frantically the day before the event for a shirt that was perfect color, that “Best Buy Blue.” I found a decent approximation, but I was concerned it was off enough that I wouldn’t fit in well. Nevertheless, I got into my role the second I walked into the store, I went to the video game section, (the section I personally spend the most time in whenever I’m actually shopping at a Best Buy). I leaned against the “discount games” table, crossed my arms and patiently waited for any customers in need. Within 5 minutes an older gentleman approached me, began asking me a question, then paused and looked carefully at my shirt. “Oh, I’m sorry, you don’t work here…” Damn! I was sure now that I wasn’t fooling anyone. I was just a guy who kinda sorta looked like a Best Buy employee. But then, a person playing on the Xbox 360 on display looked over at me and asked me to change games on the system. “Sorry,” I said, with an unusually large smile, “I don’t work here, but maybe I can find someone that can help you. Also, may I recommend ‘Burnout: Revenge’?” The look on his face showed genuine surprise. “Damn! You really don’t work here?!? Shit, that’s just…confusing.” That’s all I wanted to hear. After that I got asked three times by different people where to go to check out. “Oh, right over there,” I told them, adding: “they should really make that clearer for us, right?”

The rest of my tenure was spent watching other Best Buy employees freak out. They walked past me, usually staring at me, occasionally asking if I needed any assistance. But one guy, “Mike” was his name, made it a point to let us all know he A) knew what was going on, and B) was A.O.K. with it. He walked over to at least five IE Agents and asked them their name, and how it was going, and if they were having a good time. He would then turn to one of the other real Best Buy employees and give a grin, a laugh or a thumbs up to indicate that he had engaged with us, and recognized us as a non-threat. I also saw another employee snapping photos of us with her camera phone.


Agent Wimpy



I was one of the last to enter the store. As I approached I saw two employees smoking at the curb. I glanced at the store door and heard from behind me, “…another one!”

As I entered the upper level at least half the employees in the open display area there turned to look at me. I was thinking, “Wow, a Cheers moment!” I stepped forward intending to go down the escalator and found myself in the roped off area at the top of the up escalator and had to backtrack to get around to the down escalator. I heard several people giggle.

As I came off the down escalator I heard an employee say, “I don’t know but they are stationed around and helping customers.”

After about 15 minutes downstairs I went back up to see how things were on the street level section. As I stood near the digital video cameras a young male employee walked round the display table touching and counting aloud the cameras and an older female employee walked around touching each of the associates on the upper arm and saying, “Keep your cool, just keep your cool.”

I went back downstairs and walked toward the CD section. A short 40ish black woman with dreadlocks pulled back and tied behind her head started following me. We walked the length of the classic music aisle and turned the corner starting back past the country western CDs. She is walking about five feet behind me. I stop and just look across the top of the display toward the escalators. She stands there looking toward me for a few seconds then backtracks and walks up the next aisle directly through my field of vision. She is walking very stiffly with eyes pointed forward avoiding eye contact. At the end of the row she turns the corner back into my aisle again and starts toward me. She takes about two steps directly toward me. When I glance over in her direction I see that she has both her hands together at waist level. From between her hands there is a camera flash. She immediately turned and headed back toward customer service.


Agent Simmons



I was lingering near the audio equipment at one point when a middle-aged couple asked me if I knew the price of some speakers. I looked for a price tag and then read $99.99 labeled on the shelf by the product. I said "$99.99?" Unsure. And they pointed out, "No. That is the price of the wireless speakers". "Oh", I said "Maybe it's been labeled wrong." The man said, "Well, do you work here?” I said, “No," but I thought they looked like good speakers. They looked puzzled.

Just then an actual Best Buy floor clerk approached me:

Employee: "You can't talk to my customers".
Simmons: "I'm just having a friendly conversation with these people”
Employee: "But you don't work here."
Simmons: "It's a free country I feel I can speak with anybody I choose."
Employee: "You're playing some games."
Simmons: "I'm just here to shop with my wife."
Employee: "Yeah, you and your 50 friends?"
Simmons: "I don't know anybody else here."
Employee: "Yeah, you're instigating (sic) our shirts."

Yes, he said INSTIGATING.

I told him, "I'm only wearing what I wore this morning,” and walked away.

A little while later, an older woman with a handful of products walked past me at one point muttering to herself, "Everyone in this goddamned store is wearing a blue shirt and nobody knows a thing!"


Agent Chadwick

Saturday: I entered Conway discount store and spotted a fellow agent surveying the royal blue polo shirts. A funny side effect of this mission, I realized, would be a baffling increase in sales of royal blue polo shirts.

Sunday: Once we got the logistics and the group photos out of the way, Agent Todd situated himself around the corner from the store and waved us in individually to avoid a conspicuous glut of agents entering the store. As soon as I got inside, I overheard two blue-shirted Best Buy employees remark that this was something like “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”. I meandered slowly through the downstairs, putting on a blank stare so as to avoid eye contact with anyone. BB blue-shirts kept coming up to help me—apparently “can I help you?” is the only icebreaker they know, and they just walk away dejectedly if you say no.



A customer in the big-screen TV section asked, redundantly, if he could ask me a question. I admitted I didn’t work there, but offered to help anyway. He wanted to buy a large, flat-screen TV, but didn’t know whether to look at plasma models or LCDs. I told him that plasmas tend to be a lot more expensive and tend to have a limited lifespan (both true, I think?). He thanked me and wandered off with his girlfriend.

A little later, when I was loitering near the computers, a female customer got kind of snappy with me when I couldn’t tell her where the scanners were. I politely let her know that I didn’t work there and she got totally apologetic, like she’d insulted me by assuming I worked at Best Buy. Then an employee approached and asked (of course) if I needed any help. I said no, I was just waiting for my friend. “You mean all of your other friends you’re here with?” No, I said, just my one friend—I think she’s over looking at CDs. “Well, it’s hard to tell with everyone wearing these shirts.” Yeah, I told her, what a weird coincidence! She asked that I refrain from helping any customers and rushed off to ask other IE agents if they needed any help.

As time wore on, I could sense the growing confusion of the BB people—the yellow-shirts were out in force, the black-shirts were on their walkie-talkies. I imagine some off-duty regional manager was receiving a very confused call from BB personnel at this point.

Around 4:45 or so, Agent Todd signaled that it was time to go. On the way out, I saw Agent Shafer getting a talking-to by a cop. He was saying something about “trespassing” which I’m sure was a load of crap, but I figured it was better to leave than test whether that would hold up in court.


Agent Kendall



I got mixed up when buying my polo shirt and bought a Navy Blue one, so I wasn’t an exact match for an employee and was a little dejected when I showed up and was informed of the mission. As I approached the store a passer-by said how he was freaking out about the number of people with blue shirts. When I was cleared by Agent Todd to stagger in, I overheard employees outside smoking that they didn’t know what was going on but it was weird.

It seemed pretty immediate once I entered the store and took the escalator down that the management was freaking out. I overheard a woman first asking an agent what was going on and then discussing it with an employee about how weird it was. People were on their walkie-talkies asking what was going on, saying they were calling the cops, not to let them talk to the customers, etc. After awhile I was glad that I wasn’t a Royal Blue shirt, because although I’m pretty sure the employees knew I was with the group, since I wasn’t wearing the correct color, they couldn’t be 100% sure and I was able to blend in more to observe and listen.

At different times I tried to find a spot that wasn’t around any other agents, but this was impossible. So I mingled. A couple of times it got a little busy around me with employees so I started shopping, picking up a DVD or CD and looking at it. The most anyone said to me was to ask if I needed help, which I didn’t. Later I tried to hang out more near other agents to hear what was going on. Then it seems like every idling agent was being asked to leave so I again started shopping. I then got the cue from Agent Todd to leave the store and meet up a block away to hear the other stories. Now, I think it might be good to buy the right color shirt and go back on my own and shop to see if they think it’s happening again.


Agent Goldman



Some of my favorite quotes when I was in Best Buy:

Lady on a headset: "They're coming in droves--what do I do?"

A dude walked up to me and said: "Are you guys demonstrating or protesting or something?" I said: "Oh, I'm just waiting for my girlfriend, she's somewhere around here." And he says: "So the shirts....?" And I said: "Shirts?" A security guard walked by and said to the dude, "Sir, this man does not even work here, do not ask him questions."

And finally when I was "escorted" out by a large female manager:

Manager: "What are you doing can I help you?" [very sassy tone]
Me: I'm just waiting for a friend.
Manager: "Oh yeah? Where is your friend? Let's go find your friend, I want to see him."
Me: I'm not sure; I think he's looking at flat-screen TV's.
Manager: Okay. Either you're shopping or you're leaving.
Me: I suppose I'll leave
Manager: That's right. And I'm going to escort you out.


Agent Ciletti



I stopped in two stores to kill some time before heading to Best Buy. In West Elm, a chic home furnishings store, a woman flagged me down.

“Excuse miss, do you work here?” she said.

“No, but did you need help with something?” I said.

She started laughing then said, “Well, no, not if you don’t work here.”

I think she thought that I was crazy. After that I went to Staples. A young woman approached me.

“Do you know where I can find those things that hold business cards?” she said. I paused. She waited.

“I don’t work here,” I said.

“Oh, I thought you did,” she said, gesturing wildly to my outfit. “I’m sorry.”

I was about to leave when an old man and a young child approached me. The man was carrying a newspaper. He pointed to it and asked me if I could unlock the cabinet holding the item he needed. We walked over to the cabinet. I told him twice that I didn’t work there, but he just kept saying, “We’ll have to get the key.”

Finally I just walked off and left the store. I headed to Best Buy and once inside I took the escalator downstairs. Several people asked me for help. One man wanted to know about some software and started laughing when I said I didn’t work there. After about 15 minutes I went upstairs and stood by the front door. At this point the managers and security knew something was going on. A girl walked in and approached me.

“Do you know where I can find a USB port?” she said.

“What is that?” I said.

“It’s a computer thing,” she said.

“What does USB stand for?” I asked. She gave me a strange look.

“I don’t know,” she said. “You just plug it in…”

At that point a Best Buy employee wearing a black shirt came running over shouting “She doesn’t work here!” but the girl was already heading down the escalator.

He turned to me and said, “You can’t help her!”

“Oh, believe me,” I said. “I wasn’t helping her.”

“Who are you guys with?” he asked.

Shortly thereafter, I left the store.


Agent DLee

My favorite moment of the day happened within five minutes of entering the store. When I took a very visible (and helpful, I thought!) position near the base of the escalator, I was told by some yellow-shirted security tool with a corporate lackey by his side that I needed to leave the premises. I said sure, and was on my way out, when I was stopped by a guest who needed help finding some PS2 game. And with that, I was back on the job. I walked the guest over to the game section, bullshitted my way through assisting her ("No, that game's got great graphics. Me? I play it all the time. Oh yeah. Sure. Why not?"), and then took up my new position there...where I remained, until the mass exodus of IE Agents. Next time: We need yellow shirts.


Agent Hamilton



My friend and I took a longer walking route to the Best Buy (at 23rd and 7th) so we could observe fellow agents entering the store. From across the street, it was very funny to watch because anyone would have assumed that the gaggles we kept seeing were actual Best Buy employees and they were on break together or something. We crossed the street and were instructed by Agent Todd when to enter the store. Once we were downstairs on the sales floor, I started seeing more and more blue-shirted people coming down the escalator, to the point where there was an IE agent at the end of every aisle. I decided I needed to walk around the store to get the full effect. I passed a couple of real employees, one of whom was saying "they must have NOTHING BETTER TO DO" and another of whom was saying "I'ma smack them all upside the head, that'll make ‘em leave," which was my first indication that we were in trouble. I started looking around for my friend, who I'd gotten separated from, but couldn't find him, so finally I perched myself at the end of an aisle and waited. A customer came up to me and asked me where the DVD’s were. I said I didn't know, because I didn't work here, and he looked at me weirdly and moved on. I then realized that I was standing in the middle of the DVD section, so I have to think that my "customer" was another undercover IE Agent. Then I started getting approached by managerial types. One manager came up to me and said, "I don't know what you and all your friends are doing here, but you need to leave." I said, "What? I'm just waiting for someone, I don't know..." and the guy goes, "Yeah, yeah, all of you are just 'waiting for someone.'" Then I was ambushed by two more managers who started barking "Are you purchasing anything ma'am? Are you purchasing anything ma'am?" at me, and escorted me to the escalator, and amid my protests were telling me that I was causing a distraction by being dressed too much like them. This was the rule that they determined I was breaking: causing a distraction by being dressed too much like them. Hilarious.

Outside, I conferred with some other agents who'd been kicked out, one of whom reported that she'd overheard a manager saying, "The police are on their way." Two minutes later, the police car pulled up. I feel guilty for wasting the time of New York's Finest with our silly prank where absolutely nothing untoward was going to happen, but I didn't feel quite as guilty when one of the policemen came up and started being, predictably, a total dick: "This is absolute nonsense. If you go back in there, you're getting a summons and you'll be going to jail." He walked away and an agent said "Okay, so now we've established where the line is. You can go in once, but you can't go in again." I said, "Are we banned from Best Buy for life?" Everyone shivered. Then, someone else: "Where's the nearest Blockbuster?"

I had to hang around for quite awhile waiting for my friend (who did a better job of hiding than I did - he was hanging out by the calculators waiting to tell unsuspecting customers who asked him a question, any question: "I'm sorry, I'm the calculator guy, and calculators are all I know about."), so I got to hear lots of other stories, including one who said a customer was carping about us to a manager because "they won't do anything and they won't tell us what they're protesting!" I also saw one guy who thought the gag was pretty funny, and on his way out of the store he said "Well done, guys." So all in all, I think a success!


Agent Gregor

An old man asked me to help him get down a big box from a top shelf for him. I began to try to get the box, when I realized I was way too short to actually get it, and at best I'd knock it off the shelf. I then told him, "You know I don't work here, sir?"

He was so confused, and just pointed at my shirt, began to laugh, and apologized. He went to another nearby ACTUAL-Best Buy employee, and said, "Looks like your twin!" The Best Buy employee did not share a laugh with him.


Agent Sara

I really enjoyed selling a phone to a customer, recommending different products, talking a couple out of buying a particular washing machine, and referring a customer to a Best Buy employee when I couldn't quite help him with his question about a cord extension for his speakers. It was also really fun talking to the other employees and calling them by name as if they knew me- "Hey Randy this woman needs more help with..."


Agent Steinberg

Here are some bullet points from my observations:

1. I waited to enter the store so I'd be toward the tail end of the group. The first thing I heard was the manager walking rapidly through the store with her walkie. She was saying, "I want every available person on the floor right now...!"

2. Shortly thereafter, several of the more official-looking employees were walking rapidly around the store saying, apparently for the benefit of the ears of all blue shirts they did not recognize, "...the cops have been called..." They said this as they walked by me, as if in the middle of a conversation, and I understand they repeated this again for others to hear. A clever strategy on their part, I thought.

Soon afterward some of our agents walked around passing this information along to their fellows in an under-the breath way. (It was suggested afterward that one thing we could have done is informed the regular customers of this fact, as well: "Just wanted you to know the cops have been called, so don't panic.")

3. An employee, who seemed to dog me through the store, walked up beside me near the refrigerators. "So, you guys get bored or something?" he asked in an offhand, amiable way. I looked blank: "Huh?" He repeated it. "You guys all got bored and so you got blue shirts and came in here...?"

I said, "I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you mean. If you mean, am I bored, it's true I'm kind of bored because I'm waiting for someone." He then changed tactics. "It's really cold today, right, and raining like [some off-color phrase], isn't it? Isn't it a bit cold for the shirts? I mean, short sleeves and all?" I assured him it was now sunny and warm and he should check it for himself. As I was no help, he excused himself and went elsewhere.

4. I was asked "Can I help you" by several people over time. I found the best answer, besides my story that I was waiting for my wife shopping for baby supplies across the street at Burlington Coat Factory, was to actually ask some question about something in the store. "Is that a rear projection screen or is there a projector somewhere?" "Is that screen more or less effective in terms of glare if there's bright sunlight?" That sort of thing. They would answer me and I'd say "thanks" and look off into the distance; they must have felt that somehow I had just proven my right to be in the store, because in each case they then left me alone.

5. For a bit I stationed myself at the foot of the escalator so the maximum number of store patrons would ask me for directions. This worked not so very well. Then I decided to freak out the fellow(s) watching me a bit and for some time I would check my watch, then go up the escalator and hang out at the top. After a few minutes, I checked the time again and went back down, as if there were some reason to be one place or the other. (Later other agents and I thought it would have been more fun if I'd touched my ear and looked like I was receiving instructions through an implant, nodded and proceeded to change position, rather than merely checking the watch.)

6. As I hung out on the top floor, hoping to overhear something being said by the employees talking with the cops, a guy in a black jacket walked up and warned me, "You're going to have to leave. The police are going to start arresting people if you don't leave." I had been talking with an employee at that moment, and as the man moved away I looked at the employee with a confused expression and asked "Do we know him?" The employee said nothing. I asked, "Does he work here?" but the employee moved away. I still don't know if the man worked for the store. He might have been an undercover agent of the store.

7. Another employee -- or the same one; they all dress alike, I noticed -- asked "You guys all together? You come as a group?" I gave him my patented blank look. "What do you mean? I'm just here by myself." Like the other very confused employees, he wasn't sure how to follow up on this line of questioning and went away.

8. Being as I was near the very front door of the store at 4:45, I was perhaps the first person told by the police to vacate. "Are you shopping?" said the policeman. "No, I'm just waiting." "All the people wearing blue shirts who are not employees of Best Buy have to leave right now. You have to leave right now." I obliged, looking inconvenienced.

Agent Firth

I was one of the earlier entries into the store and as I walked around trying to get a feel for the layout I overheard some employees already on alert. One of them was giving orders to the others, “Eyes open. Eyes open. Anyone wearing a blue shirt. Eyes open.’

I found a comfortable spot by a pillar in front of a TV. I hoped I could look like a bored employee to random customers and like a bored customer to random employees. Almost immediately somebody asked me for help finding a certain Bose speaker system. I told the customer I wasn’t sure but I’d get one of the women who work in this section to help him. I found two female employees chatting and said, “There’s a customer who wants help finding Bose speakers. Can you help him?” They seemed reluctant to, maybe they thought I was trying to give them orders or something, but one of them came and I introduced her to the customer then went back to my post.

One of the male employees was particularly take charge. He questioned me early on about what was going on. The typical “What are you up to?/I have no idea what you’re talking about” conversation. I did let him know that a customer had asked me about speakers and that I had found an employee to help and he said “Thank you” and stopped questioning me.

Another customer got my attention in a more rude way by snapping his fingers and saying hello then going into the aisle a few rows down before waiting for a response. So I followed him to where he was with his wife looking at cordless phones. He seemed to be ignoring me so I asked, “Were you talking to me?” and he replied “Yes” very annoyed and asked me something about the frequencies. So once again I hooked them up with an employee. I continued to do that for the rest of the questions I received.

One customer got particularly annoyed. She came up demanding, “Do you work here?” When I said I didn’t she said, “Then why are you wearing a blue shirt? You shouldn’t come here in that shirt.” She too got taken care of by a real employee. After some time the employee who had questioned and thanked me earlier came back really pissed. We had a conversation that went something like:

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“You’re kicking me out?”
“No, I’m not saying that.”
“Ok, then I can stay?”
“You’re not buying anything.”
“I’m waiting for my friend, just watching TV while I wait.”
“I’m asking you to leave.”
“Are you kicking me out?”
“No.”

This repeated in various versions until eventually he conceded with, “Fine, just do what you have to do.” Agent Todd also overheard him add, “Have fun,” as he walked away. A little while later a more managerial guy came by simply saying, "You can stay there, but just don’t help our customers.” Before I could respond he was already moving on to give the warning to the next blue shirt in sight. I grew tired of my spot and walked around. I went to a bathroom that I had seen on my initial scout of the store but when I got to it I noticed it had an Employees Only sign. I considered it for a moment, but I didn’t want to push my trespassing luck so I moved on.

The last and best-overheard moment was two employees who were actually getting a kick out of the whole thing saying, “These guys rock!” They started discussing some part they needed. “You’ve got to go to the warehouse and get it yourself... or send one of these guys to do it.” The other guy agreed he should send me.



Mission Accomplished.

source:http://www.improveverywhere.com/mission_view.php?mission_id=57