Please sir, may I have some e-crime reduction?

Monday was an exciting day on the Thames for the fam and for me. I headed into Parliament early for a summit meeting of sorts for the e-crime reduction partnership, one of my boss’s interests. It was a conglomeration of about 60 business leaders, academics, government, and law enforcement officials who were there to discuss collecting data and research on how to reduce internet crime in the UK. It was a meeting to discuss the research for the next meeting, basically.

After a few long-winded but interesting talks by the minster for e-crime, my boss, and the two chief academics in charge of research, w e broke up into small groups to further flesh out some research ideas. I learned a few interesting things about how powerful computer warfare can be, and how viscous governments can be with each other in attacking companies and other nations. The Chinese have a copy of every EU report on anything days before it is presented to the member nations, and they have the report analyzed, summarized and broken down, showing the relative weakness of internet firewalls around the world. The members of the summit discussed legality of sharing information, what government should do, and where the research should go. The leader of the breakout group I was taking notes on for my boss was a guy from Facebook. Our group talked mainly about public awareness and how to make younger people aware of the relative ease in which things can get snooped on the Internet (sound familiar?). This talk was right up my alley as a marketing major, but I was disappointed the Facebook guy didn’t volunteer any action from Facebook on reducing e-crime. It takes a non-authoritative, peer reference group like Facebook to send a message to our crowd that we will trust and listen to. Any PR campaign from the guv’ment telling me to scan my computer for viruses will fall on deaf ears – just like ND’s annual pitch for us to download their fancy virus scan (which I do, reluctantly). To change behavior the message must come from a trusted source like good ole Facebook or somewhere else. I wanted to say something, but wasn’t in a position to do so as a mere representative of my boss. But what do I know anyway? I was just the only person in the room from the age group in question and a future marketing graduate of the number one business school in the country. So my opinion doesn’t matter.

I scarfed down some very tasty finger sandwiches on behalf of her majesty’s government and rushed off to poli-sci class, where we talked about interest groups in the main class more election gossip and beer taxes in the internship group. I met my parents outside the London Center for a brief tour of the building, and we walked through Leicester Square to try to get tickets to a west end show. We opted for like our 4^th choice show, Oliver, since all of the other plays were sold or selling out. We ate paella in Covent Garden and had a pint across the street before the show. I was pleasantly surprised by Oliver at the Theatre Royal, even though the theatre itself was old an ugly (but sortof justifiably so, since it is like 400 years old) and our seats were horrible. I had a safety rail directly in front of my face and had to lean to the right so the german kids behind me could see. The show itself was upbeat and fun, if not a little light on the plot. It focused way more on Fagan as the main character instead of the play’s namesake, which makes it easier to cast the boy star and replace him every night with a rotation of boys. The encore was a delightful dance-out by Oliver and Fagan, which left the crowd feeling good – the job of any over-priced West End show. It was no Les Mis, but an enjoyable evening nonetheless. I think my family enjoyed it, and I am happy I forced them to see a play when the Landises have always been a “rent the movie instead and watch it at home because it’s cheaper and less stressful” type family (wouldn’t have it any other way, though, btw). Another good London day for the Landis family, and I was quite exhausted form shifting gears from politician to student to theatre critic to exhausted boyfriend. I slept like a baby that night.